31 Oct 2006 (Tuesday) 

It's been a cold and windy day today. Huh.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

30 Oct 2006 (Monday) 

I haven't laughed so much in a while. Really. It makes a change for me. Mum comes home with shopping, and asks me to unpack it whilst she pops out for something she's forgotten. I go to the first bag and she calls to me "The sweets are for the trick-or-treaters tomorrow", to which I look at the bag and find that she's already opened it and had some herself. Well, I thought it funny.

I've been writing not a lot recently for a number of reasons. Mostly because it's far too depressing, but partly I don't want to write things that might upset others. That's fine. I'm not going to go in to details anyhow. I'm just not ready to say anything much about any part of that lot really.

Clocks changed today, so everything's shut down early - because all the jobs are queued based on the current time, so '00:30 tomorrow' is a different time if you don't take into account DST.

Grendel's not well. We took him to the vets on Thursday and he said that he's probably got Leukemia. Which is quite depressing. He seems as happy as can be expected at the moment, which is good. I don't know what else to say. He's been acting more oddly than usual. He likes to sleep on the floor in the bathroom of late, but over the last few days he's been sleeping on the units in the living room.

I've got two or three emails from the last week that I really need to reply to, but just haven't set aside the time for yet . One of them is from Alistair and I really need to reply to him, 'cos it's been so long since we've spoken and it shouldn't be, really.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

29 Oct 2006 (Sunday) 

I was just ordering something from GamePlay and had to register my card details. On the registration screen it shows an example card, and the name on the card was 'Mr Tyler Durdan'. That amused me.

I had a thought today about telephones. I was looking at how easy it'd be to use some VOIP solution to replace the phone and noticing that it seems quite expensive to do it in a way that would replace the cordless phone I have. It struck me that phone calls can be longer and far 'easier' if you have a cordless phone ('cos you can do other things). Which means that the same effect that I have with my GMail tool applies to the phone - the easier it is to use, the more it gets used. That might be obvious, but it struck me anyhow.

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch Who watches over you Make a little birdhouse in your soul Not to put too fine a point on it Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet Make a little birdhouse in your soul [ Birdhouse In Your Soul, by They Might Be Giants ]

I actually listened to 'Birdhouse In Your Soul' properly, and found that it's about a little night-light in shape of a bird. That's just so cute.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

26 Oct 2006 (Thursday) 

So many things today, starting with being rung at about about 9:15, just after I'd turned my alarm off for being far too loud for that time in the morning. Only, now it's 00:18 and I'm far too tired to think straight so I'm going to go to bed and I might sleep sensibly. Ha.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

24 Oct 2006 (Tuesday) 

If just for a day our king and queen Would visit all these islands and saw everything How would they feel about the changes of our land ? Could you just imagine if they were around And saw highways on their sacred grounds ? How would they feel about this modern city life? [ Hawaii '78, from Facing Future, by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole ]

Return to top | Comment on the diary

18 Oct 2006 (Wednesday) 

Dilbert: Wally, how do you cope with the soul-crushing futility of this job? Wally: One day I realised that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee. [ Futility?; Dilbert ]

Return to top | Comment on the diary

17 Oct 2006 (Tuesday) 

Should really concentrate on what I'm doing, rather than letting my mind wander, I think. I just found myself apologising for something I said quite a few years ago - I sometimes have old conversations playing in my head - and a minute or two later nearly fell down the stairs 'cos I was trying to take them 3 at a time and missed.

Ok, this is a little embarassing. But only a little, and only because of the connection. I was waiting for builds to complete, as you do, and playing HL2:DM to while away the time (it's quicker than watching Defcon games) and up pops a player called 'Dan', and I think to myself... hey, didn't Oliver say that he played online games (Oliver being Jacqui's husband, and Dan being her ex-). So I went off and searched for Dan and found he's off to 'i29' next month, but... more importantly, there's photos posted on one of the forums of my little cousin. How cool is that ?

I know there's a cute Gerph without his bucket and that's fine. But... Gerph the track ?! That's a whole new one. And it sounds weird. "You're not like other tracks, are you Gerph ?"

