After I'd finished lunch this afternoon, the following ditty came into
my head. To the tune of All Out Of Love , by
Air Supply ...
I spent quite a while this evening talking to Sue about a few things.
She's really nice to chat to when I'm feeling crappy.
Simon came home early this evening, upset. So... I'm not sure what's
going on there, but he'll talk when he's feeling up to it I'm sure.
I've found out what it is that's making an annoying hum in my room now.
It's the bass speaker. It's really really annoying now that I know.
Simon got in today and then popped straight back out to Heather's. For some
reason that defies... um... reason... they like to watch East Enders. It
takes all sorts I suppose. So I've done not a lot again today except try to
be reasonably relaxed. My toe's not so tender today and my leg's less sore.
I did remember, when I woke up this morning, that I stepped down two steps
last night thinking it was one, giving myself a little scare. That may be
why my leg's sore .
I spent an age on the phone to Andrew today; with subjects as far ranging as
the new job, the state of the NHS, Marillion albums, Caroline, weeding, and
the state of the world in general. "It's good to talk!"
I've also written a tiny little bit of perl to process CDDB files more
generically. Because I've had a semi-working version for a bit, but it's
never been quite right. So I've re-written it from scratch. Hopefully
it'll be more suitable now.
I've just finished making tea for tomorrow and stuck it in the fridge, so I
think I'll go to bed in a few minutes. I think I'm hungry. I should probably
buy something or other that I can nibble on when I'm hungry like this.
Something like the bourbon creams that I've got sitting in a box beside me.
Hmm.
Somehow, during making lunch today, I managed to take a lump of skin off my
arm. Not sure if it was a burn or just catching it on something, but it
doesn't half hurt.
"Microsoft has been unable to contact the manufacturer and has no further
information available at this time." These are the words written on the
Microsoft error reporting page for a crash I just had. Microsoft recommends
that I contact the manufacturer and handily gives me their website address.
Now, let's be completely clear about this. Microsoft - a pretty huge company
- tried to contact the Valve Corporation - a reasonably large company - and
claims to have been unsuccessful. I for one feel that this is an outright
lie. If Microsoft can't get any response from Valve then I'm a headless
chicken. But, let's for a second assume that I am indeed poultry with a
disassociated head problem. If we assume this then their recommendation that
I, myself - a solitary user - may be able to get a fix from Valve where they
- the huge corporation with a reasonable amount of clout - have failed. It
seems... unbelievable.
Last day of the month tomorrow. Which means I'll have been working here for
a whole month. It's quite exciting really. It's not like it's truely
important, but it's fun, I get stuff done and in general it seems to be
working out.
Right. Bed time now.
It's a Saturday, so I've had a lazy day. I wandered into town and bought
myself a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, 'cos I'd finished
Order of the Phoenix last night.
Now I've got home I've got a sore leg. Which reminds me that I've got a sore
toe. It's been a little sore and swollen (not much, just tender) for a
couple of days and I think I must have dropped something on it at some point
- I don't remember, but that doesn't mean much because my memory's poor. But
the fact that my leg's sore draws my attention to it. I don't reckon they're
related - it's probably because I don't do a lot of walking, and with my toe
being a little sore I'm walking a little awkwardly which makes my leg hurt.
Plus, I've just been watching
House (2004, FOX)DramaGo deeper into the medical mysteries of House, TV's most compelling drama. Hugh Laurie stars as the brilliant but sarcastic Dr. Gregory House, a maverick physician who is devoid of bedside manner. While his behavior can border on antisocial, Dr. House thrives on the challenge of solving the medical puzzles that other doctors give up on. Together with his hand-picked team of young medical experts, he'll do whatever it takes in the race against the clock to solve the case.House, which never helps when you know
something's sore .
Spoke to mum this evening; they're back from holiday now. She was a little
surprised that I had a picture of
Barry Manilow on my
diary - it's all automatic; I make a quote from an artist's album and I get
the album cover stuck beside it. I think it looks quite cool really.
Oh, and I made myself a new
WeeMee. Now I want
to be clear that this is all Caroline's fault, because she wanted me to have
a smile on my picture. Only thing is that I've now lost
my teddy.
I couldn't find a teddy anywhere on the WeeMee site at all. Oh well.
I even had to install Flash to create it. So now I'l have to uninstall flash
to get back to a sane Internet.
A tiny bit of
research this morning implies that Mandy , by
Barry Manilow was a cover of a track called Brandy , by
Scott English . Amusing.
There was a lovely crash at the crossroad at the end of our street. Two
cars appear to have tried to cross at the same time and crashed right in
the middle of the junction. When I got there, there were two policemen
directing traffic and two other police cars just arriving. It looked a
little bit 'fun'. Then, when I was crossing the road further down the
street one of the vans waiting at the lights revved his engine a lot and
scared the hell out of me.
Apparently at Caroline's work today they're having a Harry Potter day
and people are all dressed up in costume and stuff. How cool .
Still got no idea what to do at the weekend, but... well, no matter. I'll
just have to do nothing I guess.
