Hmm. A better day.

This is the second attempt at this post as I changed the appearance of KDE and somehow it completely crashed Firefox.

Yesterday was a peculiar day. I had a rather vivid dream just before I woke up in the morning, which I won't go into. But it completely threw me and left me rather upset.

Work didn't help. In the morning I was trying to troubleshoot a HP laser printer and removed the paper pickup rollers from both the printer and the extra tray. However, when I tried to put them back in, I somehow managed to break the mechanism on both trays, leaving neither of the rollers working. This led to much cursing as I tried to put the mechanism back together so the printer would be able to pick up paper again. Eventually my colleague and I got it working again by methods and tools which would certainly be frowned upon by HP engineers. It actually got to the point where I had to go and take a picture of a working printer to see where a certain part went.

So it wasn't a good start to the day. It didn't really get better and my mood just deteriorated. Looking back, I shouldn't have gone to badminton or the pub last night, I don't think I was good company for anyone at that point and I didn't play particularly well at badminton so that didn't help either.

Today was better but that dream is still freaking me out a bit. It's not often I have a dream that has such a profound effect on me.

I went to my Dad's this morning and we headed into Llandudno to pick up a few things. We got a sidelight bulb for the Discovery, which was rather more difficult to install than I remember. But it eventually went in and back together. Also checked the oil and things.

There's a music shop there which I vaguely recalled having a Squier Fretless Jazz Bass, which I blogged about recently. It was still there so I tried it out. It wasn't a particularly good one when I looked at it, with fingerboard damage from the roundwound strings and a body made out of FIVE pieces of wood. But it played really well, sounded good and just felt right. They wanted £280 for it but they're £210 online. If it had been in better condition I might have seen if they'd have taken less for it but I'd rather get a new one if/when I can afford it. I definitely want one though, it was really easy to play and I absolutely love the different sound you get from a fretless. If I get one, it's going to have black tapewound strings as they are kind to fingerboard and fingerips, don't squeak when you slide, and look good too.

Also went to a couple of garages and saw a Panda 4x4 and a Jimny close up. Quite like both of them to be honest, the Panda is nice and high and is very clean underneath. The Jimny is really like a miniature Discovery, the basic design and construction is exactly the same and it's actually much less toylike close up. Neither is particularly roomy though.

However both of them were brand new and therefore completely out of my price range. The Panda has a 1.2 litre engine and is group 2 insurance while the Jimny has a 1.3 litre and is group 7 insurance. Also it is quite heavy for its size so it's not as economical as you'd expect. The cheapest Panda 4x4 I've seen is £5000 for an 04 reg model so that would definitely require finance, but Jimnys have been around a lot longer so they can be had quite cheap. Also there are automatic Jimnys which certainly have an appeal after the notchy, difficult gearbox in the Discovery, which I'm heartily sick of now.

Still, something to think about anyway. Of course, I haven't driven either of them yet...