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Thursday 31st January 2008
13:27 GMT | The
main features of the weather today are the rain and strong winds. The
rain comes and goes. Sometimes very heavy, and sometimes less so. The
wind is very gusty. Some gusts might even have reached the 60 mph that
the weathermen have forecast. Maybe we are a little more sheltered
here, being in a built up area, and so may not get the full force of
the wind, but some of those gusts do seem to almost shake the house
down to it's foundations. Of course the house doesn't actually shake, but if it could I am sure it would.
I
am at home today having taken the day off sick. Yesterday morning my
nose was very itchy, and starting to run a lot. In the afternoon it
settled down and I thought I was over whatever was causing it. This
morning I woke up feeling very stuffed up, and for a few hours I seemed
to get through a fair few tissues. Since then, mainly just sitting
around in the warm, my nose seems to have dried up again. My throat
still seems to be a little tickly though. Provided I just rest I seem
fine, and I wonder why I am not at work, but I feel that all the
changes of air temperature and humidity that commuting entails would
trigger off an even worse negative reaction. Just thinking about it
makes me want to sneeze !
I left work twenty minutes late
last night after trying to complete a repair I had started. It was one
of those repairs where you get totally stuck, and as you walk away from
it you suddenly find new inspiration. I never did complete that repair.
I had hoped that I would get to Waterloo East in time to catch the
16:55 train back to Catford, but I arrived at Waterloo (main line
station) with what I thought was insufficient time to to make a mad
dash for that train. Sadly I made a big mistake. I went to pass a few
minutes outside the station having a fag. With my fag smoked I wandered
back to the escalators to go up, and over the link to Waterloo East
station. As I passed the customer information displays I saw that the
16:55 train had been delayed, and still had not arrived. Assuming that
it would arrive at any second I did not attempt to rush to get it. It
seems it was delayed still further because it was only just departing
as I reached the slope leading down to the platform. Had I rushed I may
still have been able to catch it, and if I had not stopped for a fag I
could have caught it without rushing.
I had it in mind
that I would try and get to bed reasonably early again last night, but
it didn't happen. After eating my dinner I became inspired to open up
my laptop to have another look at the battery charging problem. For one
elated moment I thought I had found a dry joint. I resoldered it, but
it was obviously OK because it did not affect the fault. In the course
of my investigations I did find the device that switches charging power
to the battery. As an emergency cure I added a mechanical switch
to bypass it. I now seem to be able to get the battery up to 29% fully
charged, but it now sticks there, or at least that is what the computer
is saying. From some of the odd behaviour I have noticed while
investigating this I am beginning to wonder if it is a hardware fault
at all. There is a possibility it could be a software fault caused by a
problem in the BIOS. I was told that an attempt had been made to update
the BIOS, but that it had failed. So I had a go myself. All attempts to
flash the BIOS fail for me too. It is as if the wrong BIOS has been
installed, and now there seems to be no way to correct it. If I had a
floppy disk drive to attach to the computer I may be able to force
through a BIOS update, but I don't have one, and it could be a very
foolish thing to attempt anyway. Maybe it is better to leave things
alone. |
Wednesday 30th January 2008
08:19 GMT |
There
was a fair amount of rain during the night, but it had stopped by the
time I left home for work. It looks as if the rain stayed a little
longer in Wandsworth, but once again it had stopped by the time I
alighted from my train at Wandsworth Town station. The forecast is for
some sunny spells today. that will be nice, but it will be colder than
yesterday. I thought yesterday was pretty chilly, and so today I put on
a sweater before leaving for work. Maybe it was just because I was
wearing a sweater, but I don't think it is any colder today. Perhaps it
was the wind chill that made yesterday feel cold rather than the actual
air temperature. I think it is less windy today. That would be the calm
before the storm. Tomorrow is forecast to be very wet and windy !
Sometimes it seems that reality conspires to depress you. I left
work a few minutes earlier than the usual slightly early, and I still
missed a bus by a few seconds. The bus I finally caught I could have
probably caught if I had left work a few seconds late. It only managed
to get me to Clapham Junction in time for the 16:16 train to Waterloo.
That train is the last possible train I can get if I am to arrive in
time to get the 16:29 train from Waterloo East. Even then the timing is
very close. Last night we seemed to arrive at Waterloo about a minute
late. I still managed to catch the 16:29 train, but it was a really mad
dash, and I only managed to jump on the last carriage with seconds to
spare. Ideally I like to be towards the front of the train lined up
with the exit at Catford Bridge station. Being at the back of the train
means a long walk to get out of the station when it is an eight, or
even ten car train.
When I finally had got home I decided I needed some hot food
quickly. For speed, I tried a couple of tins of soup I had recently
bought. They were both from the Heinz "soups of the world" range. The
first was Mexican chilli beef and bean soup. It was like a thin, mild,
chilli con carne, but rather pleasant. The second was a Morrocan lamb
soup. That was not so nice, though perfectly acceptable. The thing I
didn't like about it was the aroma of cinnamon coming from it. It was
too similar to sticky cinnamon buns, and that did not seem quite right
for a meat dish.
Later on I cooked some chicken thighs. They turned out really
well. I had bought some spicy sauce containing lots of tomatoes. I
think it was described as Tunisian on the jar. I didn't bother to read
any of the usage suggestions on the jar, but I guess it was meant to be
used in something like a casserolled dish. I decided to just pour it
over the chicken and put it in the oven to roast. After 30 - 40 minutes
cooking on a high heat the chicken was well done, but still nice and
moist. The sauce had added a nice crust to the top of the meat, and the
bottom of the meat was swimming in delicious gravy (sadly too fatty to
use more than a spoonful over the meat). I am going to try this method
of cooking chicken again with some curry sauces. I reckon the results
could be delicious.
It was still a few minutes to 8 pm when I turned everything off
downstairs and went up to bed. I did not intend to go to sleep straight
away, and took a magazine to read. As 8.30 pm approached I was thinking
of turning the light out to go to sleep, but the phone rang. After
dealing with that I had to read a little more to get back in the mood
for sleep. I eventually turned off the light at 9 pm, and was asleep
very soon after that. I did not sleep all that well, and had to get up
twice in the night for a pee. Just to rub salt in the wound, the cats
became very active just before 5 am, and I ended up getting up to deal
with them very soon after.
Once again I am not sure how I feel this morning. My nose got
very stuffy for a while before I left for work, but out in the fresh
air it seemed OK. Now I am at work in the warm I think it is beginning
to run again. I am not sure how this will pan out, but Jane better get
herself on standby in case my brow gets fevered and needs mopping ! |
Tuesday 29th January 2008
06:47 GMT |
It's
cold and dark, but there is no fog like yesterday morning. In fact the
sky is clear and a half moon is shining brightly. There is even a hint
of lightness on the eastern horizon. Maybe today will be a sunny day,
although to hope that it will be sunny all day is probably over
optimistic.
I didn't make it up to bed by 8 pm as I
intended to do last night, but I was in bed, and fast asleep, by 8.30
pm. I slept well for four hours and then woke up to go to the toilet. I
was soon asleep again and then slept for another four hours. I woke up
at that inconvenient time when it is not worth going back to sleep
again, but is too early to get up. After another visit to the toilet I
could have tried to get another thirty, or forty minutes sleep, but by
that time I had disturbed the cats and they had started to become
active. I did get back in bed, but made no real attempt to get back to
sleep, and I got up ten minutes later.
So how do I feel
after getting a full eight hours sleep ? I am not sure really. In a
perfect world I think I would have some breakfast and go back to bed
again, but work beckons, and in another fifteen minutes, or so, I will
be setting out to get the late train to work. I guess I don't feel as
tired as I did yesterday morning, but I still feel under par. Maybe I
am still on the threshold of a cold that may never come. Alternatively
I could find that later in the day my nose starts to run, or something.
I was tempted to come home early from work yesterday because of how I
felt, but although I felt bad it did not really feel as if I was
deteriorating. So I stuck it out, and indeed, I never got any worse.
Today will be similar. If I feel I am getting worse I may come home
early, but I hope that I will be feeling better and not worse. When I
stop and consider how I feel it does not seem to be significantly worse
than how I feel on as many as 50% winter mornings prior to going to
work. On most of those days I usually feel far better once I am in work
and have warmed up.
Tonight I am planning another early
night. Maybe not quite as early as last night, but I feel it would be
good to be in bed, and asleep before 9 pm. So that is what I will aim
for. If nothing special grabs my attention it is possible that I will
be in bed a lot earlier, but it is worthless making predictions now
when anything could happen during the course of the day. |
Monday 28th January 2008
19:15 GMT |
The
main feature of this morning's weather was the fog. In places it
was just a thick mist, while in other places, particularly alomgside
the River Thames, it was really dense. The air felt really cold and
damp, and it was most unpleasant travelling to work. By mid morning
most of the fog had lifted, and there were a few times in the early
afternoon when it looked as if the sun could break through. It never
did, and when I came home the sky was just an unbroken, almost
textureless, grey colour. It's difficult to say when it got dark
tonight. When I got off the train it was like twilight, and it had not
really been much lighter than that when I left work. I came home via
Tesco and there was still some grey light left in the sky when I got
home. Tomorrow it is forecast to be a bit warmer than today, and there
is a chance we will see some sunshine, but probably not that much of it.
Out of all the things I could have done on Sunday I never planned
to do what I eventually started doing in the late afternoon. That was
to transfer some old VHS tapes onto DVD. As this can only be done in
real time I only did three tapes (and one of those was only a 25 minute
recording). Now that we are so used to DVD quality playback it comes as
a bit of a shock to remember just how crappy VHS recordings used to
look. I have quite a good quality, "up market", Panasonic VHS machine,
and I was playing back pre-recorded tapes which, in theory, should
contain the highest quality recordings, but compared to DVD they were
just so naff. The problem is not so much with the definition, or
sharpness, of the playback, but the horrible grain and noisy colours.
