Gainsborough!

Part One: Prepiologue
(A cross between an epilogue and a prologue - it's a bridge between "today" and "tomorrow" (today ends when I go to bed and starts when I get up, regardless of what the clock might say).

Yay, it's that time of year again where we're looking forward to going to Gainsborough Old Hall, to look around the christmas market, to enjoy the mince pies, and to sample various curiosities such as chilli chocolate, and (probably) chips and sausage, with scandinavian cola.

But before I get to that, a word or two about "today".

I woke up, as it says, to what looked like a pretty crappy day. Unrested, cold, and in a grouchy/nervous mood. Said mood improved once I got into town to meet the rest of the lads, but nervousness didn't go away.

I didn't get red-one this time, instead being designated yellow four, which was fair enough. We did the heaves again, with the usual mix of performance ranging from swarthy 8 stone 16 year olds doing 8,9, maybe 10 heaves, and the ones who hadn't trained, failing to do a single heave. I scored three, which I wasn't happy with, but at least I passed that module and I know what to work on.

The Jerry Can Carry went pretty well. It didn't seem quite as hard as last time or the time before, and I ended up passing that with no problems. the younger lads, despite their light weight and relatively high fitness, as a side effect of that light weight, were somewhat lacking in physical strength, and as a group, they seemed to find this particular module harder than everyone else.

The run, as normal, wasn't particularly easy (especially because they shoved an extra 50 meters on the start), and wasn't particularly fun. My time wasn't awe-inspiring, at 11:25 (25 seconds slower than my best) but still secured me a pass. Said swarthy youngsters scored 8:30 and upwards, and the worst time was somewhere around 14 minutes.

The command tasks went okay, we all worked pretty well as part as a team. I didn't feel I "shone" as much as I did the first time I did them, but I did get my say in proceedings and since I figured out the fundamental secret to passing that particular challenge, I was pretty happy.

So all in all, a good day. Not the most awesome performance, but not poor by any means, and as far as I've been told, I should be looking at an acceptable pass. Which now, leaving time for further improvement, means I should be well on the way to passing at ADSC - the one that counts. There was plenty of humour, spirits were high even among the "deferred pass"ers (come back and do it again), and I made a few good mates, some of which, thanks to the magic of the internets, I'm able to keep in touch with, whether we ever meet again or not.

Looking out of the window, the day seems to have ended the way it started. Cold and drizzly.
Except now I've got a third pass under my belt, I'm much more cheerful, and much less stressed.

I'm looking forward to getting some sleep, so I think I'm off to do that now. I'll update the blog later today :-).

Have fun!

Part Two: Out and about

"Today" started pretty much the same as yesterday did, with fog and rain making its presence felt. We managed to get off in pretty good time.

Going through the local towns was interesting. I used to work in one in particular, and it was an eye opener to see the change - and lack of change - in the town. New buildings were being put up, loads of construction work going on, and yet, buildings I figured were not long for this world still stood quite happily, as they had done since before I ended up working in and around the place.

We carried on through the countryside, and eventually, despite the increasingly heavy rain, arrived at Gainsborough to find the place in fine shape, with good weather all around.

Not much to report as far as the hall itself is concerned. Everything was much the same as it always is, a nice christmassy day out. We bought a few craft-type items to grace the house come christmas time, and had our traditional mince pie and fruit punch in front of the fire. After a relatively quick look round the place, we were off out into the town, searching for Pork Crunch and Christmas Presents.

We managed to go to the retail development that I mentioned last time we went (nov '08) where we picked up a fantastic object:
A ball, exactly 4 inches across, fairly heavy for its size, (575 grams) filled with some kind of oil or something, suspended in which are maybe a teaspoon's worth of very incredibly fine (like flour) reflective metal particles.
The thing's a toy, shake it around and the powder swirls around in the fluid, giving the impression of swirling clouds within the ball. The thing looks like it's rolling even when you're holding it still in your hands. A cool present - so cool in fact that I'm trying to see where I can buy a second one for myself. [EDIT I spoke to my sister, asking if my ickle nephew would find a magical cloudy ball interesting. She agreed he would, but added that his interest would fade terminally after about ten minutes, after which time the ball would join the ranks of forsaken but heartfelt gifts under his bed. Meh. Well, on the plus side, at least I get to keep it. Yay.]

We popped into a local coffee shop for something to eat, where I had, I'm pleased to say, foreign Coca Cola (russian this time) as is traditional in Gainsborough. The food was pretty damn good though, the burger was tasty and the chips were pretty great :-).

After that, off to Tickhill Garden Centre, to look over the Christmas Decorations there, and then home. All in all, a nice christmassy day out :-).

Sodding about (or, "Nervousness")

Bloody hell it's 8:37. I want to be in bed at 9!

Right, it's that time of year again. I'm not going to make a big song and dance about it because I'm due for an early night shortly for reasons that will soon become apparent.

Wait for it.

Right.

NOW.
I'm off to Strensall again tomorrow - yay, go me, for a third time. Yep, I'm off on another day of running until I feel quite unwell, wandering about carrying sodding heavy jerry cans about, and worrying about whether I passed the course or not.

Excuse me for sounding flippant. The fact is, that this assessment is an important part of determining my physical and mental aptitude/suitability to join the army, and cos of a couple of issues, mostly my fault but one not-my-fault, I'm off to do it for a third time. Knowing what I'm in for doesn't make me feel any better. Surprisingly, neither does knowing that I've already passed twice. I don't know, the eternal pessimist, is me.
So wish me luck for that. With some luck, I won't need it.

In other news, I decided not to put computer neons on my christmas list, for the simple reason that I shelled out (£8, big deal) and bought some myself. Despite being attached to my computer with horrible crappy sticky pads that won't stick when you want to stick them on, and won't unstick when you want to take them off, I've managed to get three neon (cold cathode flourescent lights actually) tubes installed in my case, and it now looks really sparkly.

Look See?

One other important thing I've done (with some help) is finally get my wireless mouse working. It wouldn't hold a charge which really annoyed me cos I paid £70 for it, and like an idiot, instead of returning it, I shoved it in a cupboard expecting the problem to go away/expecting the cupboard to somehow fix it for me.
Not sure what we (me and my dad) did, but it's now charging properly and is now finally doing the job that I bought it to do.

Oh well, I hope everything goes well tomorrow, I really hope so.
If it does then I'm set for a great weekend. I'm off to gainsborough on sunday (read last christmas's blog if you're curious, I'll stick a hotlink [hyperlink? What the hell is a hotlink?] in when I have the time tomorrow) with my mum to do some christmas shopping, and that evening I'm off to a christmas concert. If I pass tomorrow's course, I'm going to buy lots of beer and celebrate in a very drunken fashion on monday evening. You may or may not get a blog entry of total crap out of me. Depends how drunkenly generous I'm feeling.

Eek. I don't want to go bed! The sooner I go bed, the sooner I go sleep and the sooner I go sleep, the sooner I wake up to have lots of sergeants and PTIs telling me to run faster and whatnot.

Oh well.
I'll be fine - I hope.

ciao!

Update: 06:53 the following day:

Well, that was probably the most unpleasant, most broken night's sleep I've ever had. I must have spent about 4 hours trying to fall asleep, and when I finally got close, something would wake me up again.

To top it off, I've woken up to a freezing cold room on a godforsaken dump of a cold and drizzly saturday morning, out of what was a relatively warm bed (cold and bloody uncomfortable, tonight of all nights, it seems actually), so I could be slightly more cheerful, but I don't think I can stretch to that at the moment.

Meh. Let's hope there's better news to come.

Have fun, I sure as hell won't! :P

Lovely climate...

CHAPTER ONE (I guess) - XMAS PRESENTS

It was a dark and stormy mediocrity...

Well actually, I'm not sure whether it's a dark and stormy anything, and the only reason it's a mediocrity is because there's so much damn fog around that it's impossible to see further than the corner of the street. As for the storms, well, it's that horrible fine drizzle that doesn't so much fall as meander gently downwards, when the air currents conspire to let it through.

Fact is, it's fairly par for the course, given that we're two thirds of the way through November, and doesn't time fly, because last time I was up here going off on one, it was Halloween. I've not been around much, because nothing has really changed. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat for 3 weeks = my life.

More or less. One of the recent things that I've managed to do that I'm quite happy about, is start working my way down my nephew's Xmas pressie list. I've been working to stick loads of videos on the cheap horrible Chipod I bought for him, so he can now watch a variety of cartoons, home videos, and other little amusing clips and whatnot, as well as listen to some of his favourite tunes.