I woke up a little late this morning. I blame Harry Potter. Not me. No,
it's not my fault for not getting up straight away. No. It's a fictional
character's fault. Yeah, that's right.
It's not helped that I still tend to wake up feeling annoyed. Grr.
As I was sitting in work, staring into space... sorry, concentrating
intently whilst the 5 minute build did its job... it occurred to me that
it's quite understandable that I tend to feel frustrated. I'm fighting a
constant battle between what I want and ... well, reality, basically. And
since they're diametricly opposing, it's obviously going to be a problem.
Oh no! A few days ago I had a track in my head and I didn't know what it
was. The only thing I could remember from it was 'you came and you gave
without taking' but that was it. I discovered this evening that it's a
Westlife track called Mandy . That shamed me. I
mentioned it to Simon and he told me it was a cover. Momentarily I was quite
happy. Then he told me it was a
Barry Manilow track
originally. I'm pretty sure that's better than it just being Westlife, but
not by much. That said, I've listened to it (the original) a few times
tonight and I do still like it.
Oh dear. I tried listening to All Out Of Love , by
Westlife . It's... no...
it's got
Delta Goodrem
singing with them which is neat, and although it still makes me sad, it's not
the same. But worse, I tried to listen to Total Eclipse Of The Heart , by
Westlife
and it's just so wrong. There is only the
Bonnie Tyler version, I'm afraid.
Little heavy on the music tonight. On the plus side I've discovered that
'oe-ligature' isn't actually part of ISO-8859-1 - blame Bonnie Tyler's
french version, above, and Opera for that. I noticed that 'coeur' (with the
oe-ligature) wasn't displayed properly, despite the page being declared as
that character set. Turns out it's not actually part of the official set. So
I've expanded it now.
Too tired to think about anything much today. Might write more tomorrow.
Something about APIs, maybe, as that's what Chris and I were talking about
this evening.
Nothing much to say today; I tried to call Caroline, but she's not around.
Oh well. Oooh... she rang me back and said she might try to ring when she
got home. Whee!
Spoke to Julian this evening, too, which was nice - I've not spoken to
him in ages it seems. And I got to chat to Sue this evening as well.
It's been a quite talky evening . I was just getting in to bed
after chatting to Caroline and Sue turned up on Skype so I had a chat to
her as well.
Damn; I've just remembered I'd promised Caroline that I'd change my
little picture of myself on Skype, at least so that I had a smile. I'm
not really that sure I can put a smile on just yet.
There's a party going on next door. Either that or they just like their
music really loud. There's been a few things playing that I kinda
recognise, but I definitely recognise bits of Pet Shop Boys now.
Damn, I was going to suggest that Caroline might like to pop over this
way as she's nearby. I'd have doubted she'd have been able to, as it's
still a reasonable distance and she'd no doubt want to get home, but
still... Oh well.
I was dreaming last night about being tested on something or other. Against
another group we had to stay hidden from those doing the testing. We were in
the fens, so we grabbed a boat, turned it upside down and covered it in
camouflage and then set ourselves adrift in the water. And then decided that
was a silly idea because we'd still be seen from the air and decided that
the best idea was to check in to a hotel instead. It was a little odd.
Great, now Build Me Up Buttercup , by
The Foundations
is floating around my head.
Nothing much to say about today. I think it's been an ok day all told.
I've got this vague foreboding feeling, but nothing I can quite put my
finger on right now. Not feeling quite so frustrated today, which is
good. At least, not in the same way.
Haven't achieved much at all today. Nope. Not a lot to say.
I've been quite a lazy person today. Just washing stuff and watching a film.
I saw "Night At The Museum (2006)Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy In New York, unemployed and divorced Larry Daley is a complete loser. His son Nick is very disappointed with his father who is going to be evicted. Larry accepts the job of night watchman in the Museum of Natural History and takes the place of three old security guards that have just retired in order to raise some money and pay his bills. On his first shift, Larry soon realizes that everything at the museum is not as it seems as the statues begin to come to life after the sun sets. The Museum transforms into complete chaos with the inexperienced Larry in charge as he learns that an old Egyptian stone that came to the Museum in 1950 brings these statues to life until dawn. When Larry brings his son to spend a night with him, the three old guards break into the Museum to try to steal the magical stone. Larry organizes all the historic characters to help him stop the criminals and save the museum.Night At The Museum"
. Simon said it could be quite awful, but I thought
that the tiny, tiny, tiny amount that I knew about it meant it could be fun.
It was really good and I'd watch it again some other time, definitely.
There will now be a short musical interlude.
You know, I'm wondering now if I even own a CD copy of Innocent Eyes . Ooh, yes
I do. Happy, happy, joy, joy. I had forgotten how much I like that album.
Spoke very briefly to Caroline earlier. Fortunately I was in a good mood, so
I had a quite fun chat in olde-english (ish). It might not be that great,
but it was fun at the time .
I can't help it; I love the first of those lines. The rhythm is lovely.
Simon's out tonight seeing Heather, so I'm on my own again. However, that
said, I'm going to bed soon so it won't really matter that much.