It is true that DVD pictures are sharper, but it the cleanliness of the
picture that really shows through. The new high definition disks,
Blu-ray, or the clumsily titled and failing format, HD DVD, may offer
even more sharpness, but I do have doubts that the improvement will be
so noticable compared to the radical improvement of DVD over VHS video.
I would like a Blu-Ray disk writer for a PC, or maybe even a set top
player, but only as a gadget. I cannot see any other motivation for
getting one until the prices drop to equal similar DVD equipment.
Before I forget. I must apoligise if you couldn't see the picture
that accompanied my writing yesterday. It seems that somehow I managed
to set the wrong permissions for the directory it was stored in
(although I would swear it was working when I first used it).
I have been feeling very rough today. This morning I was
suffering in a similar way to the effect you get from drinking 12 pints
of strong lager followed by a Vindaloo the night before. In fact I did
not eat any curry yesterday, and I certainly did not have any booze. I
woke up at 4.50 am this morning with a bit of a stomach ache, and a
hangover like headache. As the day wore on the two aches would
sometimes alternate, and sometimes both would afflict me. There were
times when I felt free from pain. On top of that I felt very fatigued.
If there had been anywhere warm and comfortable to lie down at Waterloo
Station I would definitely have done so on my way to work. Even coming
home felt like hard work. I am aimimg to get up to bed by 8 pm this
evening, and that is only twenty minutes way now. Maybe if I can get a
good nights sleep I will feel more perky tomorrow, but maybe not. I
have had some hints that I could be about to go down with a cold. There
have been times today when my nose has felt stuffier than usual, and in
danger of starting to pour. So far nothing has happened, and with luck
nothing will. Of course if I do come down with a cold I am expecting
Jane to come and be my nurse. Her comments to me, via my comments
page, do suggest that she would like to make my life better, and maybe
mopping my fevered brow could be one thing that could help. |
Sunday 27th January 2008
05:52 GMT |
It's
too dark to say anything much about the weather at this time. It is
cold and dry outside, but that is all I can say so far. The temperature
over the last week or so has been above average for January, but that
still hasn't stoped it feeling really chilly on some days. Yesterday
was bright and sunny for much of the day, and yet the wind made it feel
quite cold.
I had a good time with Aleemah yesterday. After I had met her at
the station we did a little shopping before we came back here. Aleemah
bought some stuff from Superdrug, and I bought some stuff from Argos..
I don't like shopping in Argos because it is always very busy, and
Saturday afternoon is possibly the worst time of all. It was made worse
by the fact that I ordered a 4 Draw plastic storage unit that was the
last one they had in stock. It appears it was hidden right at the back
of the warehouse somehwere, and I thought the next ice age would start
before they found it for me.
As I have already mentioned, I did a lot of housework in
preparation for Aleemah's visit. This really translates into "a lot of
hoovering". The trouble I am finding now is that some bits of the house
are now getting so good that it is becoming slightly frustrating
noticing the bits I have missed. My new vacuum cleaner works well, but
I was more used to the old upright cleaner. This new one has to be
physically pushed around and it can get tiring. So having apparently
finished vacuuming a large area of carpet only to find you have missed
a little splodge of fluff is irritating. However thing are still
improving, and one day the whole house will look sort of passable - and
spring (when the traditional spring cleaning allegedly takes place) has
still not arrived.
I have had another comment from Jane :-
New guestbook entry from 01/26/2008 at 15:13:18
-----------------------------------------------
Name:Jane
Email:
-----------------------------------------------
You
seem to view your world in black and white with one or two shades of
grey. If only you opened your mind you could see so much more and
perhaps be happier and not be so self obsessed.
Dear Jane, you seem to
have this all wrong. I most definitely operate on a 4 bit greyscale
that gives 16 shades from black to white. It seems perfectly adequate
to convey a close to accurate picture of the world around me. Take at
look at this picture that is also a 4 bit picture......
 Although
the foreground is a little dark, it is easy to recognise the fountains
in Trafalgar Square, to see texture in the water, detail in the clouds,
and to recognise the man in the foreground thinking "why is he pointing
that camera at me ?".
I would suggest that it is opening my mind that is letting all
the crap in. I would quite possibly be a lot happier if I could close
my mind and live in a world of my own. There is some evidence for this.
While I am immersed in a good book I am able to shut off the
outside world and exist in an alternative reality. There is ugliness
inside books, but they are written from our heroes point of view. So
you know it will all be "happy ever after" at the end.
The other disadvantage of opening my mind is that I might come to
wonder who you are Jane. For now I just blindly assume you are the same
Jane that I had a brief fling with last summer, because that is the
easiest thing to do despite doubting that she ever knew of the
existance of this blog. In some moments of clarity I do wonder if
your alternate nom de plume is a certain Charles Dickens, or
........... Your exact identity does not really matter. I just thank
the Lord (Lord Longford probably) that you have not attempted to
introduce me to religion. Now that would really make me depressed.
Sunday, by tradition, is a day of rest, and I think I am going to
try and do some resting today. I will need to go to Tesco to buy some
stuff, but that is the only essential reason not to fully rest today.
However I may well be tempted to do more housework/tidying up.
There is that 4 drawer pastic storage unit I bought yesterday still to
be filled with assorted crap, and I have still not found the
courage/enthusiasm to take my laptop apart again. With one
definite thing to do, and a few variable, I can add one more definite.
I am going back to bed now ! |
Saturday 26th January 2008
11:07 GMT |
It's
looking like a nice day so far. The air is a bit chilly still, but the
sun is out and the sky is mostly blue. This is a lot like yesterday.
Eventually the clouds began to build up, and the sunset was obscured by
clouds.
I stayed half an hour extra at work to make my time up last
night, but I still managed to get to Waterloo East to catch the 17:17
train home. While I was on the train, making it's first stop at London
Bridge, I got a text message from Kevin asking about drinking last
night. After a few text messages had gone back and forth we decided on
an early drink at 7 pm.
We met in The London & Rye, the Catford Wetherspoons pub, and
had a good drink. It was a "four pinter" with an added short for the
journey home. Kevin had come straight from work and still had his
laptop with him. He had heard that the pub had free WiFi, and had
earlier enquired if it was OK to plug his laptop into the mains if he
was lucky enough to get one of the few seats near a mains socket. The
manager, or someone, had told him he did not know of any official
company policy about that, and that he didn't really care. Eventually
we managed to get a seat near a mains socket and plugged in, and logged
on. It made for an interesting evening sitting in the pub "surfing the
net".
We left the pub sometime around 10 pm, and I made my way home
where I had my dinner. I guess I was in bed sometime around 11 pm, and
asleep very soon after that. I slept quite well, but woke up at 6.30 am
with quite a hangover. Fortunately the hangover has now subsided, and I
managed to do all my housework. I am now waiting to hear from Aleemah
to say that she is on her way to Catford. |
Friday 25th January 2008
08:18 GMT |
Clear
skies overnight has meant this morning has started off very chilly. The
temperature did not drop low enough for any frost to appear, but their
is some mist about that is making the sky very hazy. Apart from the
mist the sky is otherwise fairly clear, but it is not as bright as it
could be. I hope that as the sun continues to rise the mist will
evaporate, and we will get full sunshine before any clouds appear. The
day is set to be dry, or so the forecasts predict, and it would be
really nice if the sun stayed out until sunset. Yesterday there was
quite a lot of sunshine, and the sun is starting to feel warm. As I was
having my after lunch fag I noticed that even the brickwork of the
building was starting to feel warm where it was soaking up the rays of
the sun, and the outside of the door was actually feeling almost hot.
The skies stayed clear until after I got home. I should have
stayed late last night, but I could not miss out on the opportunity to
travel home in full daylight. It was a mad rush to get the 16:29 train
at Waterloo East, but I made it. The sun had officially set (I think)
by the time I got to Catford, but the western horizon was so bright
that I found I was casting a very feint shadow as I walked to my front
door. Tonight I really ought to stay late and make up my lost time, but
if it is still sunny at 4 pm it may be a very had decision to make.
I had fully intended to be fast asleep in bed by 8 pm last night,
but it didn't happen, although it nearly did. While my dinner was
cooking, I decided to put the finishing touches to my bedroom PC. The
one thing I wanted working was the TV card in it. Linux didn't seem to
even detect it, and so I rebooted into Windows. Windows did not detect
it either. So I swapped the PCI slot is was plugged into, and this time
it was detected OK. I briefly tried it out using Windows just to see
how well it performed ( I was only using a bit of dangling wire as an
aerial), and then rebooted into Linux. This time it was detected, and
although it was not completely straightforward to set it up, I soon had
TV pictures on the computer monitor. Although it is unusual to have to
restart Linux when installing stuff, I found that a restart was needed
for the TV card to work. With a reasonable picture on ITV 1 I had a go
at recording some TV on the computer. The options were a bit limited,
and I suspect that with the limited power of a mere
700 MHz Pentium III processor anything more sophisticated would
probably not work anyway (for instance xvid encoding in real time).
After a few attempts at recoding I finally got a good clean avi file
that played back almost perfectly. The two main problems were that I
had started off with a less than ideal picture because I did not have a
decent aerial signal, and after getting no sound on a previous attempt
I found that the input control on the mixer panel was set to zero. I
turned the input level up to maximum, and found that my recording now
had sound, but it was over recorded and distorted. Of course all this
is rather academic. I am unlikely to actually use the TV card, let
alone make any recordings from it, but it is good to know that I can if
I want to.