The lil dude also said he wanted some playmobil for xmas, and so, to go with his newly repaired (I bought some spares to replace the bits he lost, and now it looks good as new) playmobil airplane, I'd been looking at getting him various airport stuff, a little playmobil airport terminal, and whatnot (bugger, just spilled coffee)...

One thing that I'd promised I was going to buy him, on account of it being really cool, was the Playmobil Cargo Crew (an awesome little set with a load of things like movable stairs and baggage trolleys and cargo loaders and whatnot, to go with his airplane). Another was the little Airport "follow me" safety car, which I figured would be a cute extra. I managed to get both sets for a pretty good price, so I spent some of the difference on getting something else for him too :-).

So now, I've got my mum, my sister, my grandad and my brother's fiancee to buy for.

Have I thought about what I want for christmas? Sure I have. Not had a lot of luck though, can't think of many things I really want. Maybe some Case Neons or something like that, though I did find this natty USB Fingerprint reader (UPEK Eikon!), meaning I wouldn't have to sod about with passwords and usernames and whatnot. Looks cool, is really slinky, and lights up, which means it's ideal for my computer :-D.

[Grr at neighbour down the road, who has fitted a loud exhaust to his car, along with lots of engine tuning and whatnot, but still hasn't grasped that fitting bodywork from two seperate cars (making your car look like a damn zebra) looks crappy - don't get me wrong, the car sounds nice, and the new side-exit exhaust is cool, but damn dude, sort out the paintwork!]

CHAPTER TWO - AFTER DARK 2009

Ahem.

Back at the start of the month we took my ickle nephew to After Dark 2009, a huge fireworks event. After planning to go, even going so far as to try and find their cold weather clothes, my parents suddenly decided that because it wasn't bright sunshine (at 5pm) they weren't going. This is probably the first (of the next 20 years' worth of occurences) occasion of them citing ill health as an obstacle to doing something they don't want.
My ickle nephew was horrified, having been looking forward to going for ages, only to be told at the 11th hour that it wasn't happening. If I sound a bit "attitude-y" that's because I was pretty bloody angry about it too. To be honest, as I said at the time, I didn't even want to go, but the ickle man did, and that was what counted.

In the end, my sis and I ended up taking him ourselves while our parents sat at home under blankets complaining about tired bones and ill health and the slide into retirement and infirmity and whatnot.

We had a pretty nice time, the weather held off, though when the bonfire was lit, some kind of weird temperature inversion thingie (maybe, I dunno, I'm not a meteorologist) meant that when the smoke from the fire reached maybe 20 or 30 metres off the ground, it stopped rising and instead started spreading outwards like, I dunno, that big storm off ghostbusters 1 maybe. Looked pretty dramatic, and was kinda cool.

We wandered round the thing having burgers, bottles of coke,candy floss, chips and whatnot, putting our rubbish into bins (I think we're the only 3 people that did), trying to ignore the acts on the stage who with a couple of exceptions, were your generic manufactured chav-hop rappers from luton going on about how hard life is and stuff. But the crowd seemed to like em so I think the fact the music was crappy is more down to me than to the artists, not sure about that one. But hey who cares, it was fun, not a music critic show or whatever.

The lil dude went on various rides, ate his candy floss, became fascinated with a discarded (and partially deflated) inflatable football he found, and eventually we enjoyed a pretty cool fireworks display.
And then the crowd decided to go home. Yep, what must have been fifteen thousand people all moving in one direction, gives a whole new perspective on the phrase "I was swept along with them". Moving at 90 degrees across everyone else, when everyone else is 5000 times as many people as you are (three of us, remember), is kinda difficult. But eventually the place cleared out, and we sat around waiting for the car park to empty. A few more rides, another bottle of coke maybe, and off we went. But not before we bought the lil' dude a flashing LED laser sword (the generic flashing toys that people sell at such events). It was a good night :-).

CHAPTER THREE - OTHER STUFF

So what else have we been up to? Well, a while ago I reinstalled Zoo Tycoon 2 on my computer, figuring that my nephew would like it.
Unfortunately for me - and for him (when he has to stop playing he throws a tantrum - though he is slowly stopping this and learning to cope with being apart from his zoo) - he loves it so much he wants to play on it all zer time. All, zer, time.

So I've built a couple of zoos for the little guy, only to find that to my horror, since ZT2 is processor/ram dependent and not GPU dependent, when I build a huge huge zoo, my machine (which cost me over £1000 to build, 3 years after ZT2 was released) slows down! Regardless, my nephew loves creating his own zoos, though as you can imagine, he hasn't grasped the finer and more advanced points of, say, not putting an ankylosaurus (my favourite dinosaur, hehe) in with the aardvarks. Or a tyrannosaurus in with the meerkats, for example. As a result, a dozen of his zoos have fallen victim to the "Quit without save?" menu ;-).

One day he wandered in while I was playing UT3 (warning, BIG picture!) and he seems to think it's fantastic. Admittedly it's not the cuddliest game ever, but he's accepted that shooting at the opposing team only makes them go to sleep, as "they come back again" (respawn), so he's kinda made it more kid-friendly himself.
In any case, he doesn't do a lot of shooting, no, like any boy his age, he's more taken with the vehicles and the whole driving around side of things. His favourite vehicle is The Darkwalker, a vehicle that he has affectionately dubbed "Walking-legs".
So to go along with that, we also have the Fury (Flying-Legs), the Scavenger (Spinning-Legs) and the Nemesis (Sliding-Legs).

His favourite though, is the Scorpion (good quality picture not available) - a cool little buggy that features (to my nephew's obvious delight) "swords" that swing out from the front of the car.

He also loves what he calls "The Spy Gun" (sniper rifle), so called because it has a "spy telescope" on top :-).

So yeah. I still have reservations about letting him play on it, but since most of the time he doesn't get close enough to the other team to actually see any fighting, and instead flies around the map in the vehicles, shooting Redeemer missiles into nearby walls (with predictable results) and generally exploring the architecture, firing at inanimate objects, I'm content to let him stay with it.

My sister did suggest that I install something more child-friendly, so out from my software bin came Lemmings "now-works-on-windows-95!" and he loved it, up until level 6 when all the lemmings died and he started crying. So back we went, to Walking-Legs, which has since become his name for the entire game.

PS: ENVIRONMENTALISM IS A LOAD OF CACA - OFFICIAL:

Yes, one thing I forgot to mention is that some enterprising person broke into the computer network at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit - a bunch of dudes responsible - ostensibly - for learning about the causes of climate change, and how best to combat it.

However, when the public read the 65mb of files, emails and PDFs that had been stolen from the network (and are readily available to download anywhere now), it became clear that not only were the guys at CRU not able to actually FIND ANY EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING, but had found THE OPPOSITE and WERE NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS AT ALL.

Not only that, but among the files, were emails requesting that research members delete inconvenient or embarrasing emails, to prevent people using the FOI to examine them, complaints that people who hadn't been taken in by the man-made-climate-change cash cow were still allowed to criticise and judge their work, and general hand wringing and moaning about the fact that "if anyone finds out we HAVEN'T FOUND ANY EVIDENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, WE WILL LOSE OUR FUNDING". Or thereabouts.

SO THERE. TAKE YOUR GREEN TAXES, AND [CENSORED].

Sorry if I got a little fired up there. I've been a doom-and-gloom skeptic since governments first thought of the environment as a useful way to levy new taxes.

Daily Mail article on the leak
Telegraph article
The BBC make little mention of the contents of the files, and have drawn considerable criticism, for, well, being up the CRU's arse.

There are a smattering of pro-environmentalism websites out there that play the whole thing down, and various skeptic websites that play it up.

Without knowing the authenticity of the documents, and having read them, I can't say whether I believe the documents to be genuine or not (regardless of the CRU's assertions that some of them are - I wouldn't believe that bunch if they told me zebras were black and white). Regardless, it's nice to see people pause for thought, instead of furiously salivating over (very expensive/lucrative) ways to make their home "greener". Let's see what comes of it :-D.

PICTURES

My ickle Nephew even drew me a lovely picture of Walking Legs (and Flying Legs). Annotated by me, for those of you that aren't as good at recognising pictures as he is at drawing them ;-).

I'll also throw in another couple of pictures, free of charge. This will throw the formatting right out.

Crying out loud, tables are so basic, and still I can't add one to this thing :(.

Oh well, I'm off for a coffee. Bye!

