So tired...

It's been a long, strange week. Work has just been impossible to keep up with. Get one job out of the way and in the meantime two more come in and just constantly being hassled to get things done.

Not many people were able to make it to the drumming workshop tonight so we went back to Darren's for a bit. Nice to sit down and catch up with him. We ended up playing drums for a while as his housemate played piano which was fun and interesting. Tired now though.

A fun packed weekend

Yesterday was OK. Amy and Huw came up to pick apples again, which was fairly entertaining and there were plenty of them on the tree. Also we had a look at the damson tree which I've ignored for some time, and found that it was covered in them. After that I took a trip into Denbigh to get a new tax disk holder for the bike as the original was all rusty and knackered. In the evening went for an Indian with Andy, Maz, Rob, Em and Vicky. A bit fat after going out on Friday night too, but wasn't going to turn that down. Had a chicken tikka masala which was slightly embarrassing to order, but was really really nice.

Today did some digging in the garden to clear out blocked water channels and fitted the tax disk to the bike. It was a bit of a pain as the old one really didn't want to come off, but got there in the end. Then took it out for a nice ride, although it was a bit cold. Had an interesting moment where I stopped on the side of the road near Cerrigydrudion to have a look at the view and some bikers slowed down to ask if I was OK. Dug out Fable II again after ages and progressed my evil character a bit more. Got to a new town with the normal routine of a rampant massacre of half the people there before buying out the place. Hehe.

Mmmm

Mum's birthday today so went to the Prosperity in Rhuddlan, a really good Chinese restaurant. Very good food there. Only been there once before with work, and it was good then.

Friday at last

Hurrah, finally, at last, it's Friday.

Mum's birthday today so going out for a meal this evening, woohoo.

Stupid Acer behemoth graphics card died, stripped it for parts and scrapped it, arse.

Bleh

Watched Hackers, a film which is shit in many ways but still has a bizarre appeal for some reason, even though anyone who knows anything about computers will go 'What?!' several times. It's good stupid fun though. Every time I watch it I still want to paint a computer in camo.

Also watched Total Recall while doing some hardware tweaking on an Acer 7520 17" laptop with serious overheating issues, CPU running at 70-80 degrees and graphics chip hitting nearly 100 degrees. Put some Actic Silver 5 on the heatsinks and removed a thick pad of dust from the fan and it's down to 40-50 degrees for the CPU and 60-65 degrees for the graphics chip, much improved although I think the graphics chip should be cooler still. It's away from the danger zone at least. Think it's because of the shit thermal pad between the chip and the heatsink, might see if I can get a copper shim for it like the Dell I had similar issues with as the heat transfer would be a lot better. Nice feature of this laptop is two hard drive slots, ideal for dual-booting or virtualisation. Just needs some more RAM now and perhaps a faster CPU if I can find a compatible one (AMD Socket S1).

The skin on the back of my neck is killing me, got a massive outbreak of painful pustules on it and it's really hurting because of the pressure my shirt collar puts on it. Probably caused by stress, I usually break out in spots if I'm worried about something or under pressure.

Unremarkable day

Not much going on today.

Had payment for another Ebay item, a HP 71B palmtop that is off to France. It's going to a place not far from Lyon, and just recently my lost lovespoon geocoin got moved to France to a cache in the same general area. How odd.

Stupid weather

This morning went to the biker cafe in Denbigh for breakfast with Andy, Maz and Vicky. It's actually called Sam's Cafe but I call it the biker cafe as it's right outside the motorbike dealer (in fact it used to be the dealer) and usually has plenty motorbikes parked outside. They do a pretty good all day breakfast to be fair and the lunchtime specials are usually good too.

This afternoon, Will and I were going to go up to the moors and take photos but the weather today has been grey and pissing it down with no let up so we gave up on that. Instead we had a go on Fable II multiplayer, which was quite good although I had to download the expansion packs as Will had them already. While they were downloading I played a few levels of Duke Nukem 3D, which was good fun.

Not done much else today really. Tidied up a bit and packaged up a couple of the Ebay sales for postage tomorrow after having the payment for them.