With the PC now fully I screwed the case back on and installed it
back into my bedroom. As per my intentions, I went up to bed very
soon after 8 pm, but I made the mistake of turning on the bedroom PC
again. I just thought I would check a couple of things before I turned
it off and got into bed - FATAL MISTAKE ! I was playing with it for
nearly an hour, but I did manage to get it turned off by about 9 pm. I
had already brushed my teeth, and was already half undress ready for
bed. Within a few seconds I was in bed, and asleep a few minutes after
that.
I had a good nights sleep (if you don't count getting up for a
pee a 3 am), and although I never made up for the previous few late
nights, I do seem to feel a bit fresher this morning. Things were
definitely happening a lot (subjectively) faster than yesterday
morning, and I surprised myself by finding that I had washed and
dressed with time to spare before leaving for my proper train. On the
way to work I felt a curious mix of feelings like I should not have as
much energy and enthusiasm as I apparently had. That is not to say that
I was a whole bundle of energy, but I kept finding I was walking faster
than I felt I should have been able to do.
Tonight I have several things to do. I need to go home via Tesco
to pick us such essentials as new toilet paper, as well as the usual
cat food, and maybe some stuff for when Aleemah visits tomorrow
(assuming she does). Then when I get home I want to make a start on
doing a bit of housework so I do not have to rush so much in the
morning. Finally I hope that I get sufficient advanced warning that
there is drinking going on to go out for a few pints. |
Thursday 24th January 2008
06:42 GMT |
The
birds are singing and it seems to be a dry morning. Hopefully the sun
will be out later. The day is forecast to be dry with sunshine, and I
am keeping my fingers crossed that it will turn out like the forecast.
Yesterday was dry, but it was a fairly grey day, and I can't recall the
sun appearing at any time.
After my late start yesterday I had to stay late at work (no one
actually forced me to do so, but it gives a good impression - I think).
I didn't fully make up my time because I was determined not to waste
time at Waterloo. My connection was almost too tight, but I made the
17:17 train from platform C at Waterloo East with about 30 seconds to
spare. That train is one of the semi fast services that miss out
Lewisham. It doesn't save that much time, but it makes for a more
comfortable journey because you don't get even more people crowding on
the train at Lewisham.
I had hoped that I might see Patricia last night (which would
have meant getting a train that did stop at lewisham), but she was busy
and I went straight to Catford. I called in at Tesco on the way back
from the station, and bought the usual neccessities (catfood etc.).
Once home I fed the cats and fed myself - in that order !
Having fed myself, and allowed a little time for the food to
settle down, I tackled my bedroom PC again. I abandoned Mepis Lite
Linux and decided to try Kubuntu instead. My attempt at installing that
failed because, I think, the DVD installation disk had not burnt
properly. Although I could run it in live CD mode it kept getting stuck
during the installation process. So I gave up on that and tried
PCLinuxOS. That installed perfectly, and the PC seemed fairly nippy
when running it. My download of PCLinuxOS is a little old and that
meant there were quite a few updates to install. That took a fair
amount of time, and after that was done, checking it would reboot again
before I proceeded further, I customised my choice of applications. It
was exceedingly late by the time I was satisfied enough to go to bed.
In fact it was gone 11 pm, and I was feeling exceptionally tired.
This morning I feel not just tired, but totally knackered. To
make matters worse I seem to be having one of my periodic episodes of a
runny bottom. However that did get me out of bed sufficiently early
that I should be able to get my second choice train this morning - I
hope. That gets me into work only about 30 minutes late, and I should
be able to leave again in time to catch the 16:55 train at Waterloo
East. That is the train that I often have to catch anyway when I miss
the 16:29. I think my major plan for tonight is to get some sleep !
Unless some important distraction arises I may make it into bed by 8
pm, and if I sleep well I hope I will feel rather brighter in the
morning than I do this morning. |
Wednesday 23rd January 2008
06:53 GMT |
It's
another cold morning, but once again it is dry outside if you discount
some dew.I think more rain is due today and I hope I can avoid it while
I am travelling. It would be handy if I could avoid during fag breaks
too ! Yesterday turned out far better than I could have hoped for. It
was sunny for most of the day. The only slight problem with that, and I
shouldn't even call it a problem, was that from inside work it looked
to be really nice outside. The reality was that is was still quite
cold, and although not too bad when the wind droped, it was often
distinctly chilly when moving from the hot workshop into the cold
outside air.
The clear skies continued beyond sunset, and I had a most
pleasant journey home from work. I was able to make it all the way home
in almost, but not quite, daylight. It was still certainly light enough
to read by, and for all the colours to look correctly saturated, for at
least a few minutes after I got indoors. In fact I think that had I got
the leter train home there would still have been a fair amount of light
in the sky when I arrived at the station, and even possibly when I got
home. By then some of it would be mooonlight. I am not sure if the moon
was full last night, or the night before, but as I got off the train
last night the moon was looking very big and full.
My new hard drive for my bedroom PC arrived at work yesterday,
and I remembered to bring it home with me - which is more than I did
with my mobile phone. I was so intent on remembering to grab the bag
with the hard drive in it when I left work that I seem to have
forgotten to pick up my mobile phone, or at least I hope that is what
happened. In a little over an hours time I will find out.
With such a big hard drive to play with, in such an undemanding
situation, I decided I would make my bedroom PC dual boot. I thought
that maybe Windows 98SE would be more contemporary for the age of the
hardware and started to install that first. It wasn't long before I had
my first blue screen, althougfh it wasn't the famous Blue Scrteen Of
Death, but another error message. From then on things went downhill.and
I thought it would be better to install Windows XP instead. At least I
knew that worked before the old hard disk failed. Incidently, when I
took out the old hard disk I found I had scrawled a note on it - "Fails
when hot !". In such an undemanding role I obviously thought I could
get away with using it in the bedroom PC. Windows XP seemed to install
OK, although I didn't attempt to go beyond just the standard
installation.
For the second operating system I chose Mepis Lite. It was
already getting late when I started to install that. I hoped that it
would install nice and quickly, but it had some problems right from the
beginning. It did not seem to like the onboard, Intel, graphics chip
and the installation stalled for 30 seconds while it changed it's
strategy. At that point it wasn't truly the installation because like
many modern Linux distros it first ran in live CD mode, and only once
it was running like that, and you could see what you would get once it
was installed, did it give you the opportunity to install to the hard
disk.
Once Mepis was up and running I chose the "Install Me" option and
installed to the hard disk. Upon first boot from the hard disk it got
stuck for 30 seconds while identifying the graphics card, but booted up
OK otherwise. One of the first things I did was to install all the
updates. With over 200 files to update it was going to take some time,
and I was already well past my bedtime. So I left it updating and went
to bed. This morning when I tried it I found that it had corrupted the
graphics card files to the extent that I could no longer get a
graphical desktop up. I now have two options. The first is to try and
repair the graphics (X-Server) configuration, or, second, try another
distro. Tonight I will be trying another distro - either Kubuntu of
PCLinuxOS.
Aftert staying up so late last night I feel knackered this
morning. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion so I missed
my first train, and subsequently missed my second train. I must get the
next one !!! It looks like I will be staying late at work tonight to
make up the time, and then I may see if Patricia is available for an
after work drink. |
Tuesday 22nd January 2008
06:55 GMT |
This
morning it is colder than it has been of late. Fortunately it is dry,
and according to the weather forecast we should see some sunshine
today. I have high hopes that the sunshine may last until sunset, and
most of my journey home from work will be in daylight. Yesterday was a
very grey day. Only once do I recall the sun almost coming out. That
was as I left work to go home. It was a rotten tease because by the
time I got to Waterloo station it was pouring with rain. For a short
while the rain was exceedingly heavy. While I was under part of the
platform canopy which has a steel roof it sounded like copious amounts
of gravel being dropped on it ! By the time I reached Catford the rain
had stopped, and I was able to complete my walk home in the dry.
After feeding both myself, and the cats, I decided to have a look
at the Apple laptop I blew up on Sunday. I managed to identify a couple
of components that have gone short circuit, and I am fairly certain I
can find something to replace them. If I am extraordinarily lucky that
could be enough to cure the problem, but it does sound wildly
optimistic. At some point I will have to lug the mainboard, and maybe
the display into work to use the tools there to extract the faulty
components, but I don't know when things will get quiet enough to do
that. Work has been very busy recently, and there seems no end to it
for now.
One thing I did find time for at work yesterday was to order a
new hard dsik for my bedroom computer. It should be delivered today so
I will probably spend some time tonight installing the new operating
system on that machine. The hard dsik I ordered is very big for such a
rarely used machine. Originally I thought of ordering an 80 GB drive,
but it was only a few more Pounds for a 160 GB drive. So that is what I
got. I am now trying to think if I have a smaller drive in some other
machine that could be swapped over.
Last night I got bitten by a flea. I am pretty certain it was one
of Smudges. Nelly rarely leaves the house and it is unlikely she would
have picked up any fleas from any wild life. So this morning I have
made myself late again by chasing the cats around to treat them both
with flea drops. It is surprising how much Nelly hates the idea of a
few drops of liquid on the back of her neck. She may be getting old
now, and seems to be fairly deaf, but she can still recognise the
dispenser for the flea drops. Smudge is slightly more tolerant, and has
not learned to spot the flea drops yet. So she did not kick up a fuss
about the flead drops in particular, but she thought she was being
threatened with being picked up - which she hates ! Well, the deed is
now done, and even now the cats have just about forgotten the trauma.
Tonight, when I get home, they will be more interested in food, and
will have forgotten the nasty man who put cold drops on their necks. |
Sunday 20th January 2008
17:58 GMT |
It
has been a fine day. If there was any rain it was so short and brief
that I did not notice it. The temperature has been up as high as 14 -
15° C. The wind has been light, and there was almost some sunshine.