Clever Tricks, Awesome Treats

Minor note: I'd like to dedicate this post to Lexi, who has been in my thoughts in a fond (non-romantic) way all day :-))

First things first. That is, in quasi-reverse chronological order.

Happy Halloween, to all my American buddies, who are, I believe, busy preparing for/celebrating Halloween. Getting ready to have a cool time with beer, fireworks, costumes, music, and all sorts of cool stuff.

My mephew came round earlier to show me this year's halloween costume - he went out with a cute little Frankenstein costume. With a laser sword. Odd, but you know what kids are like.

Unfortunately, I had to go into work today, so I wasn't able to go round trick or treating with the little guy. But that didn't stop me having a fantastic night.

The day was grey, and turning greyer and spooker as the minutes passed. Many families had already spent lots of effort decorating their houses with posters, spooky pictures, simulated spiderwebs, animated skeletons and the ever-present pumpkins - some of which were really well made.

In a cheerful (and slightly apprehensive, to be honest - my job is driving, and though I consider myself to be a good rider (no serious accidents in 5 years - long may it continue), the idea of riding down streets packed with kids still made me uneasy) mood, I wandered off to work, with the appropriate mood music: Tune 1, Tune 2. Just to get me into the halloween spirit :D.

Work started as being absolutely dead, but fast became jam packed with orders and demands. Eventually I ended up venturing out into the halloween night, light in all parts, by the spooky (almost) full moon, the fireworks, and oddly this year, lots of peace lanterns.

I had a moment, when I was delivering to a housing estate nearby, and I had the hugest grin on my face, what was there was fantastic. Every single house, more or less, was decorated with loads of spiderwebs, posters, etc etc, and the pumpkins there were fantastic. Behind the sound of kids clamouring from one house to the next, the happy conversation between their parents, or the ever-present "trick or treat", was the ominous and creepy and yet fantastically brilliant sound of spooky music - pre-recorded screams, evil laughs, flapping of bats' wings, creaking doors etc, played by a dozen different houses to add atmosphere to the night, which again, was punctuated by the flash and bang of fireworks, and the smell of the smoke they made.

And kids, there were. Dozens of the little guys and girls in varying costumes, most carrying cute little pumpkin-buckets for their treats, or light-up skulls, or magic wands, swords, wizard's staves, or rubber bats, all followed closely by their parents, some of whom were in costumes themselves.

I guess the sight of so many people having fun at the same time, many of those having worked to make it even more fun for everyone else, well. I haven't been that cheerful for a good long while. I must be growing up. I wasn't even joining in, and yet, just watching these folks have a good time was enough to make me feel like I was doing it myself - enjoying halloween by proxy, if you like.

And plenty of places that I went to were the same. I ended up becoming involved, with customers offering me sweets and candy in leiu of monetary tips (I made a grand total of £1.05 tonight, AND a pocket full of haribo , lollipops and chocolate buttons), or kids clamouring at my arrival (pizza scooters seem to hold a special place in the heart of young kids, don't know why. Shame that it turns to resentment or aggression as they get older, but that's another story).

For my part, I'd snaffled a few lollipops on my way out the door, and I'd surrepticiously find out whether the kids that answered the door had been out trick-or-treating.
If their mums said anything along the lines of "we've not had the time" or "we've had homework to do", a lollipop would suddenly work its way into the lil' kid's possession.

I spose I can call it my little contribution :).

Everyone was in a good mood, the atmosphere was fantastic, and as the night wore on, the adults began to have their own fun. Crowds appearing outside pubs, dressed in a variety of costumes, including one bunch who had dressed as the Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, none of them were IC3, which was a shame cos one of the Ghostbusters (Ernie Hudson/Winston Zeddemore) is.
Not to worry, the relevant "ghostbuster" ended up wandering around in full blackface. Thankfully, Harry Connick Jr. was nowhere to be seen, or he'd have got stuck in embarrasing his country on his self-righteous behalf. The jackass is no more qualified to be the spokesman of a nation than I am. Though he did point out the differences in how far political correctness has got it's teeth into the UK/US compared to Aus and other countries.

This continued for hours, even as the smoke from all the fireworks descended like a fog (as it does), gving the night air a ghostly ethereal and very appropriately spooky atmosphere, and still the partying continued - hey, it's 25 past 11 here, the partying I guess is very very much alive in the clubs, who will no doubt be hosting their own halloween parties :D.

I ended up going home, after stopping and buying some beer, walking home to the sound of fireworks, and my earlier Halloween mood music :D. The surreal image of a police van on the corner with its occupants intently talking to witches, warlocks and demons was shrugged off as nothing more than an excess of Halloween spirit on their (the partygoers) part :-).

So now I'm here with my beer, music and whatnot.

PART TWO - OTHER STUFF

My card arrived yesterday. The bloody delivery guy woke me at 8am, and bleary-eyed I stumbled downstairs, wrapped in a bedsheet, and with my slippers on the wrong feet. And then the guy complained when I signed the wrong box on his form.
Bloody hell, I'd been asleep 60 seconds prior to this encounter!

But I had the card, and all thoughts of how tired I was went out of the window. [Skipping a load of unneccessary detail here] I very carefully inserted the card (though as it wouldn't go in without a fight, it wasn't as carefully as I would have liked), and powered the machine on.

Over a week of hopes was riding on this single piece of hardware. Over a week of swearing, shouting, feeling trapped in a room that - when my computer was running - was a room high in a tower, with windows onto the world in every wall, but had been turned into a dingy basement with nothing but bricks to look at ever since my computer went down, everything was riding on this card.

The bios flickered on the screen, artefact-free.
Replaced by a windows login screen.
In 1680x1050.

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGH!!!!!!!!!! It works!!!
And it continues to work!

Within ten minutes, my sound drivers were installed, and I was back on the internet.

Good progress, and I accomplished in twenty minutes, with the right knowledge (anyone detect a pattern here) what I had failed to accomplish in ten days of trial and error.
So sue me. I'm not bloody psychic.

So what have I gained from ten days of swearing, shouting and generally feeling as if (a fairly major) part of my world had been turned upside-down?

I've gained 276mb of graphics memory - upgrading from 620 to 896mb.
I've gained 140gb of hard drive space, having fitted an IDE drive for the sole purpose of installing an OS on.
I've spent nearly £160.

But. My computer's ever only failed on me completely, once. And if £160 keeps it going for another two years, I'll consider it a small price to pay.

My documents are safe, everything is there. The drive is intact, and my memories are there waiting for me to dust them off again.

What else.

My nephew's lil christmas present turned up the same day my computer died. It seems to do its job surprisingly well. The interface is a bit jaggy, and it's impossible to convert videos to run on it, but hopefully I'll figure it out between now and Christmas.

FINALLY, I am celebrating (a few days late!) NASA's successful launch of Ares I-X. I firmly believed that it was going to be today, as it happens, they cheated and launched it a couple of days ago. Either way, the launch was a good success, which is pretty good. So ehy, let's get the beer in :D.

Here are some tunes for you to listen to. They're quite cheerful and quite nice.

Looks like American 80's music - it's not ;)
Rings a few twenty-year old bells.

Here are some sparkly pictures, in no particular order, that all have some degree of relevance to recent blog posts.

One of them is the wheel in Hyde Park, London. Another is the wheel in Sheffield. See the resemblance? ;-)

EDIT: 03:15AM My mom appeared through my door for the first time in over a week, with a big grin on her face.
To my pleasant surprise, she told me that it is good to hear my tica-taka-tacking on my keyboard again.
Yeah I guess I was a little silent while my computer was dead.

Still, it's nice to have people say nice things about you for a change :-).

And here finally, is a lovely Halloween tune for you.
And Another.

And finally who can forget the man himself!!!

Another episode!! :-D.

Only for the kids, these days!!! :-D.


:)

Not scary, as such, but magical all the same :).

Awesome :D.

The light at the end of the tunnel...

Is not apparently to be found anywhere on my new graphics card.
For some reason, they didn't put one on it. What they did put on it, was 1.4 billion transistors, 216 processor cores, and 896mb of graphics memory.

CHAPTER 1.5 THE BORING COMPUTER BIT:

Well, I've made some progress with my computer, as you may have guessed. The SATA hard drives simply wouldn't talk to the BIOS, so I've taken them out, temporarily replacing them with an old 140Gb IDE drive from my old computer. See, this is why you should keep stuff around.

So I've now got an operating system, and a file/directory structure. My computer is now capable of saving files, accessing them, and moving them around. It can also run some programs, system stability permitting.
It sounds incredibly basic, but a few days ago, it wouldn't even try to load any files, or programs. Unable to see a hard drive, the computer just caught itself in an endless loop, POSTing again and again.