I've just had another chat with Caroline this evening, so I feel quite
nice going to bed now.
Helen's doing the Marathon tomorrow, so I wish her all the best. Keep on
running, girl .
I was dreaming about walking along the beach, with Caroline last night.
The tide was coming in quickly, and we nearly got trapped.
I shouldn't be annoyed today, but I am. It's just not right.
Oh well.
Quotes taken out of context are always amusing.
![[Quote]](../images/quoteleft.gif) |
Frogs are not parallel lines.
[ Frogs; Ian; Talker ]
|
![[Quote]](../images/quoteright.gif) |
![[Quote]](../images/quoteleft.gif) |
Infinity is a lovely concept, but is, frankly, horseshit
[ Infinity; Heds; Talker ]
|
![[Quote]](../images/quoteright.gif) |
![[Quote]](../images/quoteleft.gif) |
Dammit. I thought fractals had a Hasselhoff dimension.
It's actually Hausdorff
[ Fractals; Mnem; Talker ]
|
![[Quote]](../images/quoteright.gif) |
I had a nice chance to talk to Caroline earlier today, which was
surprisingly fun. I'd woken up this morning with the same sort of annoyances
in my head as when I went to sleep. But she cheered me up a bit anyhow.
It being Thursday, I now have to decide what I'm doing for the weekend -
because otherwise it'll get to the weekend and I'll have nothing decided. So
I've got to decide what I want to do with myself. Like, set myself a task.
Not sure what. Mum and dad are away; so it's not like I could pop home. I'm
still not sure what, so I'll just hope that I think of something before
then.
I've managed to bite one of my nails rather a lot today. Mainly from
being frustrated over stuff. It's just a little bit of a readjustment,
that's all. One that's never been easy to do, but I really - yeah,
really - need to do.
Watching telly this evening with Simon, though, triggered something of a
dream. I was visiting someone in a quite strange town - not somewhere I
knew, but in the dream it was all quite familiar. I was staying at a
small hotel down a side street, and went out for some food with friends
to a little restaurant which was hidden away down another street. It was
a lovelly little place, and we had a lovely time. The next day I went
back on my own, because I was meeting someone there. They never turned
up, and I was on my own for a long time. I went back to the hotel and
went to bed. That's about all I remember.
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. It was only a few seconds
before I remembered the previous night and felt a bit worse. I felt
less ill than I did yesterday, which is a huge bonus. I got out of the
shower having sort of drifted towards the conclusion that I should just
cut my losses and give up. Whatever else I may think, it seems to be the
most logical thing to do. Logic, however, tends to take a holiday when
I'm feeling bad, so I'm going to defer any sort of thinking on those
lines until I'm feeling a bit better.
Walking home, I began to wonder what the big deal was with that comment,
this morning. But it is a big deal really, even when I'm feeling a bit
better, I can still see that. Let's see how things look in a few days.
I'm tired now, 'cos I'm getting angry at things. I should go to
bed.
I feel like... something bad. I hate being ill. I've not slept today;
other than the couple of hours sleep I managed between my alarm going
off and waking up and thinking 'Damn, I should be in work'.
When I'm ill I start asking silly questions. Like 'why am I here ?' and
'why am I not doing what I want ?'. Those kind of questions just have no
useful answer; or rather they have no answer which is any more clear
than the justifications I've offered myself in the past. Plus the
questions always seem to be circular. Fortunately, as I write this, I'm
feeling quite a bit better this evening, so I won't go off on rants
about such things. Still, there were a lot of them today, and they make
me sad.
Actually I think I'm feeling a lot better now because I'm not sure I can
even remember how the thoughts went over the last couple of days. Things
are never quite rational you're half-awake, and might sound a little odd
- hopefully I've not disturbed Simon too much if I've said anything odd
.
Of course there's always the frustrating thoughts that you're merely
counting out the days until you die, and that's really not a comforting
thought when you're feeling rotten anyhow.
I rang Caroline a few minutes ago, and feel a little better from talking
to her. Fortunately it seems that I didn't send anything to her on
Sunday night, so I must have been imagining it in my half-waking state.
Which is probably a really good thing, because I probably
wouldn't have come off well. There are good reasons why I don't just
call here whenever I want to .
Now I'm going to go to bed, determined to feel good about the fact that
I've spoken to Caroline and not bad about the fact that I'm not now
speaking to Caroline . And obviously trying not to feel ill.
That'd be good too.
Actually, thinking about it (and clearly I'm not thinking quite
rationally because this should have been top of the list) I probably
ought to be determined to sleep, given the lack that I've had recently.
I've got an awful cold today; I managed to get about an hour and a
half's sleep last night. I think I remember sending an SMS to Caroline
at about 3am, which, given how fuzzy my head was at the time, might be
a little bit embarassing. Of course, I might have just dreamt that.
The many, many times I was waking up last night the only thing that
filled my mind was I'll be there for you , by
Bon Jovi .