Return to top | Comment on the diary

16 Oct 2006 (Monday) 

Annoying dreams again last night. I'm trying to ignore it. Or at least say 'yeah, well it's just a dream' and that's not something I should let rule me. Yeah, right. That's it.

Today doesn't seem to have seen much in the way of accomplishment. But then that's the way when you're testing things. All you have at the end of it is 'yup, stuff works'. Or 'nope, it's all bust'. Or sometimes 'aw who cares, nobody's going to want to dance around naked whilst whistling yankee doodle and trying to click the left button on the third sunday after a full moon, so why am I testing it ?'. On the other hand, I didn't try that last one. If it happens that a program breaks and all the above are in fact the trigger case, then I'm really sorry and I'll just have to be blamed by everyone in the world for not testing it.

On last night's subject of uber-beings who want to create coincidences for me, I was pondering. What exactly might the uber-being want to tell me ? And what sort of uber-being is this that's trying to tell me something ? Is it a nice uber-being ? Or an evil uber-being ? Or a bored uber-being who's been told by their parents that they're grounded in their room so all they can do is play with their toy world and, in particular, me ? It could happen. I don't know what uber-beings get up to. Other than making coincidences for me to worry about. Would asking for one more sign from the uber-being be too much ? I mean, if it happened, I'd be seriously having to think about believing in such a thing, rather than just thinking that there's a possibility of there being some uber-being. And if it didn't that doesn't negate the 4 'random' events.

Maybe it's not an uber-being. Maybe it's just a human person directing things. That'd be weird though. I'm thinking that a human suggesting that people contact me would be weird, but that some uber-being orchestrating things would be almost believable ? Ok, that's not sane.

I don't really know what I think really. Almost like I don't know what I think about Caroline. Maybe there's the connection. No, that's just seeing things where you want to. I could really get myself in a mess there if I'm not careful.

I spoke to Chris today and told him about my bizarre week. I'm not sure he thinks it's as odd as I do, but it's been very strange. He did point out some very obvious things in a far plainer way than I'd thought of them. Hey, at least someone around here's reasonably sane.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

15 Oct 2006 (Sunday) 

Simon's phone rang me twice at 8 this morning. He's having some problems trying to lock it, it seems. But it's a little frustrating to race around to the phone and it to just be him. At that time it's usually something important if someone rings me. Um, I don't mean 'just be him'. I mean 'just be his phone accidentally ringing'. Oops.

Julian's suggested to me that it's 'Maths' in the UK, and 'Math' in the US. I sort of thought that might be the case, but was loathe to say so in case it just happened that it was my own experience in places that happened to say it was 'Maths' and not 'Math'.

I've just found an earlier entry for 1st September which had got lost. Nothing special.

Today I've actually fixed a pretty obscure bug. A really obscure bug, to be brutally honest. It would have taken quite a while to find, I think. But the person reporting it provided every piece of information necessary to locate it and fix it straight off. It's just great when you actually get all the information you need. And far greater that I actually did all the work to make it possible to get the information that I needed out. The gains that you can get through having a usable diagnostic system are quite nice to reap. Or some sentence like that which makes sense.

I shouldn't be worrying myself really. But I am. Ok well...

Late at night is when you have ideas. Important ideas. Stupid ideas. Big ideas. I'm not sure how you can tell which are which, though. Tonight's idea was that I could draw a line under some things. Not a 'final' line, if you like, but an 'accepting' line. Rather than trying to fight the fact that things are as they are, just try to accept that. Without any other sort of attachments. I'm not sure if that's a sensible idea or the ravings of a mad man. I'd be happy to accept either at the moment.

