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| Friday 31st October 2008 | 08:41 GMT
The
great paradox of this morning's weather is that it feels as if it is
freezing cold, but in fact there was not even a hint of frost that I
could see. Maybe it is just me feeling cold. It was fairly clear this
morning, and even the sun has made an appearance. It's a shame that the
top temperature today will struggle to make it in to double figures (if
it even manages that). It is the cold wind that is the real problem. It
is not that strong, yet it feels like it is blowing in from the depths
of the arctic (which it may well be doing so).
After two
miserable and/or annoying commutes home from work yesterday, and the
day before, I really did not want to come to work this morning. I woke
up feeling cold and miserable. I wasn't cold in bed, but it was
freezing in the bathroom, and Smudge decided that this morning would be
a good time to sit undecided on the windowsill downstairs, not knowing
whether to go out or stay in. So the downstairs back room ended up
getting really cold too.
In the end I managed to get
myself together, and ignoring the stiffness of my limbs and back, and
the mild headache I seemed to have, as well as a sort of undefined
stomache ache, I left the house in time to catch the 06:31 train (which
I am sure used to be the 06:34, but may have been retimed during the
leaf fall season). Just to further increase my discomfort there was no
heating on in the train. It felt very cold and damp as we trundled
towards Waterloo East. Thankfully there was some heat on the train from
Waterloo to Earlsfield, but it did not seem to be enough to thaw me out
completely.
Tonight I am going to walk out of work as
early as I dare. If I don't manage to catch the 16:29 train from
Waterloo East then I really ought to jump under the next train, but
that would put a serious dent in my plan to buy a large bottle of
something very alcoholic from Tesco's on my way home. On balance I
think that I'll go for the booze rather than the splatter. (besides,
jumping under trains is very
antisocial - far better to jump under cars or lorries. It causes much
less delays for people trying to get home). With luck I'll be able to
get home, via Tesco, early enough to go out again for a quick drink
with Patricia (if she is available). | | Thursday 30th October 2008 | 19:44 GMT
It
was raining when I left for work this morning. Fortunately it was not
raining that hard, and it stopped shortly after I got to the station.
On the way to work there was even a bit of sunshine. It did make the
journey into work just that little bit better.
Coming home
from work was less joyful. Very less joyful ! I left work a bit early
determined to have a relaxed journey home. The first thing that
depressed me was that it was dark, gloomy,cold and it had started to
rain again. I was a bit peeved when I just missed a bus, but slightly
cheered when another turned up very quickly. I was still right on
schedule to get a reasonably early train from Earlsfield. Then things
went very badly.
When I got to the station I found that no
London bound trains were able to stop there. The station assistants
advice was to go out one stop to Wimbledon, and then get a London bound
train from there. I could have done that, or I could get a bus to
Clapham Junction. I knew that whichever option I choose I would never
get to Waterloo in time for my 16:29 train, but either way would
probably be OK for the 16:55 train.
I decided to try
getting the number 77 bus to Clapham Junction, I had never been on the
77 before, and thus there was a modicum of novelty about it. At the bus
stop the "Countdown" indicator suggested a 77 bus would be along
in 2 minutes. Those two minutes passed, and maybe a few more, and the
predicted 77 disappeared into oblivion. Pretty soon a number 44 bus
appeared and I decided to get that to Wandsworth Town station (the
station I used before work moved in spring). It was a bad mistake. Very
soon the bus was packed, and moving quite slowly in the traffic. The
journey was also a fair bit longer than I had anticipated.
When
I finally managed to extract myself from the bus, and got into the
station I found the next train was delayed by 5 minutes. I didn't know
it at the time, but that 5 minutes was just enough delay to make sure I
missed the 16:55 train. I eventually got the 17:17 Catford Bridge bound
train. I was feeling extremely peeved by the time that train arrived. I
just about stayed on the right side of sanity by almost convincing
myself that compared to say the extremes of yesterday, it was not that
unpleasant on the train. It was very full, but I had a seat, and as
that train does not stop at Lewisham there would be no extra people
trying to crowd on after London Bridge.
Despite all my
efforts to convince myself that everything was now OK, I was still
annoyed that I was running so late, and I still felt trapped inside a
crowded place while gasping for a relaxing fag. It was a great relief
to get off the train again, but I still felt bloody annoyed that it was
cold, dark, and nearly 6 pm before I got home (it was actually 5.45 pm
- 55 minutes later than I can manage on a good day).