When I'm tired and brain addled (not sure that's a phrase but it'll do)
I tend to say or think stuff that I'd usually not, so I being unwell
isn't all that good for my sanity.
My eyes are stinging like mad tonight. Simon's been really nice this
evening. Not that he's not usually, but it's appreciated anyhow.
We had the guy in from Standard Life to organise company pensions
at work today. So that's quite nice.
What else today ? I can't really find the energy to do much, so I'm just
sitting in bed now. Oh, and the new phones arrived, so we can now have a
phone in each room. Whee. It's nearly 9pm and I'm knackered so I may
sleep.
Helen's going to be running in the London marathon next week as a big
blue stress ball thing.
Sponsor
her, and feel good about yourself. Or something
I've got a little bit of a cold today. I reckon that my body heard me saying
that I didn't know what to do with myself and decided 'I know, I can be
ill'. Bah.
Mmmm... Sweets.
Coo. It looks like last Friday was Friday the 13th. And I didn't even
notice. Heh.
I meant to only read the first chapter of Order Of The Phoenix last night.
I ended up reading about 100 pages, 'cos it was so good. Bah.
I dreamt a lot last night, or maybe I just remember bits because I was
waking up regularly feeling bad. I remember dreaming initially that
Voldemort had captured Harry and was tormenting him in a strange room
in an old house, and everyone that came to visit him at the Dursley's
were transported to the room and thought that everything was normal.
Voldemort was just testing Harry to see what his reactions would be to
certain things, so that he could better react to them. Very odd.
The second one was only a small snippet that I remember. Just sitting
upstairs and falling asleep watching something on the telly with
Caroline there. Aww.
Must sleep now; still feeling pretty full of cold and icky. Might try to
read a little more of Order, but certainly not as much as last night.
I decided to do a Debian update today and noticed that there's a whole lot
of updated components - because they've upped stable to the next version
along ('Etch', from 'Sarge'). So I decided to try the upgrade. Not too bad,
only it didn't upgrade my Kernel, so I had to do this manually. I wouldn't
have bothered, except that Squid won't run on a 2.4 kernel as supplied by
Debian, because they don't support 2.4 kernels . Upgrading to 2.6
kernel was reasonably painless and everything worked - except
for the SpeedTouch modem driver, which couldn't find the firmware drivers.
That made things a little tricky, because I couldn't make the firmware
work without the Internet. In the end I plugged the modem into the laptop
and used that to get the necessary firmware creation tool. A lot
of faffing to get things to work.
After all that, I went out to town to buy myself a copy of The Order Of The
Phoenix - surprisingly, they didn't have a copy at Smiths. Waterstones had
a copy, though. So, I start on that tonight. Might take me a while.
Whilst walking through The Oracle for the past couple of weeks, I've had the
above lyric floating around my head - quite apart from liking the track
itself. The lyrics start around 7 minutes into the track (it's a multi-part
track, like they do ), so it was actually hard to find just now. But
I realised whilst I was wandering around HMV trying to find the album, that
the whole reason the it comes to me unbidden (yeah, I just wanted to use
that word) is that there's signs for 'Riverside' around the place, because
that's the region outside the Oracle. Silly that I hadn't realised that
before.
Whilst wandering home, the main riff from Satellite , by
The Hooters came into my head and I couldn't remember what it
was from - obviously I found out after I got home. I remember the track
from years ago, and I said to Simon that I thought it was from around the
time I was at Uni, like around '95-'98. My reasoning was that I didn't
think it was from when I was at Sixth form, because I'd remember it more as
a strong association with that period, and it didn't feel like it was older
than that. And it felt like I would have heard it whilst at University.
However, I was wong. By quite a bit - it's from '87 apparently. Which means
that I'd have been 9. A year before my first diary entry, even - I would
have been in Mrs Wild's class at primary school, I think.
Now the thing that's bothering me is that I'm not sure whether the track's
meant ironicly, or in earnest. The lyrics are really quite neat either
way around. Although it's actually quite a strong track, the lyrics are
definitely leaning toward an anti-evangelist stance. If you skipped out (or
changed) two or three lines, though, it could easily just be a regular
pro-religous track. The guy who wrote it, Eric Bazilian, wrote lots of
things for lots of people, most notably to me, Kiss The Rain , from Growing, Pains , by
Billie Myers .
Also whilst wandering home I had a mild ponder over the 'not doing stuff
because it turns out bad' attitude that I tend to have. Didn't come to any
particular insight, or have anything major to say about it, but it amused
me for a bit. In the sense that I obviously don't like that sort of thing
and really want to be able to just do stuff impulsively. Ish. But not
if it's going to go wrong. So I don't want to do things impulsively right
now. That said, I was being quite extravagent for me, a few days ago, when I
was trying to plan stuff 13 years ahead. Well, not particularly sane stuff,
but still.
A few days ago - and I no longer remember why, although it's possible it was
whilst I was chatting to Chris - I remembered a track that I heard once,
long ago. I don't think I ever heard it more than once, but it stuck in my
mind every and every once in a while surfaced. The track is No Charge , by
J J Barrie , and it's a bit sickly sweet,
but that doesn't mean it's not actually quite good.