I was looking through some emails earlier - earlier ones, sent over a year ago, or rather composed over a year ago and never sent. There's some weird ones in there. Rants about unimportant things on comp.sys.acorn.*. Explanations of things that didn't seem so important after they were written. Private mails and public postings, all jumbled together as a mish-mash of unfinished works. Not quite true; most of them are finished but postponed because I don't trust myself to say things. Usually for good reason - when people post cack I tend to be quite strong in my language. There's a few quite balanced ones in there, too, though. It makes me wonder why at the time I didn't post, or email, them. I guess it may come down to redundancy - someone else may have said the same or flatly contradicted something I'd written (correctly, so it would have looked stupid to post!). There's a few of those.

Someone, somewhere I was reading a few days ago pointed out a nice reference into Proverbs. Let's see if I can find it... There's a pair of them together:

27: He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. 28: Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. [ Useful advice; Proverbs, King James Bible ]

Which seems quite good advice really, and something I should probably pay attention to. That said, of course, it's often useful to speak up, because not saying something can make you even more of a fool.

However all this rambling has merely directed me away from the fact that I said I was going to write some other things today. And now I'm not 'cos I've had my half hour writing things this evening and should be going to be. Really.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

14 Oct 2006 (Saturday) 

So I'm presuming, of course, that this actually is a party. It's not... anything else. 'cos that's the main thought that was floating through my head this morning. I know it shouldn't really be any worry. It's just a party.

Day after day, night after night, Under a bloody sky Bullets fall like rain I'm caught in the cross-fire Of mad men, fear and lies This is no honeymoon picture postcard, I'm sending from the battlelines [ Shelter, from What Goes Around, by Celtus ]

I didn't have the lyrics to that lying around, so I wrote them out whilst listening to it. It's a lovely track, but it's upsetting.

It's funny how you're walking around sometimes - well, pacing - and a thought strikes you and suddenly you can't breath properly and you just feel completely unable to do things until you've sat down and taken a lot of deep breaths. Well, it's not actually funny, but it's just really odd that these things happen. There shouldn't be things like that which leave you in that state, should there ? I'm not sure if there's even a name for it.

I was thinking this evening, if I'm really worried about that sort of thing I could just ring and ask. Of course that would mean actually speaking words and stuff, but I could just ask. Like normal people do.

This has always bothered me. I say 'maths'. That's what the subject is. It's a contraction of 'mathematics'. The base is a plural, so the contraction is a plural. So is this just me, or is it common to use the word 'maths' to mean that subject ? 'cos I seem to be seeing, or maybe hearing, 'math' used a lot.

Found from somewhere, Big Dead Place seems to be an interesting introduction the McMurdo station in Antarctica. Quite an amusing main page.

Something is very wrong. I don't know what it is but it's wrong. I've just had an email from Alistair. So that means that in the space of a week I've had 4 emails from people from my past. I'm almost thinking that some higher power is trying to tell me 'you don't believe in coincidences ? let's see you not believe in this!'. Almost.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

13 Oct 2006 (Friday) 

I woke up this morning incredibly angry at a few people. I just knew that if I saw them I'd be liable to say things that probably weren't very nice - true, but not nice. Loudly. But, after a little while, I realised that it's only my fear that I might say what's in my head, rather than my being likely to say anything. Because what would happen would be that I'd just try to be pleasant if a little curt and then leave it at that.

It's like that feeling that you get when you're standing on top of something high - that "Oh my god, what if I were to just step out right now". Or walking down the road and thinking "If I stepped out on to the road... that'd hurt... and I'd bounce over there and I'd probably want to think of something cool to say when people come to me like 'yeah, I'm fine, my legs usually bend like that'". That sort of feeling. The fear that you might do something really, really stupid.

Of course, the fear of doing something really stupid is what keeps me being me. Oh, and of course the fact that I'm unique. Hey, that reminds me...

You're not like other people, are you gerph ? [ Unique ?; Ian ]

This was in response to my suggestion that to get rid of trick-or-treaters (without losing windows), he set up the console downstairs and challenge every one to a game - if they beat him they gets sweets. If not then they had to give him sweets. Ian's good. They wouldn't come back next year. But then he says I'm different for a whole load of reasons. Actually, Chris said the same and I think Jogu agreed. One of the nicest things that someone ever said to me was that I could always surprise them. Being unique because that's how you think isn't that hard when you can just be yourself, but if you have to surprise someone it becomes a bit more difficult. Not because you have to think of something to surprise them with - that comes easy because you just do what you do and it comes over as surprising - but because you have to remember whether you've done that thing before.