I don't think the sun ever fully came out out, but at a little before
midday, while walking back from the shops, there was enough brightness
from where the sun could have been shining to cast a weak shadow.
Most of the weekend has been pretty good. On Saturday I did some
more spring cleaning. I could have done more, but the wheelie bin is
now full, and there is no room for any more junk until it is emptied on
Thursday morning. I gave the stairs another good hoovering and they are
beginning to look quite good. The carpet will never completely recover,
and some day I will have to replace it, but it could be a lot worse.
The curtains in my bedroom were getting really bad, and had not
been washed in far too long. So I pulled out a spare pair of curtains
and gave them a wash yesterday. Like the curtains I recently hung in
the living room, they were smelling a bit musty after being stored in
the cupboard for many years. After a good wash they now smell sweet
again, and today I hung them in my bedroom. To complement the new
curtains I went out and bought two new lamp shades for the bedroom.The
old ones were very dusty, and were coloured deep blue. The new ones are
white, and together with the lighter coloured curtains, the room looks
quite bright now. I am not sure if that is a good thing because it is
now not quite so cosy as it was, but I always have the option of
changing back to the old colours now both the lamp shades, and the
curtains have been washed and cleaned.
One other home improvement I made today was to buy some new
bathroon mats. The old ones are now washed, but they will take some
time to dry before I can use them. The new mats were just a matter of
convenience so I do not have to force dry them whenever I wash them.
I haven't done that much technical stuff this week, but what I
did do was both good and bad. I finally got a working installation of Linux Mint, with the KDE
desktop, working on my test machine. I initially had trouble installing
because I was trying to use a rapidly failing hard disk. An alternative
hard disk did the trick, but still the installation was very slow. It
runs pretty slow as well. So some time I will try Linux Mint with the XFCE desktop. It uses less resources, and potentially should be more responsive on my old, and slow 450MHz Pentium III test PC.
I have had some notable, and tragic failures over the weekend. The first failure was when I was trying to install Mepis Lite
on my bedroom PC. That machine has a 700 MHz Pentium III processor in
it, and should not be that slow. It was running Windows XP, but I had
the urge to convert it to Linux, and Mepis Lite seemed like a good idea
for it. One problem I was hoping to cure was very low sound output. I
was not sure that I had the right drivers for the onboard sound chip
when running Windows XP, and I was curious to see what would happen
when Linux took control. It was no improvement, but I caried on anyway.
Unfortunately I got about 47% into the installation when an ominous
knocking sound came from the hard disk. It seem another old hard disk
has failed on me.
The real tragedy this weekend concerns an old Apple laptop I was
given as much as a year ago, or maybe even before that. Rather than
attempt to repair my current new laptop I thought I would take another
look at the Apple laptop. The symptoms were very simple - it would not
even hint at starting up. With very little information to go on about
what was inside the machine I gave it a good looking over, but could
not see anything amiss. Today I had another look. This time I think I
spotted a really tiny hairline crack in some soldering. I resoldered
that and the machine started to work. This was pretty amazing, but I
still had the problem of trying to work out how to put it all together
again. When I had originally looked at it I left it in "kit form" in a
box. Putting it back together became a bit of an experiment. Like an
idiot I was trying to work out how a shielding plate was fitted while
the machine was still powered up. It seems I short circuited something
and the unit is now dead again. There may be some hope for a cure. From
the growly ticking noise I can hear from the power circuits I have
deduced that there is a short circuit somewhere. Nothing has "exploded"
so I may be able to identify the faulty component if I find which one
it is. It is a job for another day though. I have a feeling that if I
can identify, and repair the fault, I will leave all the screening
plates off. I am sure they are not needed for the basic functioning of
the unit, but it may radiate a bit of excess radio noise. A little
extra noise is something I could live with if the unit works - provided
it is not truly excessive and wipes out all radio reception in the
neighbourhood !
Tonight I am going to try for an early night. I am thinking of
going to bed around 8 pm and trying a little reading in bed. It will be
a good test of my brighter bedroom. Having already descibed most the
weekend I will have nothing to write about tomorrow, but I may write
about the weather, and perhaps report on any strange dreams I have had. |
Saturday 19th January 2008
05:44 GMT |
It
seems to be dry outside, although at this time of the morning I have
not been outside to see what it's like out there. The forecast is for
lots of rain today, but maybe it will not be too bad. There was rain
forecast for many days during last week, but there were plenty of days
when there was little, or no, rain. The downpour on Wednesday night,
while I was safely on the bus, was enough rain for one week !
I
thought I was going to leave work early last night, but it didn't
really happen. It has been busy at work, and the general tiredness that
overcomes you at the end of the week, plus some easy distractions,
meant that I fell behind with some of the stuff I wanted to get done.
The distractions were work as well, but were of stuff that was of a
lower priority than the stuff I should have been doing, but I can never
resist showing off my superior knowledge of analogue electronic
techniques to the university educated developement guys (who know lots
of digital stuff, but are really rusty with some of the more basic
electronic stuff).
I did have it in mind to try and leave
work early enough to catch an even earlier train at Waterloo East
station. I think there was one at around 16:09, but I didn't leave work
until a few minutes before I would normally leave anyway. That was
early enough to get my 16:29 train home from Waterloo East, but it was
a close run thing. The traffic through Wandsworth slowed my bus down,
and I just missde a train from Clapham Junction station. The next train
got me to Waterloo in time for a fairly fast, but not panic fast, walk
to Waterloo East station for the 16:29 from platform C. If I had got
the train I just missed at Clapham Junction I would have arrived at
Waterloo with enough spare time to grab a quick smoke, but, alas, I
couldn't spare the time for that.
It was very cloudy as
I waited the few minute for my train, but there was still plenty of
slightly grey daylight around. As I travelled towerds Catford the sky
got darker and took on a sort of violet tinge. It looked slightly
peculiar, although the colour outside was probably more a result of my
eyes adjusting to the flourescent lighting in the train. During the
ride I heard from Aleemah. I didn't realise that she had been off sick
from work for the past few days, and she is still not 100% even now. So
unfortunately I won't be having her company today.
When I
got off the train at Catford there was still quite a lot of dusky light
around. Even as I approached my front door I am sure that there was
enough light coming off the grey sky that I could have easily have
navigated my way through the streets if all artificial lighting failed.
It wasn't long after I got indoors that the light completely faded. As
you can tell, I am totally obsessed with the exciting prospect of the
days getting longer. Even if it was snowing, it would still feel like
spring once I start getting home in full daylight, and not the dusky
light lasting a little while after the sun has set. Spring is good. The
sap rises, and it's time for..........well, it's time for a lot of
things.
One of the things I thought I would be doing last
night was boozing. It didn't happen, but it could have. Kevin, who I
was to be going drinking with, had got stuck on a job in Essex, and was
very late getting home. With no news of his impending arrival I could
not wait any longer to have some dinner. Had we been in the pub earlier
I would have had some dinner after the pub, but at 8 pm my hunger
incited me to get some dinner cooking. I was half way through that
cooking when I finally heard from Kevin. He had arrived home, and said
he could probably meet me in the pub at 8.45 pm if I was still
interested. By that time I thought it was too late. I didn't want to
rush out on a recently filled stomach, and so I declined the boozing
session. Instead I watched some TV and later, read in bed for an hour
or so.
With no Aleemah around today it looks as if I will
have to make my own entertainment. Today could be the day when I will
dismantle my new laptop to see if I can shed any light on the battery
charging problem, or maybe I could clear up some crap to finally
install my new laser printer. Maybe I could do something completely
different. With no particular imperative to do anything at all I will
most probably make it all up as I go along. |
Friday 18th January 2008
07:03 GMT |
I
can see a few spots of rain on the cars outside, but I am not sure if
they are from some earlier rain, or if the rain is just starting.
Hopefully it is the former. I do not fancy travelling to work in
weather similar to the worst of last night.....
I left work only a little early last night, but in plenty of time to
make sure that I caught the 16:29 train from Waterloo East. My timing
was very fortuitous. It seemed fairly gloomy as I left work, and as I
waited for a bus the sky got increasingly dark. My bus finally arrived
and I got on it. We had only gone a few hundred years before the rain
started. In a short while the rain became heavier and heavier until at
it's peak it was like a major cloudbust complete with a few flashes of
lightning. The bus made fairly slow progress, and by the time we
arrived at Clapham Junction station the rain had eased off to little
more than heavy drizzle. I hardly got wet at all during the short walk
from the bus stop to the station itself. I sheltered for a minute or
two in the subway before walking in even lighter drizzle to the end of
the platform. As my train pulled into the station the sky on the left
hand side of train, which was roughly to the north/north west, became
bluer and bluer. As we pulled into Waterloo station there could have
been sunshine had the sun been a little higher in the sky.
I had arrived at Waterloo early enough to take a slow, easy,
stroll to platform C at Waterloo East station where I awaited in full
daylight for the 16:29 train. During the ride the sun slowly got lower
and lower in the sky, and by the time we reached Lewisham is was
obvious that the sun was some way below the horizon. That still left a
fair amount of light in the western sky, and even once I had alighted
from the train at Catford there was still some dusky daylight left. I
went home via Tesco, and even after that delay the western horizon
still had a distant bright glow. By the end of the month going home
should be the pleasurable experience that it should be, but from now
on, any time the sky is reasonably clear of clouds it will still be
fairly pleasant.
I didn't do much last night, but I did receive a comment on this
blog in my email inbox. It was from Jane, who it's good to hear from
again. Quoting my blog entry about Wednesday night :-
"I bought a nice greasy kebab on the way home".