And finally, whilst I remember, I was dreaming last night that Caroline was
shouting at someone. I don't think it was me - I hope it wasn't anyhow - but
I'm not sure who it was, or what it was. It's rare that she's ever angry in
my dreams, so it was a little bothersome this morning.
Overall today, I still didn't know what to do with myself, but I seem to have
used up the whole day anyhow.
One other thing before I toddle off to bed. Ian mentioned a route from
Anchorage
to Athens on Google Maps. In particular, items of interest are
item 8 and 57. In case the route is changed in the future, item 8 is
'Continue straight on to Alaska Hwy - 1,169 miles', which is reasonably
amusing for its length. Item 57 knocks that into a cocked hat (a lovely
phrase that I really hope I've used right).
For item 57 you leave the United States and travel to Europe. Its
description ? "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean - 3,462 miles". Now which
is more bogglesome - that it suggests you swim a body of water, or that
the distance is over three thousand miles ?
I presume that it's all to do with the fact that it's got to have a
connection between the two regions and we might as well do it with a
swim - after all, there's no sane reason that you'd ask for a route from
one side of the world to the other (if you were really interested in
doing it you'd know where you were going to go - you'd decide you were
flying, or going by boat or whatever and determine your entry and exit
points appropriately). So the link might as well be a short swim.
It seems that this has been around for a while, but it's fun
nonetheless.
I finished Goblet Of Fire last night. I'm not sure that I should have, but I
kept on going 'just another few pages', so it was about 2am before I got
to
sleep.
That's my first week done now. It's been ok, and I've survived, so that's
good.
I spoke very briefly to Caroline this evening and she seems ok, so that's
good too.
I've got no idea what to do with myself tomorrow or Sunday. I'm
sure I'll work something out, but it's still a little strange.
Having just spoken to Caroline, I'm off to bed now. I've got nothing to
do really, so I may as well sleep. Me and Sam are going to cuddle up and
have a nice sleep. Or, more likely, I'm going to lie here unable to
sleep for the next few hours. Either way, at least I'm in the right
place.
Oh, and just before I forget, Friday was free lunch at work day, which
was neat. And free doughnuts, too.
I woke up with a headache this morning and although it easiest through
the day with tablets, it was back in full flow by 5pm and I decided to
go home. It just hurts . Fortunately this evening it's gone.
Aside from a huge headache, I'm not sure there's much else to tell today.
I'm a little worried about how tight money will be at the end of the month,
but I think everything will be just fine. In fact I'm pretty sure that I'm
being unnecessarily concerned, but still it's one of those things that tends
to bother me.
I managed to read a tiny amount - about half a chapter - of Goblet of Fire
last night before I just had to sleep. I don't think I'll be reading too
much more than that tonight either. It's not that it's not fun, but I'm just
tired at the moment. I think it's more the case that it's a different work
pattern to being on my own that makes things seem more tiring.
I found myself doing a load of maths in my head a few days ago, trying to
work out some long term plans and stuff. It's a little tricky, and a bit
scary, even working with rough numbers. It's amusing though, even if it is
just playing with numbers. Related to that, I was asking some friends what
they use when they need to do calculations, 'cos I tend to use 'brandy' (a
BBC BASIC interpreter). Apparently it's mainly bash or bc that people use.
Mobuzz TV is back today, it seems, but I've not felt like catching up with
the last few days yet. Little bit of a new look, but most noticeably the
RSS feeds have moved again.
Having only 20G of music at work is a problem. Only because it means that
sometimes there just won't be the tracks I want to listen to there. Like
today I wanted to listen to Crush , by
Jennifer Paige
because it runs on from Finally Woken , by
Jem . Only I
don't have it there. Oh well.
Oh, and I spoke to Angela this evening - finally getting a chance to wish
her a happy birthday. She seems well, albeit a little bit anxious about the
wedding coming up.
I had a nice little dream about Caroline last night, visiting her in the
somewhat stylised town that she lives in in my dreams. It was all kinda
fun. We went to the sea-side.
I've bought myself some new headphones for work - my little in-the-ear
headphones are just too short and don't really work well at my desk. So
I've got some ok-ish ones that'll do me for a bit. At least until I get
fed up with them and have to find some more.
It's been day 3 of my 'real work' today. It's all a little strange; trying
to work through little bits so that I can see how things work and what to
do. Plus it's an alien environment - I don't know Windows that well for
development, so using it is a little strange. On the plus side, most things
cross over from other systems pretty well - it's just finding the right way
of doing things. I'm still doing simple things like getting the editor set
up usefully. Not sure I like the editor I'm using, but not a huge deal.
"Eek", said Pooh, as MobuzzTV was down. Looks like it's been down for a bit,
as I've not had any updates on the RSS feed since last week. Wonder what's
happening.
Chris pointed out a very cool thing about Opera (the browser) yesterday.
Say you want to make a specialist search keyword for a site you use a lot.