Anyhow, I calmed down over being angry because I'm pretty sure I'm not actually going to be angry at people. And, of course, since I don't drink it's not likely that I'll get angry anyhow. There's always a first time, though. Maybe I'd just snap and all that anger that I've been putting on one side will just explode and there'll be pieces of Justin over the walls. That's be messy. It's not likely. But it could happen. Maybe if I drank some explosive liquids before hand. Like when I got worked up I could actually explode. Now there's a cool way do get your explosives on to a plane. Like smuggling drugs only you're wanting the bag enclosing the explosives to break so that your stomach acid provides a catalyst for an explosion. Make sure you sit by a wing.

Hell, it beats putting a crate load of snakes on board.

Anyhow, I've been back and forth on this party thing. I know I'm going to go, regardless of what it 'means'. It doesn't mean anything really. "I know, it's only in my head", and that's where it should stay. Whatever else there may be, I can't lose what's in my head so that's what I have to hold on to.

Which sounds quite abstract really. I was looking back at things a little while back and it seems that a lot of what I write here is... strange, I think is the word I want to use. Anyhow, I think I should make something of an effort to try to say what it is that I mean rather than being obscure. Coo, another word that I can use there that begins with 'ob'. Sometimes when I think what I want to say here it's all clear and then I come to write... gawd, I'm sounding whiney... Well, more so than usual.

A little while back - possibly yesterday, I'm not sure - Dad expressed surprise that Julian managed to write 12 paragraphs for one of his little diary entries. It's not all that hard, really. You just start writing and sometimes you get something useful. Been a while since I said much that was useful.

I've got a number of things to finish writing sometime soon. They're a year or so overdue. One of them way annoyingly wrong in design which ... hang on, I'm doing it again. I'm being obscure with no need. Ok, let's try that again... I have some stories I started writing last year or earlier and I should really try to finish them. I want to do a little bound book. Nothing special, but that's what I'd like. It's going to be a bit naff but that doesn't matter because... well, it doesn't, ok ?

Tomorrow I think I may talk about 'bland'. Somehow it's got to be 1:30am and I said yesterday that I wouldn't let that happen. Damn.

Hey, I've just realised I've done a long entry without any song quote. Well, so long as you don't count the 'Round Here' inline reference. So don't count that.

Oh and the other thing to talk about is 'giggling'. Let's see whether I remember to write some words on either of those tomorrow. Neither is actually important, but they should be written. Ok. Bed. Really and truly. Why's 'truly' not got an 'e' in it ?

Return to top | Comment on the diary

12 Oct 2006 (Thursday) 

So I replied today to say I'd go to this party. I'm already regretting it, and wanting to go. I was going to write this long thing that said something worth while, but it's now 2am which is far later than I meant to stay up. I shall definately try to be better tomorrow.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

11 Oct 2006 (Wednesday) 

I really don't believe in coincidences. In the grand randomness of the world, coincidences shouldn't happen. I think I've said this before. But I'm disturbed when they do, because I have to think that if coincidences don't just happen, and there's "nobody" else to actually direct the events to happen seemingly coincidentally, then the only answer is that there must be an external entity directing them. A god or fate or whatever. And I don't believe in that. So we have this clash of the two beliefs. I don't know which I'll have to actually follow.

It's easy to bundle things together that might otherwise be unrelated. If I receive an email from someone I've not heard from in ages, and then one from another person that I've also not heard from in ages, and there's been nothing from anyone like that for a long time, then is that a coincidence ? I'm not sure.

But if - as I was yesterday - I'm having a shower and being resolved that I'm going to ring someone (who I've not spoken to in a while, and who hasn't spoken to me in longer) and then I get back to the computer to find that I've got an email from them... When you bundle that with other coincidences that have happened, you just can't accept that they're all purely random. Well, I find it hard to.