She wrote :-
"i hope itclogs up ur arteries you selfish old. man what a sado"
Have no fear Jane, my arteries are already clogged. That is why,
until recently, a rush to the station in the morning brought chest
pains and tingling arms. It is more than likely I was close to death a
few times, but I have taken a few steps to keep myself going for a
little while yet. The greasy kebab, which was my only meal on Wednesday
apart from an apple, a pear, and a satsuma at lunchtime, was one such
attempt to unclog my arteries. You see calling it a greasy kebab was
just using the vernacular. In fact, because I chose a shish kebab,
rather than a doner, most of the grease was either burnt away while it
was on the grill, or had otherwise dripped away. The final meat was
possibly more fat free than other potential meals. I certainly felt
fitter yesterday morning than I had at any time in the last couple of
months. It is even possible that I have lost a few pounds since xmas,
although my improvement in fitness is probably more to do with the
legacy of last years 'flu finally leaving me rather than anything else.
Of course I still am a sad old man because after shopping in Tesco last
night, my dinner was bigger, and less healthy that it could have been.
In fact it was all rather naughty, but I shan't reveal the details here
for fear of shocking you even more.
Tonight I am hoping to go for a drink with Kevin, and maybe Iain
too. So as well as clogging my arteries I will be pickling my liver too
! |
Thursday 17th January 2008
06:54 GMT |
It seems
to be dry outside at the moment. It can't last - more torrential rain
is forecast for today. Yesterday stayed dry all day, and there was some
rather wonderful sunshine around the middle of the day. The sun, even
at midday, is still very low in the sky, but yesterday afternoon the
wind dropped and the sun did seem to radiate some pleasant warmth. For
one or two of my fag breaks out on the fire escape, it did feel very
pleasant.
I left work late again last night. With yet another crisis on I
stayed until 5 pm to help sort things out. So I had no hope of
completing some of my journey back home in daylight. With few clouds in
the sky I did note that at 4.46 pm there was still light coming through
the windows at work. Had I been on my early train I would have been
very close to Catford at that time, and may even had been alighting
from the train while there was still some dusky daylight left. I am
going to try and make sure that I leave work at least a tiny bit early
tonight, although I may claim more of the time I am owed by going home
as much as an hour early tomorrow. If the weather is as bad as it has
been forecast, there seems little hope of seeing any daylight no matter
how early I leave work today.
When I got to Waterloo, last night, I had a thought that maybe
Patricia had been working in central London. So I called her and found
out my thought was wrong. She had been in London for the morning, but
returned to her base in Lewisham in the afternoon. She was still
working when I phoned, and planned to go shopping in Lewisham after
work. She suggested that maybe we could meet up, and so we did. Getting
from Waterloo East to Lewisham between 5.30 and 6 pm is not that easy.
I had not really noticed it before, but a lot of trains skip Lewisham
between those time, and it seems I had just missed one. I made the
decision to get the first train to London Bridge and try from there.
That did save me a few minutes, but the train I did get was held at
signals just outside Lewisham station for what seemed like ages. Even
when I did get off the train at Lewisham I had under estimated the time
it takes to rush from the station to the pub. It was almost 6.30 when I
finally got in the pub.
Patricia seemed unfazed by my late arrival, and we had a good
chat while I drunk two pints of Stella Artois, and she just had a
cranberry juice. I am unsure what time we left the pub, but I was
feeling really tired by then, but I was also feeling very happy.
Despite feeling so tired I didn't really feel any rush to get home.
Which is not to say I deliberately hung around. I did pop back into the
pub for another quick scotch after seeing Patricia off on her bus home,
but that was only because I needed to use their toilet before getting
my own bus home.
I bought a nice greasy kebab on the way home, although it wasn't
actually that greasy. Most of the grease burns off when they put the
skewers of meat on the barbecue. There was a lot of salad with it, and
so in some strange parallel universe it might have been called a
healthy meal. I know it was around 8.20 pm when I got home, and after
feeding the cats, who thought I had deserted them, I sat down and watch
some TV while I ate my kebab. I was in bed a lot later than I had
intended in the morning, but in fact it was only a little after 9 pm.
Postscript (08:45 GMT)
I am at work now, and just as I walked the last few feet into
work I felt the first few drops of very light rain. Although it was
light by the time I got to Waterloo East, it has not really got any
lighter, and the grey sky is casting a gloomy light every where. |
Wednesday 16th January 2008
08:25 GMT |
At
last ! A Dry morning. It's better than that. The clouds are well
broken, and there should be some sunshine a bit later. It will not last
though. More rain is forecast for later on, and maybe I will get soaked
going home like I did last night.
Going home last night was not that pleasant. I left work early
enough that I should have been able to get the early train from
Waterloo East. Unfortunately I did not catch that early train. Nor did
I catch the one after that. It was not until 17:17 that I caught my
train home. I was held up getting to Clapham Junction by a combination
of a late arriving bus, a rather slow moving bus, and a fair amount of
traffic congestion. My train arrived at Waterloo station from Clapham
Junction station at 16:26, and three minutes is not enough time, no
matter how fast you go, to get from the platforms at Waterloo to the
platform at Waterloo East. So I didn't bother to rush, and went outside
to have a fag. With plenty of time to spare I slowly made my way to
platform B at Waterloo East where I thought I would waste five minutes
sitting on the toilet. My plan was thrown seriously askew when I found
the toilets closed because of a blocked drain. I still had over fifteen
minutes before my next train, and didn't fancy just hanging around on a
wet and windy, NON SMOKING platform. So I made the long, and by long I
do mean nearly five minutes of fairly fast walking, walk to have a fag
outside the station. I should have had enough time to finish my fag and
get back to the platform in time to catch the 16:55 train, but after I
had finished my fag I came to the conclusion that my previous idea of
visiting the toilet was not such a bad idea at all, and that it would
possibly an even better idea to definitely visit the toilet before
getting on the train. I was as quick as I could be in the toilet, but
not quick enough to get that next train. So I had another fag, and then
made a slow stroll to the platform where I finally caught the 17:17
train.
From about the time I initially arrived at Waterloo it started
raining. At some times the rain was really heavy. After several visits
to the outside to have a fag, and then some time waiting for my train,
I managed to get pretty wet. It was still raining when I reached
Catford, and I had to walk through medium heavy rain to finally get
home. I was pretty soaked by the time I got in, and really looking
forward to my roast beef and roast vegetables. I was so keen that I did
not leave it long enough for them to get really hot. That did not
matter because it was all pre-cooked, but it would have been even nicer
had it been at the proper temperature. It was still extremely nice, and
the beef was quite tender.
I felt tired last night and managed to get myself into bed before
9 pm (but only by a few minutes). I fell asleep very quickly, and
seemed to sleep quite well until 4.40 am. That was a very awkward time
to wake up. I had intended to get up early to give myself enough time
to wash my hair, but 5 am would have been early enough. As is quite
usual when I wake up, I wanted a pee, and having got up to have that it
didn't seem worthwhile going back to bed for fifteen minutes. So 4.40
am was the time I got up this morning !
Having got up so early this morning I feel like I will be going
to bed early tonight. Fortunately there is no drinking tonight because
we are going to try for a Friday night drink instead. So maybe I will
be going to bed soon after 8 pm tonight, but if I do I will probably do
some reading in bed to relax me into sleep. |
Tuesday 15th January 2008
06:49 GMT |
It's
wet outside ! There was a fair amount of overnight rain last night, and
it seems that the rain will continue for some time. I just hope that
when I leave for work I can find a window in the rain, and maybe get to
the station reasonably dry. (Some hope !). High winds were also another
feature of the weather forecast, although I have not noticed any as yet.
The weather yesterday was not too bad. There was a fair amount of
sunshine in the afternoon, and I had hoped that a lot of my journey
home would have ben in daylight. Unfortunately there was a bit of a
panic on at work and I stayed an extra hour. So it was well after
sunset when I left. I noticed in the newspaper I was reading on the
train that sunset was officially at 4.21 pm last night. I thought it
would be a little later than that, but it is still heading in the right
direction. I think it will be two minutes later tonight, and by the end
of the week, if I manage to catch the 16:29 train from Waterloo East, I
will at least start the final leg of my journey home before sunset. I
still hope there will be enough light left in the sky for it to be
light when I get off the train in Catford, and maybe, if the sky is
very clear, to still have some dusky light left when I enter my house.
I did very little when I got home last night. I cooked and ate
some chilli con carne. I was cheating a bit because it was actually a
Tesco "healthy eating" ready meal. I say "it", but in fact it was two
of them, and they were a couple of days past their sell by date. It was
a little difficult to tell if they smelled off or not. The chilli sauce
was quite pungent, and they had a few basil leaves that also gave off a
bit of a smell (at least I think they were basil leaves). I did wonder
if they were OK to eat, and I still have doubts. I did go to bed with a
strange feeling in my gut, but it never seemed to come to anything
overnight. This morning I have been unusually flatulent, and that, and
what usually goes with it, is why I thought I would hang on until the
next train after y usual train, just to make sure I am OK.
Tonight I can look forward to roast beef and roast vegetables. I
picked up a fairly nice looking bit of beef on the reduced price
counter in Tesco on Sunday. After eating a fairly big breakfast, and
later on some snacks, on Sunday I decided not to overstuff myself with
the roast beef so I didn't bother to cook it. I started cooking it, and
the vegetables, last night, and all I have to do tonight is to reheat
it, and give it a little more cooking (say, 20 minutes in a medium
oven). I am quite looking forward to it. It is only a very small joint,
and I know I will eat a fair bit of it. The leftovers may be big enough
to make for another full meal on Wednesday night, or more likely I will
cook up a nice beef stew. |
Monday 14th January 2008
08:15 GMT |
The
weather continues it's trend of being grey and gloomy. By now there
could be bright sunshine outside, but instead it is still just plain
grey. when I got off the train at Wandsworth Town station I walked
under the adjacent bridge to get to the BP petrol station where I
bought some drinks, and used their "facilities". All the street
lighting appeared to have failed under that bridge, and there was still
so little daylight that I could hardly see where I was going. I assume
that the street lighting had failed because of all the rain we have had
recently. Maybe that also explains why the traffic lights controlling
traffic into the Wandsworth one way system from Old York Road (the road
leading from the railway station, and used by my buses) seem to have
been stuck on permanent red since last Friday. It is slightly peculiar
because the traffic lights for all other roads joining the same
junction appear to be working normally.