You would usually go and edit the searches in the configuration and have
to remember how to do that. Tedious. But there's an easier way. Right click
on the text input field and select the 'Create Search' option. This will
fill in the URL section automatically and all you have to do is give it a
name and keyword. And this morning I mentioned this to Simon and he said "I
wonder if Firefox does that"... so we checked, and it does indeed. So that's
pretty damned cute really.
That dream last night quite like the incredibly real ones I've had before,
but it's had it's moments today where I've been - for a moment - thinking
that it was real. Oh well.
It's kinda strange this week. I only get to see Simon for about half an hour
in the morning between hin getting in from work and my setting off for work,
and then for about 2 hours between my getting in from work, and him setting
off. I know we didn't see one another that much before, but still it's
strange.
I was dreaming this morning that I was spending Christmas with Caroline. I
don't know why it was Christmas, but that's what it was. Now that I'm home
from work, I don't remember anything at all else about it except that.
I've had a quite dull day today - first day of 'real' work, now that it's
not a bank holiday.
Tired tonight; going to bed.
Caroline got home safely last night, which is a relief.
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All I want is - you're a little piece of heaven.
[ All I want...; Me ]
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I had a good first day at work today. Got through most of the things I
needed to do quite easily. Had one or two problems with configuring things
oddly, but mostly all was well. Nice people in the office and we went out
for lunch to Pizza Express - it's a bank holiday here, so there weren't many
people around at all. Went home just after 6ish, 'cos I was waiting for a
couple of things to install and was distracted reading things.
I managed to upset Caroline this evening, but I think I settled things
reasonably well with her. I'm not good at getting across what I mean to say
to her. I'm honestly scared that she'll not want to talk to me if I say the
wrong thing. It's all quite silly, but I'm quite a mess when it comes to
talking to her . We did have a nice chat this evening though.
I've got a load of biscuits left over, because Caroline and Jessica didn't
have any. So I may have to go off and eat some.
I'm going to go to bed. I'm tired tonight and I really want to feel
awake for tomorrow. Hopefully I'll sleep.
Windows XP SP2 TCP connection throttling. If you think it's happening, check
the System event logs for event ID 4226. If it's in the log around the time
you're seeing problems, then that's what's happening.
I've just been checking my work email (actually getting Work email to work
with Pine was fun, but not impossible) from home. Since Thursday 5pm, I've
received 299 messages. 90 of them are actual real messages. All the rest are
spam. That's really quite nuts.
Oooh! Caroline's visiting tonight, on the way back from her holiday. It's
so exciting . Actually, I'm sure it'll not be anything much; we'll
just chat and Jessica will be cute (she is) and then she'll go off home. And
then I'll be sad, because she's gone. But that doesn't mean that I won't be
glad she's come anyhow . Yay!
I ended up reading far more than I meant to last night. I'm working my way
through The Goblet Of Fire. I'm just over half way through, and it's quite
exciting . Just 'cos it's a kids book doesn't mean it can't be
exciting.
Well, Caroline and Jessica have gone now. There's not a lot more to say.
I feel awful, and she's got to drive the rest of the way home. I'll just
curl up with Sam and try not to be too upset. That's all I get .
Should I be worried when someone from British Airports Authority starts
searching for 'Justin Fletcher' ? Oh, who cares...
So... How's this for naff ? The KiSS DP-1500 player that I've got won't play
some files. The files it fails on are MPEG-4 XviD files. However, not all
MPEG-4 XviD files fail. The way that they fail is that on selecting such
files the screen blanks and the counter stays at 00:00 forever.
By a lot of manual examination and messing around, it seems that files which
contain the user data 'DivX503b1393p' fail. Those without this
data, or with 'DivX999b000p' work fine. My solution ? Change
the kissd server to check if we're serving the first 64K of the file. If so,
check for the data containing that string. If so, replace the '503' with
'xxx'. That makes things work.
Induction day 5 today. Actually half a day, really. We only did stuff up to
about 12:15, when Pizza arrived. They have Pizza some Fridays (depending on
stuff), and Curry on other Fridays. Apparently the office I'll be working at
goes out for food on Fridays instead. Sounds cool to me. After pizza we went
off to the airport - Storm gave myself and Francis a lift there, which was
incredibly nice of him and not fun given the traffic being insane even on
the short trip from the office to the airport. We got the plane with no
problems, and then the bus back to reading, and... I'm home now. Got back
here by 5, which was exactly what I was hoping for, really.
Overall the course's been good fun and I've enjoyed it. I'm actually unsure
how much I'll remember when it comes to actually doing things, but I believe
that having seen the general process I shouldn't be too scared by the
general principles. Storm reminds me a lot of Mr McKay who taught me for
Computer Science at
Downham Sixth
Form. As an aside, it appears that they no longer offer a Computer
Science course. They offer an ICT course for A-Level, which appears - from
the syllabus - to offer nothing special for people wanting to go in to
computing proper.
In the hotel restaurant there were a few songs being played that I
recognised - Crush , from Jennifer Paige , by
Jennifer Paige ,
and Just A Ride , from Jem , by
Jem immediately
spring to mind. There were a few other tracks that I'd have liked to know
what they were, but for now I'll just live in ignorance.