So where does my GPU come into all this?

Well, it seems that the system instability is caused... bla bla bla - I tried to explain what was wrong before realising that I still actually don't quite know.

My current graphics card is not happy, and it certainly isn't fully functional. With artefacts appearing all over the screen, the indicators point to it being physically damaged, whether by overcurrent, static discharge or other factors.
Windows, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the device wasn't working at full spec, and has therefore disabled it completely (eh?), resulting in knock-on effects that seem to indicate that my monitor can't talk to my computer, because its only contact with the computer is a damaged piece of hardware.

AND NOW WE RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING

Regardless of all the above stuff, I've ordered a replacement for my card, and hopefully it should be with me tomorrow. Hopefully it will fix the problem, and hopefully, after getting my computer working again tomorrow, I can spend saturday morning setting it up, copying my old files back to it, and spend saturday night having a beer or ten, listening to music, reading the news, watching TV Shack, chatting with my mates etc etc, on my own computer, for the first time in over a week.

So, what else have I been up to? Well, yesterday I went to town with my mum to look at Christmas presents. While admittedly, my computery problems have taken the edge off my enthusiasm for Christmas slightly, I'm sure this is only temporary, and indeed, we had a nice time yesterday browsing round the shops, looking at all sorts of lovely Christmas gifts I'm looking forward to buying - despite my budgetary problems - in the next 4-6 weeks.

Sheffield's skyline has changed since I last ventured there, with the addition of a huge wheel . Quite a familiar one too. In fact, if you compare the pictures (I'll upload yesterday's sometime when I've got my computer working again), you'll see that the wheel that now sits in Sheffield, is identical to the wheel that we saw in Hyde Park in London, last winter (EDIT: 19:18. The wheel is in fact identical to the wheel that sits in Hyde Park - it's owned by the same company and presumably is made to the same design as the other wheels owned by the company, which stand in several cities including Perth, Copenhagen and Ostsee-Reise. Amusingly, the wheel that I saw in operation in Hyde Park last december, is apparently due to open December 2009, according to the website - maybe they move it there every winter - sounds like a lot of work to me)!

So, all that aside, I guess I'll get on with tidying up, my room has suffered a bit, becoming filled with cables and all sorts of clothes and whatnot, so I guess it's time to fix it.

Oh well, off I go :-).

PS: We're going to do the Christmas Pudding tonight, so let's see if I can shoot some of my first Christmas 2009 videos tonight :-).

More Ballcocks...

Well, what to say.
My system is still crippled, I'm making (very!) slow headway, eliminating the problems that can reasonably be eliminated (Without having a whole extra computer to test things out on!) as time goes on.

Unfortunately, things haven't progressed as quickly as I'd like, and my awesome machine is still down for the count. My documents appear to be safe [grabs a load of chipboard - it'll have to do] but the system is still very opposed to the idea of running anything other than the command prompt.

Still, the more time passes, the closer it is until I get my system working again, I guess.

Meh, still not good.

Ballcocks...

Well, the upgrade to the new OS didn't go as planned.

After sorting my display issues I spent some time installing some new software.
After a short but interminable time, my sister came to pick me up.

Yep, my lil nephew, in his quest to get his very own Karate suit, has decided to start Karate club. Cool, by the time he's my age, he'll be a black belt in kicking ass.

So I went along, took the little MP3 player WHICH ARRIVED TODAY (more when my computer isn't crippled) to show my sister, and off we went, sitting about while my nephew practiced being a superhero/did karate.

When I got back I took a few awesome photos, my nephew's first day in his new Karate Suit.
Unfortunately, the dreaded graphics problem reappeared, and even two frantic hours with a mate, screwing about with drivers and whatnot didn't fix the issue.
Just as I was about to reformat, the computer suddenly started again, perfectly, and smiling sweetly (again), my computer ushered me into 1680x1050 goodness.

Unfortunately this was short lived. Less than half an hour after settling in for a good night's internetting, my display suddenly turned into striped bars of random colour, and the computer restarted itself. And when it did, the crippled graphics were back.

I've since reformatted, reinstalled new drivers, it doesn't make a difference.
I was horrified to think (and convinced at one point) that my Graphics Card had given up the ghost, but now I'm not so sure.

Seems this OS is having teething problems, the same as all other new OSes do.

Shame that it's not likely to be sorted out in the near future.

Still, if my computer dies, it'd give me 8 hours extra per day to just live my life.
But I hope it doesn't. I've got things to do, yeah?

Laters...

Welcome to the 90s!

Okay, so having done a lot of stuff last night, reformatting and whatnot, I've learned a couple of things.

• Just because an OS installs to F:\ doesn't mean that there aren't important files on C:\ that shouldn't be thrown in the recycle bin...
• If you turn something off and on again enough times, things generally fix themselves. This may have been a secondary factor.
• 16 (or whatever) million colours at 1680x1050 is something that only happens when your equipment is working properly.

I woke up eager to carry on with reinstalling everything, only to be met with the horrific vision of a 16 colour login screen. Confirming my worst fears, I logged in to be met with a 1990s 16 colour world, where not only was everything not displayed properly, but it was not displayed properly, in 640x480 16 colour. A scary vision, for a dude with an 8800GTS card humming away in his computer.

What did I do to fix it? I don't know. I reinstalled my GPU Drivers (which I've just noticed, with a sly laugh) have installed themselves to C:\Nvidia (one of the directories I deleted yesterday!) and restarted my computer. No better, still 16 colours. So I tried to download new monitor drivers, and instead almost ended up downloading some russian hacker's "automatic driver wizard" whatever program. I think I cancelled the install - difficult when the cancel button was displayed as a white button with white text on a white background, and shut down in disgust.

I did a full cold boot (from shutdown) and for some reason, the computer - I swear if computers could smile sweetly, this one did - booted up in full 1680x1050 glory.

So the answers to my new questions are:

• With the OS on F:\, are the files on C:\ redundant and un-needed?: No, absolutely not. For some reason, my computer now wants to spread its important files across two partitions.
• Is it irresponsible to delete things if you don't know what they do?: That depends. On the face of it, of course it bloody is. However, I was going to reformat the entire physical disk (but to my shame, still haven't found out how to do it!) so I figured that any and all files were ultimately redundant.
• What are you going to do now: I'm going to cut my losses and stop fecking around. My system is now working properly *grabs hold of the nearest wooden object* so I'm going to leave all the important stuff as it is.

And eventually, when my bloody nephew's bloody parcel actually finally turns up, I'm going to crack on with getting that sorted for him. Assuming it doesn't actually get delivered on Christmas Day. Now that would be ironic.

In a really crappy way.

Have fun.

The Early Bird... Well, 7:40ish

is currently sat on a TV antenna across the street, preening himself and bobbing his tail around like some kind of rear-mounted magic wand. I wonder if, like Dogbert, he signals at things by pointing to them with his tail...

As Dracula (portrayed by Leslie Nielsen) would say, "I cannot be up during the daytime, what is happening".

Yes, having happily gone to bed at 4am, with a predicted midday rise (day off), I was mildly (!) annoyed to be shouted to get up at 6:20am. And so, with that horrible dizzy/slightly nauseous/weak/gritty eyes feeling you get from prematurely interrupting a sleep cycle, I wandered downstairs to grab my tools, to assist my dad in retrieving the snapped-off end of his office key, from inside his office lock.

A bit of finesse (which is difficult when there's a domestic dispute going on right next to you; "taking a cold-bore shot in the heat of combat, is like a surgeon performing open-heart surgery, with a boxing match raging around him" - Richard Macowicz - Tehehe) later, and with the right tools, I managed to do in 2 minutes what ahem, other people, with the wrong tools, had not managed to do in 20.

So a bit of sodding around later, and that little drama was sorted, leaving me wide awake (ish), with the sun making its way above the horizon. The only sound was the traffic on the nearby motorway, over which my mind helpfully played a rather "quiet sunrise-y" tune (my god, what is going on with that woman's hair!!!) :-).

I must admit to feeling very slightly schitzophrenic at times (no not really! But you get what I mean) - My mind seems to be a helpful counterpart, with tis own opinions and whatnot. It's great being able to solicit advice from yourself. But hey, I guess everyone does that. I hope :-).

So now I'm up, I'm going to spend a little while sodding about with my computer and whatnot, preparing for in depth (but vaguely routine) maintenance.