The weekend seemed to be mostly dry during daylight hours, but
there was rain at night, some of it fairly heavy. There was even some
sunshine, and on both Saturday, and Sunday, the sky remained fairly
clear until just after sun down. I noticed that there was still some
reasonable daylight, just about enough to comfortably read by, until
about 4.50 pm. By the end of this week, if the weather is kind to me, I
have high hopes of just getting home after work in daylight. OK, it
won't be bright sunshine, but it would be most pleasant to be able to
see the sun set from indoors.
There were a lot of things I might have done over the weekend,
but for the most part I chose to be lazy, and get some extra sleep in.
This may have been a good thing because, for a Monday morning, I don't
feel too bad. Now, "not bad" is not the same as good, but under the
circumstances it seems like an improvement on many mornings last week.
One of the things I did on Saturday was to finally clear all the junk
off the stairs and give them a reasonable vacuuming. I was quite
pleased with the result. The stairs, or rather the carpet on them,
looks a bit faded and worn in places, but it's not terrible by my
standards, and should last a few more years yet. I was so pleased with
the end result that I did something I have been meaning to do since
1983 (!). I popped into Poundstretcher after shopping in Tesco's, and
bought a couple of cheap lamp shades. One is now on the lamp at the top
of the stairs, and the other is on the lamp in the hallway. I think the
effect is quite pleasing, and it is possible, that on first glance, the
place looks a little more like a home rather than just the place where
I crash out while not playing with computers. In fact, combined with
other improvements that have slowly happened over the last 12 months, I
am beginning to have hope that it will ultimately be possible to return
my house back to it's (cough) former splendour !
Of course a whole weekend can't have gone by without doing
something experimental with my computers. This weekend it was the turn
of Mepis Lite Linux
to be installed on a spare hard disk connected to my 450 MHz Pentium
III computer. It seems to be another good distribution that works
straight out of the tin. The only problem I had was that there were
some bad blocks on the hard disk I chose to install it on. This
necessitated using fsck, the linux file system checker, for the first
time. After a long run it seemed to have marked the bad blocks, and
everything proceeded normally. Using the rather good Adept package
manager I was able to install and remove a couple of programs with just
a couple of mouse clicks, and then do a complete update involving about
220 packages with just a few more mouse clicks. It does seem to work
well on that old machine. I now have 5, or is it 6, hard disks with
different operating systems installed on them for that PC, and sometime
soon there will be yet one more when I try LinuxMint. |
Saturday 12th January 2008
05:10 GMT |
This
morning seems to be cold, dark, and damp. The weather forecast promises
some weak, watery, sunshine today. So that should be something to look
forward to.
Yesterday's weather was a mix of the atrocious, and not too bad.
While I was writing yesterday morning it had seemed as if the rain had
stopped. How wrong I was ! I got soaked walking to the station, and I
was totally saturated by the time I finally got to work. It was a bit
of an eventful journey into work yesterday. Having missed my usual
train I had to fall back on the next one. That train would get me into
work a bit late, but not too late. However there were a few
difficulties caused by a failed train at London Bridge, and signal
failure in the Waterloo East area. As a result, from Lewisham onwards,
we moved at what seemed little more than walking pace between every
signal on the way, and stopping at each one for what seemed like ages,
but was probably only a minute or two. I suppose it may only have added
about fifteen minutes to the journey, but when you are already running
late it was irritating. I arrived in work a lot later than I would have
desired, and on top of that I was soaked down to the bones. I was not
happy !
Going home was a little better. In fact initially it was quite
good. When I left work the clouds had broken up, and there was some
weak sunshine from low down on the horizon. Unfortunately, as my train
approached Waterloo, the clouds started to thicken again. By the time
my train, the 16:29, left Waterloo East the sun, now already on, or
beginning to go below the horizon, was obscured by clouds, and the
world was, once again, a dark and dirty place. Just to rub in how
depressing it all was I could still see tantalising glimpses of fairly
light grey sky through the cracks of the almost black clouds for up to
half the journey from Waterloo East to Catford. By the time I was
approaching home, having detoured via Tesco, it was just starting to
rain again.
My evening was almost as I had predicted in the morning. I had a
thoroughly lazy time. I was up a fair bit later than I thought I would
be, but I did take a magazine to bed where I read until it was very
late. It could have been almost 11.30 pm before I turned out the light
and fell asleep very quickly.
I slept quite well, I think, until about 4 am. At that time I was
having a dream. In this dream I was on a train with a companion, who
may have been Aleemah, or Jodie, and I think we were heading toward
London. At one station a couple got on the train and sat down near us.
The woman was very similar to a woman who works somewhere near to me,
and is quite tall and attractive, but looks very fierce. Her companion
was a small constipated looking man. After they had sat down he asked
the person sitting in front of me why he was not wearing a seat belt.
He said it in that whiney sort of voice that busybodies use. The person
who he addressed said nothing, but did put his seat belt on (quite
where the seat belts are on a train is something I hope to never find
out in my lifetime). So I asked if I should be wearing my seat belt,
and the small, constipated looking man said, in his whining voice,
"yes". With that I turned around and asked all the other passengers,
whom I seemed to know in some unexplianed way, if they were wearing
their seat belt. Almost in unison they replied NO, and in a scene that
could have come from a "Carry On" film they burst out laughing and
there followed several minutes of cat calls, jeering and other
jocularity, and maybe even a few hats thrown in the air. Well things
settled down and we approached the final stop. Before getting off the
train I wanted to go to the toilet. I didn't want to use the small
toilet, and so I went to the one near the first class carriages. Things
got even more peculiar here. As I dodged in through the narrow door I
set off the hot air hand dryer (in much the same way that it is almost
impossible to drop your trousers in the very narrow toilet of the
Ctaford pie and mash shop without your elbow, or something else,
triggering the hot air hand drier). Once through the doorway of the
train toilet the walls became unfinished brick instead of the typical
panelling you would see inside a train. The interior was also rather
larger than could comfortably be accomodated inside a train carriage. I
had no time to wonder about this strange twist in my dream reality. I
just wanted to use the toilet. This was my cue that it would probably
be better to wake up at that point.
Upon waking up I realised that I did indeed need to use the
toilet, but maybe not quite as desperately as I needed to in the dream.
So I slowly hauled myself out of bed and went to the toilet. By which I
mean I went to the bathroom where the toilet is, and only then,
standing in the proscribed position, actually went
to the toilet ! Predictably enough, all this aroused the curiosity of
the cats, and they soon made it perfectly clear that while I was up
they fancied some breakfast.
So I got up, fed the cats, checked my email, let Smudge out into
the garden, let smudge back in the house, and eventually sat down to
write this.Very soon I will be back in bed where it would be nice to
get another four hours of sleep. Maybe that will happen, maybe it
won't, but that is what I am aiming for.
Before I go back to bed I must leave you with some news that was
very heartening to me. I really wish I could speak German, and fancied
working in Berlin. To find out why, read this. |
Friday 11th January 2008
06:50 GMT |
It
is very wet outside, but I don't think it is actually raining now.
Today will most probably be like yesterday. It was mostly gloomy with
occasional rain, but hopefully I will not be rained upon as I wait for
a train at Clapham Junction station tonight like I was last night. With
the heavy clouds above, it was, to all intents and purposes, dark when
I left work yesterday, and there is a good chance it will be very
similar tonight. It will be rather nice when we get a bright sunny day,
as tomorrow is supposed to be, when I am going home from work (which I
won't be tomorrow because it is Saturday). On that first day when I
leave work under a reasonably cloudless sky I am expecting to see
daylight almost all the way home. That will make me feel quite good. Of
course it will be even better when there is still some daylight for at
least half an hour after getting home, but sadly that is still some
weeks away yet.
I didn't do much last night. I did exchange a couple of text
messages with Aleemah though. She tells me that she is going out
shopping to the January sales tomorrow, and I will not be seeing her.
This is both good and bad. The bad side is obviously that I won't be
seeing her. On the good side is that I get to save some money, I won't
have to rush around cleaning the place up in the morning, and I could,
if the need takes me, have a nice smelly curry tonight. So I can look
forward to some extra hours in bed if I need them tomorrow, and I
probably will, and the time to strip down my laptop to see if I can
shed any further light on it's battery charging problem. The advantages
of not seeing Aleemah do not compare with seeing her, but they are not
bad !
Tonight I can do one of two things. I can get to bed early -
which is not a bad idea considering how I have felt lately - or I can
stay up in the knowledge that I could make up the time in the morning.
One problem is that I find it difficult to sleep in the morning, and so
the early night, or at least going to bed at my more usual time, may be
the better idea. There is a third way, and I feel it is one I will
probably follow. I will go to bed with a book or magazine early, and
read until it feels like time to sleep. Compromise, it's always best in
the long run ! |
Thursday 10th January 2008
08:22 GMT |
There
is a distinct lack of daylight this morning. There are really heavy
clouds covering the whole sky, and the sun is hardly lighting them up
at all. Fortunately I encountered very little rain on my journey into
work. There were one or two drops here and there, but the best is
probably waiting until I am on my way home again. there was some
sunshine yesterday, but I am sure there will be no sign of it today.