Once
again I could easily have had a giant scotch whiskey tonight if only I
had any in the house. Instead I had three cans of hot soup followed by
a pile of fish fingers. This is a little more than I would have liked
to have, but it did feel neccesary. I now feel warm, and mostly
satiated. I would go to bed now, but in 10 minutes there is a TV
program I want to watch, but I'll be racing to bed as soon as that has
finished.
07:00 GMT
This
morning is just cold and damp. It is not actually raining, but it looks
as if it could do at anytime. Yesterday the sun shone for a lot of the
day, and the sunshine itself did feel warm, but it didn't seem to warm
up the air, and it remained pretty cool all day.
When I
left work I felt reasonably OK, but I left work a little too late to
catch my early train home from Waterloo East. In fact I missed it by
just a minute or two.I don't know if my blood sugar level had actually
dropped too low, or
if it was because I have been smoking fags with less than the standard
B&H nicotine content, or even if it was just the phase of the moon,
but I felt incredibly irritable. This was made worse by :-
- Just missing the 16:29 train and having to wait for the 16:55.
- Screaming and incredibly noisy youngsters and babies on the
platform at Waterloo East.
- Some sort of baby buggy convention meaning that almost every
train doorway seemed to have at least one huge pram blocking the way -
usually filled with something very noisy.
- Another group of youngsters talking to each other at 150++dB on
the train.
- People with incredibly crap and intensely irritating ring tones
on their phones.
- Having to stand much of the way to avoid being boxed in by more
prams and generally thick, stupid and smelly people.
- Plus it was cold and gloomy outside.
As my train approached Catford Bridge I had almost finalised plans for
a massacre that would have made the battle of the Somme look like a
Girl Guides outing. Fortunately I managed to get off the train and have
a fag before the final plans were formed.
I came home via Tesco's. If I had inadvertently found myself stuck in
the checkout queue with Mavis, the blind, deaf, and dumb Octogenerian
(squared) fumbling through the groceries with all the speed and agility
of a glacier, then the whole of southeast England may well have been
turned into a lifeless smoking ruin. Fortunately Mavis was nowhere to be seen, but I did forget to buy
some hand cream for my almost chapped hands. It was only because I
still have a squeeze or two in the last bottle that a few minor
atrocities were avoided.
After
sitting down in the warm, and having some hot food I did feel
considerably better, What I wanted then was an unfeasibly large scotch,
but I have no whisky in the house at the moment (I think it will be one
of the first things I buy when I am paid tomorrow). There was some
drinking going on in the pub last night, and I could have gone there
for a drink, but after eating my dinner I felt too full to go out
again, and I really wanted some more peace and quiet to unwind. | | Wednesday 29th October 2008 | 08:03 GMT
It
seems paradoxical, but there was less, if any, frost this morning, but
my hands felt a lot colder while waiting for my train than they did
yesterday. During the early part of the night I believe there was a lot
more cloud. That would have helped keep the temperature up a bit, and
explain the lack of frost this morning, but once again this morning's
sky is clear, and the sun is shining.
The weather is
behaving rather strangely at the moment. It feels a little early for
frost. I think I normally assosciate frosts starting towards the end of
the first week in November, but I really ought to check back through
this diary to see what happened in previous years. I do remember my mum
saying that the first dense foggy mornings always start after
bonfire/fireworks/Guy Fawkes night on the 5th November. Over the years
that seems to have been fairly correct. Another strange bit of weather
happened to the west of London last night. It snowed ! Well it wasn't
quite snow. I saw a live news report last night, it was unrelated to
the weather, but the reporter was standing by the road, and it was
obvious that the road was covered in slushy melting sleet or snow. The
weather forecasts were saying that there was some arctic weather
heading south last night, and did indeed suggest that some sleet or
snow could fall as far south as London. There is evidence here in
Earlsfield this morning that something fell overnight, leaving a few
puddles, but I am sure it was dry in Catford last night. It may not
have happened in Catford, but snow anywhere in London during October
must surely be evidence of global warming ! Of course it is not called
global warming anymore, but climate change instead. It seems like a
good thing to me. Here's hoping for a decent white Christmass this year
!
My altered eating efforts sailed very close to the wind
last night. I was doing OK until I realised that I had some remaining
poppy and sesame crackers going soft at the back of the cupboard,
and some uneaten ultra light cream cheese in the fridge. I am actualy
glad I used them both up. The cream cheese was so "ulra lite" that it
was just about tasteless, and the crackers would have been inedible if
they had been left for a few more days. Well, they are all out of the
way now, and can't pose any further temptation.