Perhaps I shouldn't have drunk the cup of coffee my mum left as she toddled off out of the door.
One thing I did notice though, Christmas seems to be in full flow on QVC - Today is "craft day special" or something, and is filled with various christmassy things...

I've got to go now, got to sod about with computery things. I'm going to go back to bed later I guess (hard to go back to bed earlier!), and with some luck the doorbell will wake me as the postman delivers my long awaited parcel.

Gingerbread Men!

17:00: Well, my sister is over here, with her mobile hairdresser due to arrive shortly (for some reason, presumably so my mum can get her hair done at the same time), and my ickle nephew has turned up too.

And we've certainly got a lot to get through. He wants to make ickle halloween gingerbread men with me (he's pounding up the stairs at this very moment), wants to write his christmas list, and I'm gonna take him through ebay to see if there's anything he fancies for christmas :).

Back later!

18:32: We've been making biscuits for about 90 minutes, and now I'm helping the little guy write his name in sprinkles on one of them :D. Much finesse is required :D.
19:20: Despite finding out that the little dude has toddled off with the (brand new) aerial for my r/c helicopter remote control (which I am none too happy about but hey, I'm not gonna sulk about it) the little dude and I are now surfing ebay for Xmas pressie ideas :).

22:14: Right, give me some time to fix everything he's broken, tidy everything he's messed up, and generally wind down and take a deep breath and I'll be with you/me :-).

23:04: Right, everything's just about back to normal. The Demeter, my huge lego spaceship that I built for him, once suffering from a shattered forward hull has now been repaired. The wings have been completely rebuilt too since they were a little fiddly after weeks of repeated repairs :-).

Well, he turned up bearing ghost cookies (gingerbread men in the shape of flying ghosts), and for 90 minutes or so, we (he decorated them while I eventually got on with the washing up) had a great time decorating them, first with the bits included with the kit, then with a pack of marshmallows I found, and finally with some strawberry icing that I made, which despite having the consistency of silly putty and the musty cloyingly sweet taste that only pure icing sugar can provide, was described as "very nice" after I liberally spiked it with red food colouring and strawberry flavouring.

My ickle nephew of course, spent more time eating the icing than he did decorating the cookies, but in the end, we ended up with five yummy halloween cookies, including one which rather impressively bore his name, thanks to some finesse with some sprinkles and a pair of tweezers.

After the cookies were finished, (and I temporarily removed my watched items, including some presents from "my ebay"), the little dude and I went online searching for christmas presents that he might like. I guess no one will be surprised to hear that the little guy wanted this, that, those, these, some of them, and everything in between, but I was pleasantly reassured when he told me (without any prompting) that he wanted an ipod.

Now normally anyone buying presents would be horrified by this, as they're not the cheapest of things, but I noticed how much the little guy liked watching dilbert on my ipod, and had decided to get him something similar (but much cheaper) to watch videos on, for himself. I settled for a cheap chinese knockoff for several reasons to do with cost of purchase/possible replacement, and the convenient fact that at 5, until I explained it to him, he didn't know the difference between an Ipod and a phone, much less between an ipod and an ipod ripoff cunningly designed to look like an ipod. Hey if that sounds callous, look at it this way. I can put the £50 or maybe £60 that I've saved by getting one of those "works just like" chinese ones that I've been so careful to avoid in the past, that I can put that money now towards buying him something lese that he wants as well. If I'd have gone genuine, it would have been either or :-).

So we had a nice time, browsing lots of present shops online, looking at things it'd be nice to buy etc, while the little guy happily sang along with some of the christmas songs I'd put on to get him in the mood. It was nice, even if the lil guy did get hyper every now and then.
Enough about this I suppose, I'll let you get on with whatever you were getting on with. But first, some pictures :-).

October... complete with extra wildlife.

I woke up to the most homely smell, that of vegetables cooking downstairs. It puts me in mind of winter days, where the kitchen is the warmest room in the house, where the cold outside makes the windows steam up, and where Christmas is only a few weeks away. It's a nice smell, and it's making me hungry.

20:02: Well, after a lovely meal of gammon with vegetables, roast potatoes, onion sauce and gravy, I'm now looking forward to my yummy fruit trifle. Yay!

I've been doing more bouncing around ebay looking for cool pressies to buy people, and I've found a couple of interesting things. More about these later in the year I suppose.

So what else have I been up to? Bugger all really :-).

But I did have the strangest experience a couple of days ago.

Walking home from work on saturday, about 11pm, I'm there eating pizza and minding my own business, and I'm walking up the road, on the other side of which is a small square field, with a huge tree in the middle of it.

Under the tree I notice something watching me intently. Initially I think it's a cat, but as it wanders towards me, I can see by its tail that it's not. As I cross to the other side of the road The road was well lit with street lights, with just a narrow line of shadow cast by a telegraph (I guess they're called utility poles these days) pole.

The animal, stops in its tracks, pausing for a second, before (and I think this is fantastic) walking in a straight line following this 30cm wide shadow almost the way to me, on the basis that if he stays in the shadow, maybe I won't see him.

I'm amazed - it's the first time I've ever ever seen a fox - for that's what he is - up this close. They're normally pretty timid creatures, and I've only ever seen them before as a flash of tail as they run into the trees, or as a reflection of light in their eyes, just before they run off, but this guy is being bold as brass, slinking along furtively, but intentley, towards me :-).

I'm stood about watching the fox skulk around and I wonder if I can have a closer look at him. I think to myself;

"What do foxes eat?"
"Anything"
"But what do they like to eat"
"Meat"

So I grab some ham and pork off my pizza and gently so as not to startle the animal, place it on the ground, taking a few steps back. This guy furtively looks around, takesa a few steps towards it, has another quick glance, sniffs the meat and starts eating. All this maybe 3 or 4 meters from me!

I repeat this another couple of times, as the fox starts following me around. Eventually, he decides to wander across the road, and with a quick and final flash of his tail, he disappears over and behind a wall into somebody's garden :-).

what a beautiful creature though, and a completely weird experience.

Not my photo. I wish I had my camera with me, but I'm not going to carry it about on the off chance that I find something to take pictures of while I'm out and about.

Well, I'm gonna carry on searching for xmas presents and whatnot, so I guess I'll be in touch soon .

Have fun.

Ink and Incapability

The title would be referring to the temporary writer's block that had me stumped for a title for a few minutes, a couple of seconds ago. Still, I turned the problem into the solution expertly, and once again have bent reality to my will. Go me!

Ahem.

I walked to work the other day, enjoying the weather, which recently has been very hot and very sunny (followed by very cold completely cloudless nights). Even as I walked to work in shades and a T shirt, neighbours were hapilly talking about how lovely the weather is for the back end of September.

Yep, just as the hottest (one of the hottest, at least!) day of the year was way back, abnormally early, in april, it seems the hot weather has continued, more or less, right through September, even as the trees shed their leaves, and sycamore seeds whirl from the sky almost as a precursor to the snow that will follow. Once again, another year seems to be growing old.

Which leads me to make the astonishing announcement that I have, as of a few hours ago, purchased my first Christmas Present! As shocking as this might seem, if you read back, you'll notice that I started buying presents about this time last year, as well.

So about this present. Well. It's sparkly, different, very cool, and in fact is so cool that I'm going to have a quick look at it to er, check the contents, and to make sure everything works and stuff. Yes, that's right :-).

But it's not arrived yet, so hey :).



My Ipod parts on the other hand, did finally arrive, and so I set to work replacing the shell/clickwheel of the ipod. Youtube tutorial videos had made it clear that replacing the case is simple enough, but to replace the clickwheel the entire thing has to come to bits. I guess the most worrying part was having to prise the main board off the frame, since it was held in place only by glue (!)

The whole thing took about an hour, and was simple enough really, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved when the 2 halfs of the case finally locked together with a satisfying click. And my Ipod? Well now it looks new. Yay!

One other thing I did, was to copy my family's favourite christmas tape (we've always used one particular christmas tape for years and years) to MP3 so now I can carry those old tunes about with me. Once done, I went to search for other tapes to copy, and in the process I found lots of stuff I thought I no longer owned. Old talismans, pendants, postcards from mates I haven't seen for years, lots of stuff with a very high sentimental value.

When I was a kid, my sister and I used to fight over who got to keep the extremely long receipts we got from the checkouts at christmas food shopping. I found a few of them in a box under my bed, dated 2001 and 2002, and just for old time's sake went to show my dad.
Disappointingly, all he did was question why I should want to keep "rubbish".