Having one of those weird introspective moments where I'm questioning quite a lot of things.

Beer, beer, beer, I hate beer

Today was the annual beer festival in Denbigh. I detest beer and cider in all forms, so I don't really get much from it really, but it's nice to meet up with everyone and hang out. I didn't go last year, but I did this year and had a good time. I tasted quite a few beers, all horrible, and some ciders which weren't great either. Fortunately this year they had a cafe which did food and drinks. I had two bowls of a really nice chilli and then Caroline bought cakes and chocolates. Also, I only just realised that I had two cans of Coke, breaking my no-Coke rule. I hadn't had any since Sunday. Oh well, it won't matter so long as I don't lapse into the old habits.

All four of the last things I put on Ebay sold, including a batch of Speak & Spells that went for £51, yay.

As it was payday yesterday, I did the tax for the car and bike. £205 for the Focus and £15 for the bike. Also the Focus is having a service next Saturday.

Came home from the beer festival at about 6pm as the noisy and annoying folk band had started up.

Felt tired today for some reason and at a bit of a loss what to do with myself. Oh well.

Need to have a tidy up tomorrow, living in a pigsty at the moment. Also can look at what else I can put on Ebay at the same time.

Flim

900th post.

A fairly ordinary week. Not much really to report. Found there are more caches gone live near home and a colleague and I went for one that had gone live yesterday, hoping to get first to find. Somehow we managed to time it so we arrived at the cache just as it poured down with rain, and got wet, and then found someone had got it an hour before - ARGH!

No drumming this week as the hall was booked out previously, boo.

Other than that not really done much. the inverter for the MacBook arrived today and I got it installed and the screen still flickers, although not as badly. Getting at the inverter was, surprise, a royal pain in the arse. Removing the screen bezel is easy but the cover over the hinges and the inverter is a rotten design. Officially you're supposed to remove the whole display assembly before taking it apart but that involves removing the fucking keyboard section and I'm not doing that again after last time. Wretched bloody thing. At least the screen should be swappable without too much hassle if I do buy a new one for it.

I haven't had a single drop of Coke since Sunday and I think I feel a lot better for it. I have been drinking Robinson's squash in work, which to be fair has it's own share of crap in it, but it's nowhere near as bad as Coke. I actually have a spare bottle of Diet Cherry Coke in my work laptop bag left over from last Friday, which I've been treating as a sort of test as I haven't opened it yet. The food hasn't been good this week mind you but the lack of Coke must help. Also been walking the dog a lot this week, which was fairly OK except the weather sucks rather a lot. Met a pair of friendly horses today poking their heads over a gate and demanding attention. Horses are alarming things really.

Great weekend

Saturday consisted of the gang going into Denbigh for a heritage festival. It was hyped up a bit and had things going on but after going around the underwhelming thing in the town hall which consisted of a fairly crappy market we sort of gave up on it. We did partake in the rather delicious hog roast though and then spent the rest of the day in a pub and having ice cream. So while the heritage thing wasn't great, we did have a good time.

Sunday was spent walking the dog and taking the bike out. Had a really good run on the bike, went further than usual and ended up seeing quite a lot of other bikes. At one point got stuck in the middle of a convoy of huge leather guys on big Harley Davidson type bikes, all loud farty things and then on the moors ended up in front of some sports bikes. Wasn't too bad though, quite good fun really. The evening consisted of a meal at the Brookhouse Mill, which was really good, lots of good food and conversation with friends.

Today wasn't too bad in work. After a protracted scream, managed to make my job list a bit more likable, and left a little early as it was quite a productive day. Got home to find the tasteless Ferrari laptop had arrived back from repair, which is good. It's back to normal now, so hopefully it'll behave now. It's a nice little machine. Debating now whether to take the dog out - it's rather windy but that I don't mind, but it's trying to rain as well. Hmm.

Update: Did take the dog out and it didn't do more than drizzle. It's actually better in poor weather though because you put more effort in rather than just pootling along enjoying the scenery.

Further update: Just listed a few more retro computing things on Ebay. One nice thing is that now I can put good quality images on there as the D50 works very well for that.