One
peculiar, although logically not unexpected, aspect of this reduced
and/or altered food intake is the effect it is having on my sleep
patterns. I find that I am not so tempted to go to bed so early
recently. This seems counter-intuitive after the recent change from
British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time. Now the clocks have changed
we get what seems like an extra hour in bed in the mornings because the
new 5am is the old 6am. This also means that the new 9pm is the old
10pm, and a week or two ago I would be almost asleep on my feet by
10pm. These last few days I have not been preparing to go bed
until 9pm instead of often being in bed, with the lights out, by 9pm.
So I am going to sleep later, but I am still waking up well before my
alarm is due to go off at 5am. I would estimate that I am now sleeping
between half an hour to a full hour less than I was a couple of weeks
ago. Some of this is undoubtably due to lowering my blood sugar levels,
and some may be due to having fully recovered from the two bad colds I
had in succession a couple of months back.Those colds certainly took
their toll on me, but I never really considered that I could still be
suffering their after effects so many weeks later, but perhaps I was. I
almost feel semi-healthy recently ! | | Tuesday 28th October 2008 | 07:46 GMT
Clear
skies as we approach winter goes on mean only one thing - frost ! The
sky is nearly perfectly clear, and all the parked cars have frost on
top. It is not quite cold enough for the grass to get frosty, but it is
quite cold enough to get my unprotected fingers tingling. Apart from
the cold it is actually a rather nice morning. It's bright, the leaves
on the trees are either golden, or rapidly turning that waym, and the
air seems beautifully clear.
If the forecast in my
morning paper had been correct, and maybe for some parts of the south
east of the country it is, it would have been a cloudy start to the
day, and the temperature would have been 5° C. I hope they have the
forecast for this afternoon wrong as well. They predict heavier cloud
and a chance of rain.
My comment about how I imagined
the weather in Canada could be proved to be totally incorrect. This is
not surprising as it was just my imagination running wild. In fact,
according to my friend Mike, the temperature there is quite similar to
what it is here. One difference is that a few days ago they had
torrential rain.
Last night I broke my intention to lay
off the beer until the end of the week. I stopped off in Lewisham
for a couple of pints with a mystery woman. It was a sort of blind
date. It was a pleasant diversion, but I very much doubt it will lead
to romance. The best part was that even with a couple of pints inside
of me I was able to resist going overboard with my plans for dinner.
The greater part of my dinner actually consisted of cans of soup, but
there were a few other things thrown in as well.
It may be
too early to tell if my altered food regime is having any effect on my
waistline, but it is definitely helping with my stamina. I managed
quite a brisk walk to the station this morning without suffering too
much wheezyness, or an aching chest, which would have been the case a
fortnight ago. I think I am going to try and keep this up for a while
longer, but I will be adding more beer to my diet. In fact maybe even
more than before. Now it is official that binge drinking is considered
to be a little over two pints, it makes the experience sound so much
better. The ability to endlessly binge was once the preserve of the
wealthy classes, but now our neo-stalinist government has gloriously
brought binge drinking to the peasants. All hail our new masters ! | | Monday 27th October 2008 | 07:44 GMT
I
didn't see any weather forecasts over the weekend, or none that I
recall, so it was a pleasant surprsie to find a mostly clear sky this
morning. Everything is a bit damp, but that is probably just dew. The
sunshine, when the sun has finally risen high enough in the sky to see
it, will make for a pleasant day. Unfortunately the sun is carrying
less and less heat as we approach winter. Looking out my window, here
at work, it could almost be the start of a summer day. Sadly it will be
a cool day, and some light winds will make it feel even cooler than it
really is. According to my morning newspaper we will barely hit
temperatures in double figures today. They forecast the top temperature
in London to be 11° C.
Meanwhile, over in Canada, my
friend Mike (who I must thank for his recent e-mails to me) is probably
thinking that 11° C with sunshine is luxury. Of course I am only making
silly guesses, but I expect the St Laurence river is now frozen over,
they are living under 20ft of snow, and the grizzly bears are raging
through the suburbs ! Or maybe not.
Yesterday was one of
those days which seems to pass by quickly without anything of any note
happening. I had predicted that I would try and do some unknown
something to distract me from eating. Well, nothing much happened, but
I did manage to refrain from eating excessively. I did eat more than I
would have really liked. It started with a big breakfast/elevenses.
While in Tesco's I noticed a small solitary reduced price ready cooked
chicken. I felt sorry for it and took it home to smother it in lack
pepper and chilli and garlic sauce before re-roasting it in a very hot
oven. That extra roasting did drive off a little more fat, but the
sauce I basted it in kept it fairly moist. Like I said, it was a small
chicken, and would have been broadly the same size as you might get if
you ordered four pieces of fried chicken from a KFC. Unfortunately it
was so delicious that I ate the lot !