I'm now about half way through 'The Goblet Of Fire', now. It's good, but
it's hard going because I'm only reading it at night (except when I was
flying, when I could read it whilst on the plane, etc). I must admit to
being surprised that Hermione didn't go to the dance with Ron, or that
Harry didn't go with Ginny. But, there you go, I guess. I do think that
the author has something of a problem with the press, though .
Day 4 of induction today. This is going to be the quite technical, but
I reckon it'll just be a case of remembering things - I've had a look at
some of the documentation already and it seems reasonably sane.
It occurred to me this morning that it was now Thursday and I've not
actually listened to any music since around Sunday afternoon - with the
exception of the music in the restaurants. It's a little strange. But
fortunately I've not actually been all that bothered.
I spoke, for a little while, to Caroline last night; she and Jessica are
having a lovely time on holiday and it seems the weather's been very
kind to them so far. Looking at the forecast for the next few days it
seems like it might be about the same. Apparently they're panning for
gold tomorrow - I wanted to do that when we went down there, but nobody
else did, so we didn't. Bah.
Done with the day, now. We've had a very busy day finishing off
exercises and having the coding standard explained. It's been really
fun. Yeah, really. Exercises to re-inforce the things we've been talking
about and having someone who's very knowledgeable about the subject
matter (or at least makes it seem like they are) makes a big difference.
I've made quite a few comments on things this week, and I hope that the
guy who's been taking the course hasn't been too annoyed by me - I know
I can come over a little bit arrogant at times.
Jogu has given me some 'Crunky' bars today, too. I've tried one of them
and they're quite yummy. I think.
I've been chatting to Phil this evening; which is really strange - I've
not spoken to him for a few months. He's been incredibly busy with
things recently and it certainly looks like he's going up in the world
(well, he's always been way above me anyhow).
Induction day 3 is over and, even with the interruptions we've had for
little things, there's been a lot to remember today. I've got no doubt
that I'll forget a lot of it, but at least it'll give me an idea about
how things are and when I see them for real I'll know what I'm doing.
I'm still a bit confused on some things, but I'm going to ask a few more
questions tomorrow and maybe things will be clear.
Today's my second day of induction. I've really enjoyed things so far.
The guy running the course is pretty interesting, even when the
material's not his. I do really get the feeling that things are done for
good reasons and aren't just for the sake of doing things that way -
there seem to be good reasons for things with real justifications.
That's the sort of thing that helps me to understand things more
clearly. Tomorrow we're doing some fun things - particularly we're doing
IPR issues, which is going to be very interesting I think.
For lunch we went off to the shopping centre for something to eat and
had something at Pizza Hut, which was really nice - there were 5 of us
from the course, which worked quite well.
After we were done with induction for the day, I gave Ian a call and we
met up and with Joseph and Alex went off for food. Amusingly I asked
Alex where Chris (not Johns or Williams) (who started last month) was
sitting and he said 'across from me' which made me feel like a fool for
not saying 'hello' when I saw him. It's strange when you've spent so
long chatting to people over the Internet and you have no idea what they
actually look like . I'll say hello tomorrow .
I've got a login and email and stuff like that set up now, as well, so
I'll be able to do real stuff. It's all kinda new still, but I've no
doubt I'll get use to it pretty quickly.
Caroline rang just as I was going out in the Evening, to see if she
could come visit on Sunday instead. So she'll be coming then, rather
than Saturday. She was worried that I'd find that a problem .
I've had my first day of induction today. It's actually been quite fun.
It seems that they'd like to use nick-names in the company, so I've
decided that if I'm going to be known by a name to people, it may as
well be 'gerph'. Hey, it'll be fun.
Apparently I've been given the user name 'justin', though, which is
quite nice as well. Obviously the name is nice, but it's nice too
because it's the same login I had before.
Just before lunch, the guy taking the induction was giving a very
useful warning about crossing the road when going to the shopping
centre and how you should be really careful because you might die. I
just couldn't stop laughing - not because it seems so strange but
because of the number of times I got across the road and thought "Dear
God, I nearly died, there!".
I'm going to have to go in a mo, 'cos there isn't much battery left in
the laptop. So far, I've survived!
[Written later on the laptop]
I dropped Caroline a message to say I was doing ok and the day was good,
but I got the feeling from her reply that she wasn't too bothered and
would rather just meet up on Saturday.
I had a nice meal this evening, with two of the guys on the Induction -
Andy and Francis. Francis is going to be working in the same office as I
am, and Andy's working in a new office they're setting up. It was really
quite a nice evening all around. Oh, and I got to use the 'net in the
hotel foyer, so that was good as well - I could update the diary with
Startling News From My Life. Um. Yeah.
I've still got no nails, but I'm calmed a lot. They're only getting bitten
in small amounts now.
I'm nearly ready to go now. Almost everything's packed and I'm sort of
calmed down.