It doesn't help that if you go looking for these things you see them. I used to joke that there was a god, but he hates me. I don't believe in much, but I know what I see and I don't like the fact that coincidences happen in such a way that they're pushing me to believe in something that I can't believe in.

Anyhow, I've been invited to a birthday party, which I'm probably going to go to. It's going to be so very scary, but since when was anything worthwhile not ?

The diary for last month was seemingly broken when I looked through it on Tuesday. I had accidentally left it pointing at the current month, rather than being updated for the previous one. Fixed now, but I know a few people were looking for things in there and won't have found anything useful. Not that there's much going on anyhow.

Be careful they say "Don't wish life away", Now I've one day, And I can't believe How I've been wasting my time [ 24, from Finally Woken, by Jem ]

I'm pretty sure that I heard the backing for 24 being used on one of the Sky adverts whilst we were watching Eureka this evening. Very strange to hear, or maybe I'm just hearing things that aren't there.

Please tell me why I still recall Know it has to be good It wouldn't be so hard if I Were not so frightened for you [ Stuck Between, from Voices In My Head, by Riverside ]

Return to top | Comment on the diary

8 Oct 2006 (Sunday) 

I bought myself a TFT monitor last week. Actually it arrived on Tuesday. Since I've had Simon's old AKF60 on the PC I've had a lot of headaches. Partly due, I think, to the fact that it's always in the corner of my vision and has an attrocious frame rate. So I've got a TFT to replace it now. The PC's gone from having the worst display to the second best (the VMPro 410 still wins there), so up one place. It takes less room, but since I'm not short on desk space, that's not a problem. That said, I probably ought to tidy the other side of the desk. Its beginning to pile up again.

Oh, and my mobile beeped at me with a message today and since I never get any messages on it, I jumped, hoping that it was something important. Expecting, even. Only it was just a Vodaphone message about something or other completely immemorable. That was a little annoying.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

7 Oct 2006 (Saturday) 

Julian gave me a birthday present today. He got me the Mr Benn series and the directors version of The Frighteners.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

6 Oct 2006 (Friday) 

I had a dream last night that seemed to be quite interesting. Aside from the usual Caroline-ness which is all-pervading, I was going to get the timetable for my classes over the year and found that I had none. Because I had no idea how that worked, I went and asked what the deal was. It turned out there were no scheduled lectures. Everything was intended to be done in your own time, with support available from the course leaders as necessary. Which sort of begs the question why we're at uni rather than at home, but only now that I'm awake. However, the first assignment we were to do was the interesting bit (aside from the whole finding where I was living and meeting flatmates and stuff).

The first assignment we were given was to obtain, within a week, a couple of items from other people on the course. The item, or service to be obtained was different per person, and the person you had to obtain it from was different. This meant that everyone had to deal with other people on the course to obtain things (like getting a ruler off them, etc), and had to get them to actually sign the course papers with a code number they were given to prove they weren't cheating. Initially it wasn't too bad, but it had the interesting effect that some people couldn't be bothered, and instead of trying to do the assignment, bartered with the assignment as an additional item - that is, they said "I'll give you item, if you obtain item from person". Or, in one case "I promise to give you ...", which lead to people changing their minds towards the end of the week and wanting more out of people for it.

All of which was quite interesting from the point of view of how what was necessary to get the assignment done. What could have easily been a 'here you go, and there's the number' down the bar, became a form of leverage because people needed particular items and there was no way to get them, and thus complete the course, without dealing with these people. Not entirely unlike life, but I reckon that would make an excellent assignment in terms of diplomacy. Of course, if - like our classes - most people in the class were completely apathetic, it would all break down. Maybe it would be made more interesting if the rules also included that you weren't allowed to trade with certain individuals. Then certain transactions would have to take place by proxy...

And I've just remembered that at some point in my dream I asked Caroline for some beetroot. That's really odd.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

1 Oct 2006 (Sunday) 

Looks like Bunny has Defcon, too.

Return to top | Comment on the diary