A shit day with highlights

Some days, I really hate my job. Again, not the work itself, just the way it suddenly piles up from people with no consideration that you might actually have other work for other people that, shock horror, might be more important, and then get all stroppy about it. And BlackBerrys are NOT important, I don't care how much you want your shiny toy but it doesn't take precedence over someone who can't work because their machine has died.

It was someone's 21st birthday today and so there was a vast, beautiful chocolate cake, and we all had chips for lunch. This was mildly cheering until I felt sick all evening, so much so that I didn't go to badminton. Throwing up on the court might not have been liked. Did take the bike out for a little jaunt and it went really well. Oh, except the headlight seems to have stopped working. Bah!

Really tired and dispirited this evening. Can't be arsed doing anything. Tried to play bass, failed, tried to play Xbox, failed, so just listening to music.

Bike sorted

Yesterday was fairly dull until the evening, another African drumming workshop. Slightly less people this time but it was still really good fun with more complex stuff going on and different people doing different parts of the rhythm. Really enjoying it.

Today I had a flexi day to take the bike in for the work. They did the faulty lights, the chain, spark plug, handlebar bearings and the exhaust. It's amazing, it rides and sounds like new, which is great and it only cost £51. The only thing they couldn't do was fit a long mudflap to the front mudguard as they didn't have one but will let me know when they've got one in.

The tasteless Ferrari laptop has been repaired and is on it's way back, which is good news.

Fraaark

Work has been frustrating. My Latitude D520 laptop had been pretty reliable until three weeks ago. First it had an intermittent line appear across the screen, then started to have issues with the hard drive clicking, and then three times yesterday it crashed hard. Unfortunately I was told I couldn't have a new one, instead have someone else's old one. It's a D620 which isn't much younger than mine, which had just suffered a graphics chip failure. Fortunately Dell extended the warranty on that part as it was a known fault (Nvidia made a few million shit chips) so it had a new motherboard two weeks ago. Finally got hold of it today and started building it so that was a relief. It's got a nice screen, a 14" 1440x900 panel which is so much nicer than the 15" 1024x768 panel in the D520. It seems to be in good nick and the new motherboard should hopefully mean it will be reliable. Would have been nice to put Windows 7 on it but we're not quite at that stage yet.

Just washed the motorbike in preparation for taking it in on Thursday as I won't get a chance to do it tomorrow night. Doesn't take long but is fiddly. It could really do with a longer mudguard on the front wheel to stop more of the mud being flung back.

Bought a Nikon D50 which is a slightly elderly DSLR after decided I'd relied on phone cameras long enough. Kind of overkill I guess but it does take lovely photos despite being five years old and 6.3mp. All the settings are rather bewildering though - taking some time to get used to it.

Haven't been using the MacBook much since I repaired the keyboard because the screen flicker pisses me off. I've just read though that this is more commonly caused by an inverter problem rather than the screen itself, so I've ordered one as they are pretty cheap compared to a new LCD. If it works, great, if not then I'll get a screen when I can afford one. I really like the keyboard on the MacBook but not the sharp edges on the front. When it makes typing on the machine actively painful, it makes you wonder what they were thinking when they designed the thing.

Hah, that's ironic, just yanked the screen bezel off the MacBook to see how hard it is to get to the inverter and I think I did something to the cables. Now the screen looks brighter and it doesn't seem to be flickering. Shit, wish I'd tried that before I ordered the inverter. Mind you, compared to the Dell laptop to it, the screen does have a yellow tinge, but that might just be the gimpy colour calibration in OS X. Oh well. We'll see.

Update: Nope, it's flickering again.

Tired and unmotivated this evening. Again. Not sure why.

New work shoes I bought on Saturday are working out well. My feet feel much better.

Unproductive

Well, that was probably the least productive Sunday ever. I literally did nothing but sit and watch the Top Gear challenges on Youtube all day, except to package up the Acorn A4 laptops (Went for £127) and the tasteless Ferrari laptop so they can go to the purchaser and warranty repair centre respectively.