I'm trying to think of a present to get Jessica. It's difficult because
a) I'm not used to buying things for 5-year-old's, b) I'm not used to buying
Easter presents, and c) I'm not sure if it's appropriate. So I'm going to
follow the line that if I see something that seems cool and appopriate, I'll
get it.
As I was walking home a few days ago I was pondering on how silly I can be
at times. In particular, how I tend to think that I won't get to talk to
Caroline ever again, after most times that I do. It's funny, I know, that
I still think like that. It's treating it as being so fragile as to be
broken very easily by the slightest of things. No, that's not funny, that's
quite sad, isn't it ?
I'm not sure exactly where I was going with that.
Ooh, Simon's alarm has just gone off. It sounds like Walking On Sunshine , by
Katrina And The Waves . I'm a
little amused because that's far too bouncey for me to wake up to, I think.
I'm really quite happy with having Stolen Car , from Central Reservation , by
Beth Orton .
The only thing is that that kind of thing reminds me of a West Wing episode.
Toby's trying to propose to Andy in the house he's bought her and wants to
know why she won't re-marry him. Her answer that Toby's 'just too sad'
bothers me, because I think I'm probably just a little too sad like that.
Although probably worrying about that kind of thing makes me more odd than
other things .
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Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important
stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it.
[ Backups; Linus Torvalds ]
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Yeah, it's an old quote, but drobe and I were talking about backups this
afternoon and it seemed appropriate.
[Written later that evening, in the hotel]
Today I got myself on a coach, got on a plane, got to a hotel and had my
tea. I'm currently 'relaxing' in my room. Sadly, despite there being
T-mobile wireless Internet access here, my room seems to be too far away
to get a decent signal. At one point I could just about get to the login
screen, but I can't seem to get it now. I met another guy who's starting
induction with the company tomorrow as well. Tomorrow will be the first
day so I'm hoping things go well.
I ended up getting to the airport really early, so had loads of time - and
that was made worse by having done an online checkin (which I'd not done
before) so I only had to queue for around 5 minutes (if that) before being
done. I did get a pat-down check at security which was really strange.
Plus, the security checks included removing shoes. Clearly shoes are a
typical place to hide weapons.
Sitting on the plane I was wondering about my whole 'ways to blow up a
plane by swallowing stuff' idea and trying to work out if there was more
reliable timing system. The problem with my idea - as Chris and someone
else pointed out - was that if the flight was delayed, that doesn't stop
the stomach acid eating the delivery system. Because of this the reaction
may happen in the airport instead of in the plane. Now, strictly if you're
wanting to cause chaos, it seems that it might be more sensible to blow
yourself up in the airport than in the plane in some random location. But
since the goal of the exercise is the thwart the security process, I'll
ignore that for now.
My solution to this timing problem involves fruit pastels. Or something
similar. It's common to eat sweets on the plane 'cos of the effects of
pressure changes on your ears. But if the chemicals in the sweet (or
facsimile thereof) can be made to react with the delivery system and/or
the stomach acid to cause the reaction then that's even better. That way,
you just swallow your catalyst sweet some time once you're in the air and
after a short period it does its job and you explode.
Oddly I didn't mention any of this to the security personnel.
I was going to read a little more of my book or watch some of
Doctor Who (2005, BBC One)Action and Adventure/Science-FictionThe Doctor looks and seems human. He's handsome, witty, and could be mistaken for just another man in the street. But the Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living - more of a hobby actually, and he's very, very good at it. He's saved us from alien menaces and evil from before time began - but just who is he?Doctor Who
from Friday, but... I ended up watching telly instead. "Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)Action, Adventure, Comedy, CrimeHe's found his mojo, baby, and now Austin Powers is back again in this shagadelic comedy-adventure! The "sshhh!" hits the fan when Dr. Evil and Mini-Me escape from prison. Joining forces with the superfreaky Goldmember, they kidnap Austin's father, master spy Nigel Powers, in a dastardly time-travel scheme to take over the world. Before you can say "Shake Your Booty," Austin cruises to 1975 and teams up with sexy Foxxy Cleopatra to stop Dr. Evil and Goldmember from their mischievous mayhem.Austin Powers in Goldmember"
was on.
I've not seen it - it never really grabbed me (neither
of the Austin Powers did), but I was amused by who was in it. Not by Seth
Green, or by Michael Caine (although I obviously recognised them) but by
two people who I'm almost certain I recognised. I'm sure that the
guy who plays Hiro Nakamura (the Japanese guy that bends time and space)
in
Heroes (2006, NBC)Action and Adventure/Drama/Science-Fiction/FantasyHeroes is a cult serial saga about people all over the world discovering that they have superpowers and trying to deal with how this change affects their lives. Not only are they discovering what having superpowers means to them but also the larger picture of where those powers come from and what they might mean to the rest of the world.Heroes appeared very briefly in one section, and the guy who plays Matt
Parkman (the cop who reads thoughts) appeared similarly briefly shortly
afterward.
I think I'm done for the night now, though. Tomorrow I get the joy of
meeting people and stuff like that. Scary, too.
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