I went for a drink last night despite not really feeling like it.
Two pints of Winter Warmer helped, but did not cure my reluctance to be
there. So at 8.30 pm, just one hour after getting there, I received
some flack for announcing that I was going home, but that was nothing
compared to the disgust that I generated when I revealed that I was not
going to attend a funeral.
The funeral was of someone who could really be described as a
friend of a friend. I know the guy, although I think I have only seem
him about four times in the last twenty years (and fours times is being
slightly generous by counting occasions that I don't clearly remember,
but believe he was there), and he was an OK sort of guy. He seemed to
like me, or at least I amused him, but we never really mixed in the
same social circles. Now as a general rule I don't do weddings,
funerals, christenings, or most large social gatherings. I have tried
them all, with the exception of a christening, and I just don't like
going to them. In the past I may have bowed to social pressure to
attend this, that, or the other, but now I increasingly feel like an
outcast anyway, I refuse to have a endure situations where I feel
uncomfortable just because it is the presumed "right thing to do". Of
course it increasingly leaves me more socially isolated, but that is
something you learn to live with in the same way you learn to live with
the physical aches and pains you gather as you age.
From the chest and arm pains I got as I rushed to the station
yesterday morning, it can't be long before my funeral - except that I
don't want one. I want my body given over to medical voodoo (I was
going to say science, but most doctors know more about voodoo than
science). They can recondition and reuse any useful parts, and the
leftovers can go to dissection classes. It is terribly important that
doctors-to-be learn what is inside a body, because most of them
probably don't have a clue what a body is, and what it's function is (a
mobile life support system for a short lived brain). Once they have
finished cutting me up they can flush the remains down the toilet. If
there is any spare cash in my wallet when they find me dead, I
wouldn't begrudge paying for one last round for those who want to
gather to gossip about me, but forget going to funerals and all that
crap. |
Wednesday 9th January 2008
06:50 GMT |
The
weather is very variable at the moment. Yesterday it was pouring with
rain between about 10 am and 12 am, but after that the sun did break
through, and it was sunny for much of the afternoon. As the sun went
down it started to get cloudy again. It was just about daylight when I
first reached the platform at Waterloo East on my way home from work a
few minutes early for the 16:29 train. If it had been less cloudy it
might even have been described as full daylight, but the sun was
rapidly setting into a very red western sky. As I walked home from the
station I am sure I felt a few light drops of rain, and it may well
have rained overnight.
That red sky last night suggests that today should be a good day.
I am not totally convinced, and I can't recall what the weather
forecast for today is. I am going to assume it will be similar to
yesterday. It did seem a little warm wearing a jumper yesterday, and
today I think I will take the bold move and leave it off. From then on
it will depend on the wind. If it is windy, and it has been recently, I
will probably feel cold when outside, but at least I will be more
comfortable if the trains are hot inside.
I feel very tired this morning. Every time I have planned to get
to bed early something has happened to stop it happening. Tonight I
will very probably be in the pub. I did try and get the drink changed
to Friday night, but it seems I have been out voted. Maybe I will have
to summon up all my will power and make sure I leave the pub a little
before 9 pm at the latest.
I should have got a reasonable nights rest last night. I was in
bed, and may have even got to sleep by 10 pm, but it was a restless
night filled with dreams. Some of those dreams I can remember only
snatches from, but at least one I can remember in more detail - except
nothing really happened in all that detail. It concerned a woman who I
have not seen for many years now. She had the most beautiful bum there
can be, and her name was Imogen. All we did was to walk and talk before
we got back to my place. In this case "my place" was actually my mums
house, where I used to live before moving here. "Things" were supposed
to happen there, but it seemed far too crowded, and we could not get
any privacy. In the end Imogen got bored and went home. She popped up
again in another dream. This was set at work, and she had come in to
discuss plans for a new unit she wanted made. As she was doing that I
was distracted by a workmate who was drilling into the battery pack of
another battery powered drill for some unexplained reason. As the drill
penetrated the batteries a plume of steam belched out followed by a
multi-coloured plume of sparks. As that died down I woke up. |
Tuesday 8th January 2008
08:52 GMT |
This
morning it is dry, but rather cloudy. Yesterday's sunshine did happen,
and some sun may break through this afternoon, although looking at the
state of the sky now it would seem that the weather forecasters are
being a little optimistic.
I got my first hint that the seasons are really moving on last
night. I left work a little late, maybe ten minutes, and it was
definitely still daylight. I am not sure when the daylight faded out,
but every day now it will stay light for two minutes longer (I think).
It may only take another two or three weeks and I will be just about
getting home while it is still light, and that will be a great boost to
my pleasure.
I tried my new battery in the new laptop last night. It worked !
No, that is not totally correct. the battery came with some charge in
it, and it ran the laptop unaided for about five minutes. As the charge
dwindled to nothing I plugged in the mains adaptor and carried on
working. Unfortunately the new battery was not being charged either
when the laptop was in operation, or when it was shut down. Maybe I
have spent £40 that was not strictly needed, but the new battery
has armed me with another tool to (one day) finally diagnose the
problem. If I can diagnose the problem there is still not guarantee
that I will be able to fix it, but I'll cross that bridge when I come
to it. |
Monday 7th January 2008
08:34 GMT |
The
day has started off overcast, but at least the sky is a light grey
colour instead of a dark gloomy grey. It is possible that the sun will
break through later on. The most significant feature this morning is
the wind. It is quite strong, and I can't recall seeing the wind
generator on the local BP petrol station whizzing round quite as fast
as this morning.
For yet another morning I have had a touch of gut ache. It is not
as bad as Friday, but maybe a bit worse than yesterday. yesterday it
didn't matter because I was not going anywhere, but on a work day it is
worrying with all the travelling I do to get to work. thank goodness
that the local BP petrol station, just around the corner from
Wandsworth Town railway station, has a toilet. This morning it was
definitely needed. I still feel a little off even now, but at least I
know that I am no more than a few minutes from a toilet if needed.
I had a lazy afternoon yesterday. I suggested it would be
unlikely that I would do anything yesterday afternoon, and my
prediction came true ! To be honest, I am not sure where all the time
went to. I didn't even turn the TV on until the evening, and I am sure
that the snooze I had, plus the reading I did, could not account for
the whole afternoon, but I guess it must have. One thing I did do,
although it hardly counts, was to do a complete upgrade of the Kubuntu
installation on my laptop. I say it doesn't really count because I only
had to intervene for a couple of mouse clicks. all 939 upgraded
installation files downloaded themselves, and installed themselves. I
just had to let it get on with it.
Talking of my laptop. My new battery did arrive at work on Friday
as I thought it might have. I now have it here at work, and I can't
wait to get home tonight to try it out. By tomorrow I should be able to
reveal whether I have wasted £40 or not. It is possible that I
could have wasted a lot more. I notice that the new battery is made in
China. I am now wondering if it is one of the famous exploding laptop
batteries that burn houses down. Time will tell ! |
Sunday 6th January 2008
12:45 GMT |
It's
Sunday, and it's sunny. The temperature is fairly mild, although I
wouldn't want to stand outside without a coat for too long. this is
similar to yesterday, except that by the afternoon the sky did cloud
over. It looks as if today the sun may stay out for a bit longer. It
would be nice if it stayed shining right up to sundown, but maybe that
is a little too much to hope for.
On Friday, once my
bottom felt settled, I tried out my new vacuum cleaner. It seems to
work well, but I do not like the way the exhaust air comes out so hot.
It doesn't sound like a recipe for the machine to last that long.
Another bad thing about it is that it does take a fair amount of effort
to push around the nozzle. By comparison, my old upright cleaner would
move around easily. On a more positive note, the nozzle at the end work
really well at get the tiny deposits of dust of the lumps in the
woodchip wallpaper. Those clumps of dust build up so imperceptibly
slowly that it almost looks like the wallpaper is just sort of old and
grubby. When I applied to nozzle to my bedroom wallpaper, principly
just aiming for some cobwebs, I was amazed at how different everything
looked. I subsequently did a few more walls, and there are still
more to be done even today.
A combination of the hard work
wielding the vacuum cleaner about the place, and a general feeling of
internal emptiness, brought with it a desire for some breakfast. So I
made up a couple of large sandwiches. they equaled, or more probably
exceeded, the amount I wanted to eat on Friday. So in the evening I
intended to just have some fruit. To that end I ate a whole mango, two
nectarines, and two kiwi fruit. Most of the fruit was ripe and sweet,
but it still left me with a slightly acid feeling stomach, and I ended
up topping the fruit off with some fishcakes.
On Saturday
I had already done a lot of the cleaning I intended to do before
Aleemah visited. I still did a little more, but I could afford to do
little else in preparation. As she did on her last two visits, Aleemah
suggested that she call me when she was at London Bridge, and I would
meet her at Catford Bridge station. We met at 12:30 and went to the pie
and mash shop. I really did not want to eat then, but then again I did
not want to sit in there not eating. It was hardly a compromise, let
alone a good idea, but I ended up ordering a egg and cheese burger and
chips. With my (sort of intended) food ration for the entire weekend
inside me, and Aleemah filled with pie and mash, we headed back home to
watch the film "The Doors".
It
was a good film, but it had some unexpected effects on me. I felt I
understood some of the angst that the film portrayed Jim Morrison as
suffering from. One consequence was that I got quite drunk on Scotch.
This made the latter entertainment slightly unfullfilling, but still
enjoyable. After Aleemah went home I felt starving. This was mainly due
to all the Scotch I had drunk, and still being drunk I could stop
myself buying some chicken and chips on the way home from the station.