Eating all that
chicken did leave me feeling unsurprisingly full. It wasn't until later
in the afternoon that I felt the need for a snack. That time I played
the game and just had a pear and three kiwi fruits. Later on in the
evening I decided I wanted something hot before going to bed, and I had
a couple of cans of hot soup.
I think I feel pretty
good this morning. The commute to work was less horrendous than usual,
but that might be because I left nice and early, and didn't have to
fight the crowds. I got the 06:34 train, and I was in work by 07:30.
That must have been one of my quickest commutes into work ever. | | Sunday 26th October 2008 | 07:49 GMT
Cloudy
skies have allowed the temperature to stay on the almost mild side, but
it has also brought rain and drizzle. As far as I can tell, but I am
not going outside to check on my theory, there is just a misty drizzle
outside at the moment. The forecast is for rain, and I suppose at some
points during the day we can expect heavier downpours.
Yesterday
stayed bright and sunny,but rather windy, up until mid afternoon. As
the afternoon progressed the clouds thickened, and as I escorted
Aleemah to the station, to catch the 17:00 train, the first hesitant
drops of rain began to fall. That rain did not amount to much, and as
far as I was aware it stopped again until sometime in the early hours
of the morning.
I had a pleasant afternoon with Aleemah,
and I think it was made more pleasant by my continuing success at
avoiding some of the crap food I have been eating. Of particular note
was when I escorted Aleemah to the station. We set a fairly fast pace
to the station, and I didn't hang around to catch my breath before
returning home again. Last week, or maybe the week before, I would have
found that I was totally knackered from just one leg of the journey.
Yesterday I did the round trip and could probably have made it back to
the station again before collapsing !
Last night was a
particular success. Until Aleemah went home I had only eaten one single
apple, and one pear all day. I was feeling pretty hungry when I got
back to the station. Such hunger could easily have triggered a call to
one of the local takeaways for a delivery of something huge and tasty !
I fought that urge, and just settled for a bagel with extra light cream
cheese and some smoked mackerel. These were leftovers from feeding
Aleemah. With the main hunger pangs almost controlled, and the fridge
now free of tempting ingredients, I cooked my dinner for the evening.
This was, as I predicted yesterday morning, grilled (or more exactly
roast - I cooked it in the oven) salmon and broccoli. I have to admit
it was a very large portion of salmon, but the fish oil is good for my
creaking bones. It did leave me feeling full, but later on, while
watching some TV, it would have been very easy to have a snack (or 6)
if I had anything like crisps or nuts in the house. Fortunately I
didn't, and this morning I expect I feel wonderfully healthy.
I'll
find out if I do feel wonderfully healthy when I go out to do some
shopping. Between now and when the shops open, I want to think of
something I can treat myself with, but without going over the top. I
don't want fish, and I must attempt to avoid Tesco's hot chicken, but
maybe some lean roast beef for dinner tonight might do the trick. I'll
just have to see what's available.
I am not sure what I am
going to do today. It's pretty dreary outside. So it's unlikely I will
be spending much time outside (not that I normally go out much on a
Sunday anyway). However doing something to distract me from hunger
pangs would be useful, but I don't know what that something will be.
One possible distraction could come from Patricia. She may pop over for
a chat this afternoon, but I did see her Friday night, and that may be
enough for one week, but hopefully not. | | Saturday 25th October 2008 | 09:32 BST
I
believe that the temperature dropped almost enough for a frosty
morning, and maybe in some outlying parts of London, or in the home
counties, there may well have been a frost. It is a nice clear
morning, and the sun is shining. I don't know how long it will last,
but it's very nice while it's here.
It was most
unfortunate that I lost half of what I wrote yesterday. I am not sure
what key combination I pressed, but I could not recover the bit that
got deleted. I suppose I ought to de-clutter my desk at work. As I
tried to type there was a bit in the way of my left arm/wrist that
meant I was resting my wrist too near the keyboard. I think the heel of
my hand was probably resing on the Ctrl key, and maybe on the shift key
as well. I type some particular letter, and whoosh, half my writing
disappeared into cyber oblivion.