My sister and I are very different in that regard - If I don't have a damn good reason to throw something away, I generally keep it, especially if it has sentimental value.
My sister on the other hand, likes to throw stuff away the second she can't instantly come up with a good reason not to. She attatches no sentimental value to anything, and seems to value a possession based strictly on its utility. Efficient, but rather cold, I think.
I guess I now see where she gets it from. Still, one man's junk is another man's treasure, as they say, and as freudian/homoerotic as that sounds, I'm inclined to agree.

So yeah. Not much else to go on about relaly layley, so I'll leave it here. while I lay back and daydream about what other presents I'd like to buy :-).

Byeeeee.

Ahh Memories...

Ahem.

I noticed that despite the year winding on, the weather has been fairly civil, with no real rain to speak of. And so, by virtue of its very normality, the weather, or lack thereof, went completely unheeded by me, and pretty much by everyone that I speak to regularly.

A couple of days ago however, we had one very warm very beautiful day. The sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The slight breeze was cool but not cold, and even a few birds could be seen wobbling in the branches of the trees, which themselves barely moved (Of course they barely moved. When did you last see trees walking about)?

It seemed to be a perfectly pleasant if somewhat cool summer day.

the day that followed, was nondescript, nothing more than a marker on the path from Summer to Autumn. And today? Overcast, cool, with a little rain cooling everything down.

Yes, it seems that September has been struggling to stamp its mark on the year, and is even now trying to point out that it's not summer anymore. And so, as I heed these signals, my mind turns to the future. And to the past.

Why am I writing like a second year English Student? I don't know :).

No, it's that time of year, where the dreaded C word begins to creep slowly but inexorably into conversation, and even as I start planning how to handle Christmas 2009, searching ebay for presents, decorations and other acoutrements, I'm looking back with tinsel-tinted spectacles to last year's Christmas. An event which went pretty well, by all standards actually.

Why do this so early though? It's only September!
Because, I only earn about £50 a week, which is only very slightly more than you get paid for being unemployed. Therefore I have to look ahead in order to be able to make sure I have the finances that I need. I already have an idea what I want to buy one person (if they don't go and get it themselves in the months ahead) .

So, what about the recent past, the last couple of weeks.
Well, despite what the dentist said, relief was two or three days wait after my visit to the practice, not exactly the instant fix she promised me, but hey, everyone's entitled to make a mistake every now and again. I couldn't diagnose, much less treat jaw problems, so I should shut my mouth. Aha. Ha. Ha. Etc.

Eventually, the pain, if not the swelling died down, so the whole issue is a lot less thorny than it was before. I'm still reluctant to talk about having my tooth out, so for that reason I'm going to move on and talk about something else.

My Ipod, having been rebuilt the day before halloween 2007 is once again looking like an absolute dog's dinner, and having been dropped a few times, has bangs, scratches, dints, dents, dings and things all over it. In order to put this right, I've bought some new bits for it. Not only a new faceplate, in black again, but a new rear case, and a new clickwheel.
Having got bored with the white clickwheel though, I've ordered a lovely red one this time, meaning that my Ipod should look something like this when it's finished.

I haven't bothered buying the "U2 Autographed" rear case, because I stopped liking that arch-idiot Bono (and anything he touched, participated in or talked about) once he became conceited, narcissistic, and arrogant enough (he was always conceited and narcissistic, but he crossed the threshold at some point in the indeterminate past) to stop being a musician and to try his hand at getting us to all give money to Africa instead, like some kind of second rate Bob Geldof, but without the stupidly annoying offspring.

I'm not in favour of poverty, obviously, but while I'm not going to go into my views in detail on here, what I am going to say is that firstly, if he wanted loads of money to go to Africa, he should pay out of his own extremely full pocket instead of moaning about Africa's problems every opportunity he gets, like some kind of unofficial spokesman for the entire continent, to the point where U2 fans everywhere are made to feel crap for not selling their own property to raise money.
Secondly, he's conveniently forgetting the fact that a huge majority of aid that goes to Africa ends up going directly into the equally extremely full pockets of the leaders of these impoverished countries, who then go to spend said money on AK47s, RPGs, BMWs, gold plated bathroom fixings, champagne, works of art, and whore parties, a wide variety of hedonistic and fun things, that conveniently don't include anything to do with providing food, water, or shelter, for the poor of the country.
Still, I've no doubt that he's going to try to buy/adopt a small malawi orphan at some point, since that seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days.

So to ignore that little rant, suffice it to say, I don't want to be associated with that, and for that reason, the U2 signatures stay off the back of my ipod, thankyou very much.
But black and red does look cool :-). I've also bought a plastic shield thing to stick to the front of it to make suire it continues to look cool.
I've been waiting on both for about ten days, not particularly happy about that. Hmm.

So, what else have I been up to.
Well, going one better than pulling my camera off my desk, I managed to drop it 3 foot onto concrete a few days ago. Damaged? YES!
The little battery latch thing came loose and had to be superglued back on. That's it really.
No lasting effects, but it was... interesting... at the time.

Still, there you go.

My little Traser keyring turned up, and has since spent its time being generally sparkly, which is good. A bit expensive at £8.50 but then it's going to stay lit for the next 10 years, so hey :).

And that's it really, nothing else much to report. I spend more and more time looking on ebay for (Hmm, a firetruck has just gone down the road with lights flashing, wonder what's happening) christmassy stuff, and as the time creeps closer towards us, I've no doubt that I'm eventually going to have to start spending money on it.

So hey :).

Little Clarification

One thing that I will say, that I should clarify rather, having been reminded by the fire service zooming down the road, is the meaning of my comments a few weeks back;

"But tonight, seeing the wheels turning smoothly, first the crime/injury, then the ambulance and the police response, I guess it gave me a little more faith in our emergency services.

Nice one, lads"

It occured to me that the other day, that these comments could be seen as expressing - at worst - pleasant surprise in seeing our Emergency Services doing their jobs effectively and efficiently, and therefore give people the impression that I don't have a lot of respect for or trust in those Emergency services.

As you're probably aware, the posts on this blog do not represent the opinions or views of any entity other than myself, which means I can bloody well say what I want and tough luck if people happen not to like it. But I do want to point out that not only do I have absolute trust in and respect for our emergency services, but I also feel proud to have those hardworking guys and girls in my neighbourhood.
We'd all be lost without 'em, so let's all give it up for our firefighters, police officers, EMTs/Paramedics etc, and the new Yorkshire Air Ambulance guys, with their shiny and awesome new #2 helicopter :-).

Cheers people, all the best :-).

Eee, by gum...

:(.

It seems that even when it's closed, my mouth is getting me into trouble.
A small swelling of my gums at the back of my mouth has since turned into a larger swelling, with associated discomfort (for discomfort read: "Not being able to sleep or eat properly because it hurts too much".

And that's it. No further details available at the moment, I've had the issue for a couple of days and while it hasn't got any worse, despite me starting on low-level (available without prescription) painkillers and antiseptic mouthwashes (Corsodyl/Chlorohexidine - which is available without prescription in the UK but not the US - eek!) it hasn't got any better either.

Eventually, I phoned the local clinic (having been spurred into action by a sudden (and temporary) sharp increase in pain yesterday. Their advice? "Phone the dentist". Fair enough I spose, but if you're a regular reader of the blog and you've got a decent memory, you'll remember I've seen so much of my dentist that I may as well be married to one.

Nevertheless, I found myself reluctantly phoning the NHS dentist, who (despite what the newspapers (both in the UK and the US) are fond of saying about the NHS) have sorted out an appointment for me to have a quick checkup, which is in about 50 minutes.

Is this the start of another long saga of me getting victimised/treated with long sharp instruments? Let's hope not.

But last night, when I should have been celebrating England's recent (and very effective!) win, Instead I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, rationing pain killers and generally having naps to try and recover from my pain-induced lack of sleep (3 hours in the last 30, up until that point).

So let's see what happens. I'll let you know more when I get back.

17:44

Right, I've been to the dentist. The problem was pretty much as I'd expected (informed opinion, aided by medical/NHS websites (don't self-diagnose, it's naughty!)), my gum was being irritated by "foreign bodies" in my mouth.
However, it's a bit more involved than that. Apparently, stress causes swelling of the gums (I've not heard that one before), and as the gum swelled over my wisdom tooth, it trapped food between the surface of the tooth and itself. Food doing what food will after a few days of being trapped in a warm damp environment, started turning into interesting chemicals which lots of interesting bacteria started eating.