Up to the 3rd James Herriot book. I've read them so often before that I nearly know them off by heart but they are great books.

Back to work tomorrow. Bleh. I am going to have a lie in though because I need to call DHL to arrange collection of the broken laptop and they don't open their call centre until 8am.

Windows 7 aplenty

Spent much of the day at my Dad's. Went and got some packing stuff and things and a new pair of work shoes. Hopefully this will help my feet get back to normal.

After that went to the new PC World and Currys shop in Llandudno, which is pretty cool. We picked up a couple of copies of Windows 7 for my Dad and Jean's laptops, which were unfortunately inflicted with Vista. Spent the rest of the afternoon backing up the machines and rebuilding them.

Exercise fail

It took four days, loads of parts, and a whole load of aggro, but finally the tape library works. It's not been a good week because of that, having to neglect my normal work and concentrate solely on the backup system was a real pain. On the plus side, I'm much more confident with the system and the various processes, due to having to shift tapes around manually and keep on top what the system usually does automatically. When the main guy is in, it's all to easy to let him do the hard stuff when it breaks. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end. I'm not saying it's perfect, there are still issues, but the backups themselves ran each night and the offsite tapes are where they should be.

Booked the bike in to the garage on this coming Thursday. I'm taking it as a flexi day - because of coming in early for the last five days I've got loads of time to take. Basically I've given them a list of what it needs and asked them to check it over to see if it will be OK on the upcoming MOT.

Now on South Park season 2. This seems much more familiar than season 1 as I think I had it on tape. Enjoying it though.

Started reading the James Herriot books. I've always really liked them and it's been a while. I've always liked the way they are written, especially the vivid characters.

Need to have a tidy up, the house is a disgrace at the moment.

Went to Friday night badminton today for the first time this season. However, my feet haven't been right since Monday after the walk, and so I only lasted two games. Also made it rather clear how unfit I am right now. My trainers are OK but it's my work shoes that are the problem. Going to try and pick some up tomorrow. Also need to get a box and bubblewrap to send the Ferrari laptop back to Acer as they have agreed the fan is faulty and it needs to be repaired. They say to send it with at least 5cm of bubblewrap around it, which is mad because the original box doesn't give it anything like as much protection. Oh well. It needs doing and otherwise it's a damn fine machine.

Tax forms came through for both the bike and the car, in the same envelope which seems unusually efficient of the DVLA. Bike tax is £15 for a year, car tax is £205 for a year. Ouch.

Not much else going on. Going to my Dad's tomorrow as I haven't been for a while.

Today is the first day I didn't go mad for Coke. Feel better for it I think.

Grah

Yet more parts needed for the library. Argh. Given up hope now, but only one more day and I can hand the whole blessed system back to the guy who normally looks after it.

Didn't go to badminton tonight as my feet have been complaining all week - I think the walk on Monday followed by a day in my shit work shoes ruined them. I've been wearing my trainers all week and they do feel better. Should be OK for badminton tomorrow however.

Went out on the bike for a little spin and it went OK. Slightly alarming moment when I went round a bend on a relatively narrow road to encounter a green 08 reg left hand drive Aston Martin. The bike does need attention, the occasional hesitation it had before is getting worse and it generally just needs some bits doing. Hoping to take a day of work next week to have a garage look at it and evaluate its condition and what needs doing, bearing in mind the MOT in October. If it comes to a lot, it might be more sensible to sell it for parts and put the money towards another 125 which is easier to get parts for - either that or put it towards the DAS scheme to get a full license.

Other than that it's been a quiet evening.

I like hitting things

Tape library still broken, needs more parts and that's all that needs to be said about that.

An old friend of mine from school announced drumming workshops nearby and I thought I've give it a go. There were about 10 people there of various ages and it was really good. It's been a while since I've seen him but it was probably 9 years ago that he was starting out. He's really good on the drums now. Found it very relaxing after the nightmare day in work. It's a weekly thing for a little while now so will probably go again.

Apple has redesigned the iPod shuffle yet again. Someone must have realised the buttonless design was incredibly stupid.