It was just some chicken and
chips, but quite a lot of them. When I went to bed I felt bloated and
uncomfortable. I was also very thirsty. For several hours after going
to bed I was in and out of bed, drinking lots of water, and going to
the toilet a lot.
This morning was almost a re-run of
Friday morning. My guts were volatile, and by the time I had finished
dealing with that I felt starving again. I am not sure if it was
fortunate, or unfortunate, that I had a lot of chips left over from
last night. So for brunch I had egg and chips. It appears that I bought
so many chips last night that even this morning I only wanted to eat
half the leftovers, and the rest I have now thrown away. If all goes
well, which on past experience is unlikely, I will attempt to eat very
lightly for the rest of the day.
One great achievement
today is that I have just about cleared all the clutter of the stairs.
Some of the stuff has been thrown away, and other stuff more sensibly
stacked elsewhere. There are some items were not on the stair case, but
are currently stacked in the hallway that I want to dispose of to make
even the hallway free of clutter. They are old VHS tapes. Many have
been used only once, and there are probably some that have only ever
been half used. It seems a shame just to dump them in the bin. So if
anyone wants any used VHS tapes, for free, get in touch. Most will have
old TV shows on them, but if you are very lucky there could be some
porn there too.
It seems unlikely, but if somehow I find
the energy, or inspiration, or combination of both them, or even some
mystery third force, I may get the new vacuum cleaner out and
clean the staircase again. I did not do a very wonderful job of it on
Friday, and now I have removed the clutter there is more dust and old
cat hair fluff balls revealed. I actually picked up the bigger balls of
fluff, but it will need some intensive vacuuming to get the stairs
looking reasonably nice. It will happen, just maybe not today. Instead
of housework I do feel more inclined to be very lazy today. There is
some reading I want to catch up on, and perhaps have a few snoozes
between articles. |
Friday 4th January 2008
07:34 GMT |
This
morning it is cold and dark. The snow which was forecast for yesterday
didn't come, and neither did the frosty start to the morning. It is
cold this morning, but once again not quite cold enough for frost.
Instead of snow yesterday there was a bit of icy drizzle, and maybe it
will be the same again today.
I have felt tired these last few days. I still have not got back
into a decent sleep pattern after the excesses of the xmas holiday
period. I was late to bed on Wednesday night, and to a lesser extent,
last night. During last night, to make matters worse, I had to get up
several times for a pee. My food last night did contain a lot of water,
and I assume that was one reason for it. Another reason, and maybe the
one why I am writing this now instead of on my train to work, is that I
have modified my diet a bit.
I have been trying to cut down on some of the eating excesses of
late. It is sort of working, but even on the first day there were
mishaps. On Wednesday night I started with two bowls of instant
noodles. They were nice and warm after coming in from the cold, and
reasonably low in calories, and very low in fat. The trouble was that I
came home via Tesco and spotted something while I was in there.
- A tin of mixed nuts - resistance to temptation = 50%
- Reduced to half price - resistance to temptation = 25%
- Rosemary flavoured - novelty idea overload - resistance to temptation collapsed !
So a little while after the noodles I started to munch on those
rosemary flavoured nuts, and they were very nice. So much so that I ate
the whole lot. The noodles, the nuts, and a couple of pieces of fruit
were all I ate on Wednesday, but the nuts were the real killer. It is
quite possible that it is the passing of those nuts, this morning, that
has caused me to visit the toilet several times and miss my first
train. I did get to the station in time to catch the next train, but I
felt too uncomfortable to get on it. Since getting home again I now
feel perfectly OK, at least while I am sitting down I do. I think I may
have to call in sick today if I am to remain comfortable, although I
hate calling in sick on Fridays, it seems such a sham, and I don't like
to go sick so early in the new year, but it is probably better than
having an accident on the train. I might also add that last night I did
have a lot of cauliflower and broccoli, and all the roughage from those
may well be making the problem worse.
One other problem with going sick today is that I am expecting my
new laptop battery to be delivered to work today. I am obviously keen
to find out if my diagnosis is correct, or whether I have just wasted
£40. It looks like I will probably have to be patient and wait
until Monday to find out if I have boobed. One consolation is that the
shipping notification I received said the battery was being delivered
by Royal Mail. The chances are that it will not turn up until the
middle of next week ! |
Wednesday 2nd January 2008
08:23 GMT |
We
are all doomed ! Here we are, nearly a fortnight after the winter
solstice, the days are supposed to be getting longer, and yet it was
still dark when I arrived here in Wandsworth. It hardly looks like
daytime even now. Obviously the Earth has shifted off it's axis and the
end of the world is just round the corner. Maybe read too much
sci-fi, or maybe it is just that it is very cloudy this morning. There
were a few times when it was drizzling as I painfully made my way to
work. More rain is quite possible today, and the forecast for tomorrow
is for sleet or snow ! It certainly is chilly this morning, but not
cold enough for any frost or ice. The wind is beginning to blow in
direct from Siberia, and it is that wind which will bring tomorrows
snow. I doubt London will be affected too much, but the north and
Midlands are forecast to get a lot of heavy snow.
I think that over the preceding 11 days my commuting muscles have
atrophied. It is one of the things I feared before that enforced
holiday started. Coming to work this morning did feel like a struggle.
Various bits of me were aching, and it is only now, after having sat in
the warm for a while, that the various kinks and cramps are going away.
I did my est to get to sleep early last night, but I was only partially
successful. I still feel like I have fed the cats, slouched around a
bit, and now it is time to go back to bed again for several hours.
Overall I would say I feel precarious !
The excess holiday was not as bad as I predicted. I did get to
see Aleemah twice, and to have two good boozing sessions (or was it
three ? ), and one other less boozy booze session. That must be a bit
of a record compared to previous years this century, and many
years of the last century. I am not sure what the highlight was, but my
"secret admirers" text message just after midnight on new years eve
still leaves me perplexed, but grateful.
As we enter into a new year of increasingly totalitarian
government, another blow to marginalise the "proles" has been
struck
"People could be expected to lose weight and give up smoking in exchange
for rights to healthcare to be enshrined in a new NHS constitution,
Gordon Brown will signal today." (taken from an article here).
It has been observed that this practice has been going on unnofficially
now for some time (though I can't quote any sources), but now it looks
as if it has come out into the open and big brother will make it part
of "new thought". It is perhaps some satisfaction that despite many
hints that all is not well with my body, I have reversed the roles
and marginalised the doctors. If I did choose to see a doctor I think I
would have to ask for an estimate first because I am sure the guarantee
period on this body ran out some time ago. |
Tuesday 1st January 2008
09:27 GMT |
|
So
begins a fresh new day in a fresh new year - except that today will not
really be that much different to the day before apart from a few minor
details. The day has started somewhat misty looking. It feels cold too.
I could imagine the possibility of it raining today, although I
have not seen a weather forecast to add any credence to what is just a
gut feeling.
Yesterday
was OK. I am not sure how I passed the morning. I certainly didn't go
to Tesco, or doing any hoovering as I suggested I might do, but I did
put one load of laundry through the washing machine. At about lunchtime
I got an email wondering if I was going for a drink. At that time I was
not sure, and suggested probably not, but much to my surprise I got a
call from Jodie saying she was coming over. To be truthful it was not a
total surprise. It was something that we had discussed a few days ago,
but I didn't think it would actually happen. I then re-replied to the
email, and for safeties sake, backed that up with a text message,
saying that we would be going for a drink at about 3 pm.
It
was 3.20 pm when we arrived at the pub, and Iain, the originator of the
earlier email, arrived there at the exact same time. Later on we were
joined by Kevin. We had a good drink, and Jodie managed to totally
bemuse Kevin and Iain as she became more and more sloshed. We all left
the pub together at sometime around 7 pm, although I have no idea at
all what the actual time was. I was feeling quite happily drunk, and
Jody was almost legless. Kevin went off in one direction to walk home.
Iain crossed the road the get his bus home, and I walked Jodie up the
road to put her on a bus home. After that I succumbed to temptation and
went into the Japanese (and Chinese) takeaway that is right by the bus
stop. I bought a couple of bento boxes to take home and feast on while
watching TV.
A very quick and sloppy scan of the available
TV channels showed there was nothing on that seemed worth watching, so
I started watching videos of James Burke's "Connections 2". I don't
know how many episodes I watched, but it must have been at least 6, and
maybe more. It was all interesting stuff and I finally managed to drag
myself away from it, and go to bed, at about 1.30 am this morning.
I
can't really say that the new year celebrations at midnight passed me
by unnoticed. There was a hell of a racket going on outside - mostly
fireworks - and I did get a couple of text messages. Both were
surprising. One was from Roger. So thank you Roger. While the second
was certainly beyond surprising, and startling may be closer to the
truth. That texter will remain anonymous. The contents of that text
message were what elevated it from beyond surprising, and maybe even
beyond startling. I was being thought about ! Now I don't know what was
being thought about me, but I very much doubt it was the same seedy,
and reprehensible thoughts that I would be thinking about the texter,
and so I doubt I deserved being thought about in what was
undoubtably pure and innocent thoughts ! Nevertheless it did bring a
sort of warm inner glow at the time.
This morning I was
awake much too early. I fed the cats at around 6.30 am, and I have been
awake ever since. It is now 10 am and I really ought to get washed and
dressed. I think Tesco is open today, and I really do need to do some
shopping if I can. It won't be a disaster if I don't, but it would be
inconvenient. Ideally I should get some more sleep, but if I do that I
probably won't get to bed at a sensible time to be able to get up
bright and early for work tomorrow. Another thing I ought to do today
is to go to the station and see if the miserable bastard in the ticket
office will sell me an advance season ticket before the prices go up
tomorrow.
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