My gum didn't like being in contact with at all, hence the pain and inflammation.
So after giving this "gap" a quick wash with some antiseptic stuff (more Corsodyl I think), they prescribed me with some antibiotics, which will persuade the interesting bacteria to stop being interesting and start being dead (hey, i'm all for "good bacteria", but these little sods have had me in quite a lot of pain! Payback!).

My dentist has warned me that eveb after succesful treatment, there's nothing to stop this situation reoccuring, and that I should have the aformentioned wisdom tooth removed.

Hmm, I'll have to think about whether I want that to happen or not.

Still, I've got some medicines to get through, so I'd best get started. I'm going to try and eat something in a bit.

Ciao :-)

Stones, Suzuki and Sambuca...

The moon is looking very spectacular tonight. 3 quarter moon, and it's that lovely pinkish orange colour. I would have taken a photo - okay, I took several. I would have displayed a photo - but my camera's autofocus isn't infallible and the moon behind clouds just kinda tripped it up.

So what's been happening...

In my usual disordered A to C to B to E and then D way, let's see.

I've enjoyed my week of freedom away from the parents, especially considering that they phoned much much less than I expected they would. Despite this, I've looked after the place pretty well, and nothing's collapsed, caught fire, or being blown away in a tornado (yes we do get them - not large ones (depends whether you'd call an F2 tornado large), but we do get them).

I whiled away the lazy days, going to work, coming back, listening to loud music, getting pissed (drunk) and generally doing what I wanted when I wanted. Of course, all good things come to an end, and even though during the week I'd missed the company of my parents, as soon as they phoned me to say they'd be back in a couple of hours, my freedom suddenly became incredibly precious.

Still, they came back, and once they'd gone to bed out came the beer.

Not much has really changed since then. I'd been struck by the idea of finally actually really selling my bike and getting a new one. But it seems that the old lession of "never try to sell anything to a friend" proved itself spectacularly wise, as said friend and I quickly developed animosities that turned into arguments and insults, with accusations of dishonesty Exaggerations, truths, half truths, and lies disguised as truths flew back and forth...

...officially, said "friend" is now seeing whether he can afford my bike.
Unofficially, I think he's wasting my time.

Shame. I really fancied a new ride.

As for tonight, well. Sodding hell.
I'd been complaining to my boss for months that they shouldn't be sending us into dodgy areas, sending us to areas full of feral kids, graffiti, dogshit, and shuttered up houses.

But hey, an order is an order so off we go.

Last night, a guy was shot dead about 4 miles from here, which I spose would be worrying, but we have a couple of areas round here that aren't such great pleaces to live in.

One thing threw me for a loop last night though.
I arived in the "hood" where the dude was shot, looking around, noting the lack of shutters on the windows, the lack of graffitti etc, and I thought "well it doesn't look like it, but I spose technically, this is a "hood".

Anyway, I ended up on my way back from the area, cheerfully looking forward to my beer.
On the way back, I saw a couple of random spotty teenagers flick something into the road, and thought nothing of it.

Seconds later, with a shark *CRACK*, one that I more felt than heard, I might add, something hit me on the side of the head (helmet).

That fcuking stone.
A stone, must have been. bounced off my lid.

First thing I did was to slam the anchors (brakes) on, and half turn in the road, as I stared at these two kids.

I honestly was not sure what to say I felt. Anger? No, kids will be kids. Disbelief? No, kids will be kids. I'm not sure.

I stared at these two lads walking up the road, trying to figure out what I was possibly going to say to them.

In the absence of anything better to do, after ten seconds of watching them calmly walk up the road, I rode off.

Initially I was absolutely furious, shaking, if not from the cold then from the anger. How dare these two wankers throw stones at me, just because they've nothing better to do.

Then the voice of reason kicked in. "Chill out mate, you're a pizza boi, and pizza bois are fair game".

By the time I got back to the store, I was laughing. Yes, I was angry, but it wasn't an attack on me, I'd never met these two lads, how could it have been. It was an attack on pizza boys. And your stereotypical pizza boy is a thick as fcuk 17 year old lad who wants a bit of extra cash for his weed.

Upon reflection, I sincerely wish I'd gone back to congratulate these lads on their awesome shot. I was moving at 30mph, and they still managed to bounce a rock off my head. What's that, if not a good shot.

I got back to the shop and clocked out. Time to go home.
But I wasn't the only one on the receiving end, it seems. I walked out to see my mates having a smoke break, and across the road, surrounded by maybe 50 people, was a guy on the ground.

No one was sure whether he'd been bottled, or glassed, or whether he'd just been knocked out, but whatever, he was down for the count.

Someone had phoned the services, as before we even saw it, an ambulance and a paramedic were on the scene dealing with it.
5 minutes later, the police showed up, and so for me, it was hometime.

Let's give credit to our emergency services though eh?
some stuff had gone off outside the store, and before we knew it had happened, first the ambulance and paramedic, and then the police, were there to pick up the pieces.

In another country, the guy's fate would have depended on his medical insurance. Here, in the UK, thanks to the much maligned NHS, this guy will be treated, free of charge, and released when he's good to go.

Here, the police have turned up to calm things down, and make sure he's ok.

The UK has its shittyness, sometimes, the crap the government comes out with beggars belief.

But tonight, seeing the wheels turning smoothly, first the crime/injury, then the ambulance and the police response, I guess it gave me a little more faith in our emergency services.

Nice one, lads.

EPILOGUE: It turned out that it wasn't a drunken attack that put this guy on the floor, it was a hit and run, by two jackasses on an illegal pit-bike. Rumours circulated that the guy was killed outright, but according to an official press release, he's "critical" but still alive.
As for these off road wankers, we've had an upsurge recently in illegal motorcyclists, and despite police efforts, they're still riding about the local estates...
The police helicopter has been about quite a lot recently though, so let's see what comes of it.

Cameras, Scameras, and Pizza

Eek. I woke up to a cloudy day. Nothing serious, and even as I ambled downstairs, the weather brightened. The sun came out, and it began to look like we were in for another nice day again.

After sitting about for a while, I decided to expand my portfolio a bit, picking out and printing my best/favourite photographs, and sticking them in a binder. After a bit of thought I managed to arrange four A4 photos in an A3 display book, by sticking two of them, one above the other, to a piece of card, and then sticking another two, one above the other, to the reverse. These four I then slotted into one of the plastic wallets in the display book.

Which was great until some dirt got in between the wallet and the photos, which muckied them up.
After a short time of swearing, reprinting, remounting and redirtying the photos, I gave it up as a bad job and decided to save my (expensive - thanks grandad) photo paper by keeping the slightly dirty (as in, have dirt on them, not dirty as in woman-not-wearing-any-clothes) photos I had already printed.

After a short time, my sister phoned, in true "sister" fashion, asking for my immediate help in the next five minutes, and any plans I had for today, be damned.
Of course me being the nice person that I am, and being completely used to this, agreed to help. A process which involved taking photos of the outside and inside of two houses which my sister and her friend are trying to get someone interested in.

So I spent a while wandering round taking pretty pictures and generally having a rather good time. Despite my nephew's (cute, then annoying, then boring) inability to understand that photos without him in it did actually and could actually exist :-).

Eventually though, we came home and shortly after, it was time for me to go to work.
Work started out extremely slowly. Very little to do, and no deliveries to speak of.

Eventually though, I was sent on my way with a delivery, and on my way over the bridge noticed something rather unpleasant. Well, in purpose if not appearance.

A very shiny and colourful but very spiteful and condescending "safety camera" van. Without going into detail, "Safety cameras" in this country have been widely discredited, and the only aspect of road safety despised nearly as much as them is the fact that there are some people who insist that they are there for the right reasons, in a perfectly detestable self righteous "well I don't break the law, so anyone who does should be punished" type way.

I ponder as to the success of the day's fishing (for the crew of the van, that is), and eventually arrive at my destination. During my conversation with the customer, I accidentally *ahem* let it slip that there is a camera at xyz location, right after the bridge sign, pointing south etc etc. "Just in case you're going out tonight".

The customer responded that he was in fact going out tonight, and would also actually be passing that way. I tell him his order comes to £16.46, as he gives me a £20.
I start fumbling for change, at which point he tells me to keep the change, as I've probably just saved him a £30 ticket :-D. Woo! £3.54 as a tip - that's a new record, and a fairly respectable amount for a night's total.

With a cheerful tune in my mind, I ride slowly back to the store, and approach the van's location. Normally I ride to the left of the road allowing people to overtake my slow vehicle, but this time I'm very pointedly in the right-third of my lane (we drive on the left in the UK) preventing all the traffic behind me from overtaking. Sure it must have been annoying for them, but I reckon the penny dropped when they saw the scamera van :-).

I cheerfully arrive back at work and continue with my shift.
Within an hour of the camera being spotted, a local "car meet" and half the city's taxi drivers were aware of the scamera's precise location. Loose talk costs money (ill-gotten money that should, by all wrongs, belong to the "safety camera partnership"), and all that lot. Oops, I'll have to do a better job of keeping it to myself in future.

I'd been refusing to finish my shift early, as I wanted the money, despite the absolute lack of activity. However, as the addresses of the next few deliveries appeared on screen, including the addresses of a few places in the less salubrious parts of town, I changed my mind. I said to my manager that I'd clock off early in return for "nom nom". After explaining that I wanted free food, he agreed, and I clocked off.

While my food was in the oven, I checked my account and went to the off licence/liqor store. I chatted with the staff for a while and finally bought my beer.
I checked the receipt later on, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that my beer £2.99 for 4 cans, x 2, plus £2.00 per can, again x2, plus some other items, (about £3 of chocolates and stuff), about £13.00 approx (I suck at maths) came to - according to the off licence's card machine, just over £5, which was duly debited from my account.
Seems their card machine sucks at maths too.

Did I report it?
I've already done my good deeds for today (the camera/speed camera thing). I felt entitled to be a bit of a bastard.

So now I'm drinking my extremely cheap beer, and eating my extremely cheap chocolate, and chilling out. £8 won't put the shop out of business. I work in retail, I should know :-).

But yeah. A very good day.

Enjoy :-).

Gelato, Cappucino, Minestrone, Gondolas...

3:15AM

...and other things.

Yep, looks like my parents are shortly going to be off on their wonderful holiday to Italy, and I'm sure will have a lovely time :-). For my part, I'm sitting here trying to keep my room cool (actually getting it cool in the first place might be a good start), and wishing I'd put my coca cola in the fridge earlier so I could have a nice cold drink of it now.

Come to think of it, Ice cubes are an age old invention... Hmm...

3:24AM

Having returned, in true "me" fashion with both a hot drink, and a nice cold drink of terminally one dimensional coca cola (with half an ice cube tray inserted), I seem to be doing not-much other than wandering round trying not to get in the way, and alternately wishing my parents would sod off so I could have a bit of peace, and chatting to them because I'm already beginning to miss them, when they haven't even gone yet.

It's odd that even as the world sleeps, the moon is high above, and the stars are out twinkling in their twinkly nuclear fusion type way, it feels many hours later than it is, with an otherwise quiet early morning punctuated by the sound of hair dryers, the smell of perfume, and endless questions about the location of things.

I've fixed the "lake garda" tags to the suitcases, helpfully removing last year's "paris" ones.
It was a close thing :-).

With 15 minutes to go, amid complaints of "this should have been done bloody ages ago", courtesy of my dad, who has ordered the taxi for actually about the same time as last year, which is still earlier than it needs to be, for some reason.

Tension is beginning to increase a little as all the final preperations are being made, with 10 minutes to go everything is just about sorted, and the taxi should be on his way :-).

I've asked my parents to bring me another little "baby alcohol" (small bottles of alcohol! Not alcohol for babies!!) tub/collection/thingiewhatsit, so I can do my alcoholic advent calendar type thing again this christmas :-).

04:04: and now I'm off to escort my parents away :-). Not all the way to Italy, sadly :-(.

And off they go. They're gone now, and I'm already feeling quite lonely :-(.

Still, time for a cold drink and stuff I guess. Then a nice shower, and time to make my bed and go to spleep :-).

Hedge Trimmers, Doggies, and Import Duty.

Wow what a day.
It kinda started at 00:01 yesterday morning, when I crawled into bed. Or climbed in. Whatever. I didn't climb in because my bed is only 2 feet off the floor. I didn't jump in because the frame is already broken in one corner, and I didn't levitate in because despite what my parents might say, I haven't been possessed.
Maybe I insinuated myself into my bed, though generally I only really insinuate myself into other peoples'. Given the complexity of my bed, with more layers than a sponge cake in an earthquake, and four pillows, perhaps we could say that I installed myself in my bed, and configured myself appropriately.

Now I am one of these people, I can't drift off to sleep without listening to some form of background noise, lest I get caught in my own thoughts and never return to sanity. Historically, I used to listen to the radio, though the "we'll bring you more news as the story develops" or the odd interesting program on the radio frequently served to keep me awake, rather than do the opposite, so I switched to listening to videos on the TV. Turn the brightness/contrast way way down and it may as well be a radio, with your own choice of programming :-).

So it was that I drifted off while halfheartedly listening to Eddie Izzard bemoaning the lack of taxis in San Francisco ("And when you do get in, they don't know where they're going. I just said 'get in the back, I'll drive'"). I managed to forego the dreams I've been having recently, which while not nightmares or even really disturbing, are moderately depressing.

And at 3am I woke up.
And rolled over and went back to sleep.
Except I didn't. For two hours I tossed, turned, revolved completely, and adopted every position I'd ever heard of, from the recovery position, to the brace position recommended by airlines, through the wide and varied positions described in some indian book I'd never heard of, and then some.

Somehow, after two interminable hot, uncomfortable, boring and quite frankly angering hours, I got to sleep.

Eventually I woke up again. First at seven, then at 9, then at 12:30.
And before I knew it we were off to my sister's house to help with her garden.

This portion of the day proceeded vaguely to plan, apart from the tome in the garden that I watched with horrified fascination, the power cable for the Hedge Trimmer drifting closer and closer to the whirring blades. In less time than it takes for a nerve impulse to travel from my brain to my hand, to either release the trigger, or jerk the cable away, a dozen seperate thoughts, including "oh no, here we go", "oh look what I'm about to do" and "I hope I don't get electrocuted" flashed through my mind, right before the whirring of the blades, punctuated with a brief pop and a flash, came to a halt, the almost completely severed cable jammed between two of the teeth.

A sheepish apology to the owner later, we were off to my dad's (this house) to get it fixed.

At the top of our road, coming the opposite way, but also turning down our road, was a UPS van.
Now I received an email from the company in china telling me I should be "receivings my deliverings in approximately five daysings"and that it was being shipped UPS, but I shrugged off the possibility that it would be my lens. It was only monday, and they only shipped it on saturday.

But the van followed us down to my house, and though I watched with sinking heart as he drove past our place to the bottom of the road, I cheered right up when I saw him do a U turn and park more or less directly opposite.

Getting out of the van he told me that not only did he have a parcel for me, but that he'd been already this morning and no one was in. Except me but I'm a heavy sleeper, despite the earth shatteringly loud doorbell.

He also told me I had some money to pay him before he could give it me.

See, the UK has this thing called Value Added Tax. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs but generally, the UK government have decided that it'd be a great money maker if a percentage of every retail purchase by anyone anywhere in the UK went to the government's coffers. As a result, every item in catalogues or whatever has two prices in the UK; What it actually costs, and what it costs once the government have stuffed an additional cut in their wallet.

Because I imported the lens, buying it from a business that neither paid VAT to the UK government, nor charged their customers VAT, I was instead subject to the government's plan B: Everyone who buys something out of the country, without VAT, and expects to be allowed to use their purchase in this country, has to give the government a cut anyway. Except this time it's called "Import Duty" which to all intents and purposes amounts to the same thing.

UPS had nicely paid the import duty on my behalf, and less nicely, charged me upon delivery. In addition to paying £390 for the lens, I then had to give UPS some cash to repay them.

"How much?" I asked him. "Fifty pounds, sixty pence" he replied.
I think my response was more or less "FUUUUUUUUUUUU".

After failing to find my chequebook (which is probably out of date now anyway, and if not, is still A. misplaced, and B. probably lining some mouse's comfortable nest, I convinced the guy to wait while I ran to the store to get some cash. "Even better" he says, "I'll meet you there".

I get there, running to the store and see him pull up. I duck inside and run out a couple of minutes later with the money. A quick farewell and I'm back home playing with my lovely lens :-). In true "man" style, the box and instruction manual get flung on the table, and I disappear off upstairs with the lens.

An hour later, we're back at my sister's, cutting more hedges. This time, it's my sis that breaks the hedge trimmer, when during cutting something, the trimmer suddenly emits a high sing-song whining noise, before my sister turns it off.

Pulling it off the branches, something's definitely broken. The motor still whirs but the teeth don't move anymore.

It's not had a good day, that hedge trimmer.

Still, mine's not been bad at all :-).

Some photos :-).