The continued results of
my motherboard testing on Thursday night were that the board was even
worse than when I had earlier tested it at work. At work I found that
the CPU fan would spin as soon as I applied power, but now absolutely
nothing happens. I concluded that the extra stresses of shoving it into
a bag to bring home had made the original fault worse. I doubt that
there is much I can do to identify the exact fault, and possibly even
lass chance of fixing it, but my final conclusion is that the 2.8 GHz
Celeron processor is probably OK. One day I shall aquire a working
motherboard to test it in.
My attempt at modifying my diet
seems to be working. The nastiness I wrote about, or at least alluded
to, has just about cleared up, and as a bonus my trousers seems a bit
looser. I did have one slip up last night that will do little to
further improve my trouser tighness, but should have had no effect on
my blood sugar level, and that is the most important thing. Another
totally predictable bonus is that I have felt like I have a little more
energy. I am still far from leaping up the terrible staircase at
Earlsfield station three steps at a time, but I did manage a few at two
steps at a time. I was still very winded by the time I reached the far
end of the platform.
My partial fall from grace last night
was all due to less than a bottle of cider. Patricia dropped by after
work and I opened a 500ml bottle of cider for us. I would estimate that
she had 200ml, and I had the other 300 ml. It was sufficient to give me
a raving hunger that even a large bowl of cold oats and milk could not
assuage. This all happened after Patricia had gone home, and I had sat
down to watch a Dr Who story. I got the munchies, and ate a bag of
ready shelled Brazil nuts - lots of good roughage, and trace minerals
and stuff, but also a lot of high calorie oil. They were probably one
of the last things left in the house for forbidden snacks. Now, if I
don't buy such things in the future I should stay reasonably safe.
I
am seeing Aleemah today. She has graciuosly volunteered to omit going
to the cafe when she arrives, and so I will not be tempted to eat
something totally inappropriate in there. I must say, I do feel pretty
hungry right now, and double egg and chips does sound incredibly
tempting.......... Instead of going to the cafe we are going to battle
our way through the Saturday crowds in Tesco where Aleemah can select
just enough for her lunch, and I'll buy catfood, some fruit, and
something terribly healthy for my dinner tonight. I think I fancy some
grilled salmon and broccoli, but I'll see what grabs my fancy while we
are in there. | | Friday 24th October 2008 | 08:21 BST
The
weather really has taken a turn for the worst this morning. There was
some fine drizzle as I left for the station. While waiting for the
train there were probably a few minutes when it got worse, but by the
time I arrived at Waterloo it did not seem to be so bad. Even the sky
seemed to be brightening up a it. Alas it was not to last. When I got
off the bus, here in Earlsfield, it was like night was falling again.
The drizzle was slowly turning to rain, and I almost got a face full of
wet leaves blown from a tree I passed. For the last minute of my walk
from the bus the rain was sufficiently heavy for my shirt to get
soaked. The weather forecast is for a sunny afternoon. That's hard to
believe from the dull murkiness I can see outside, but it would be nice
if it happened.
Last night I took another look at the
computer motherboard that I mention yesterday. The fault has developed
even futher to the point where I think I have strong indication that it
is the motherboard itself that is faulty rather than the processor...........
That
paragraph did continue. In fact I wrote a fair bit after that, but some
strange accidental key sequence seems to have sent the rest into
oblivion. Luckily I did a save mid way through writing, and I was able
to retrieve the page at that point. I have run out of time to write any
more, but I may write more tonight. | | Thursday 23rd October 2008 | 08:28 BST
I
think that until spring arrives I will be leaving home for work in
darkness. As far as I could tell the sky was fairly clear with just
streaks of thin cloud visible against the stars. Since then the sky
seems to have clouded over quite a lot. It seems darker, or if not
actually darker, then gloomier, now compared to when I first arrived
here at work. Tomorrow's forecast is for rain, and it looks as if the
preparations for that have already started. Maybe it will start to rain
today.
Being selective with what I eat for the past two
nights seems to be having a good effect. There were moments when I felt
more energetic than of late during my commute to work. The
unpleasantness I mentioned yesterday seems to have cleared up too,
although I do still have a few tender areas that will take a little
longer to heal. That's not too bad considering I have not actually cut
down as much as I should. I still have a lot of items of food in the
house that need to be disposed of, and the best method of disposal is
to eat them even though they are not ideal for what I am trying to
achieve.
I did have one lapse of will power last night. It
wasn't a serious one, but to prevent another I took a book to bed and
read there rather than stay in proximity to the fridge. I was in bed by
7.50 pm. I read for an hour, and was asleep before 9 pm. I must have
slept extremely well for the first part of the night because I woke up
just before midnight convinced that it was time to get up. That
illusion did not last long, and I was soon sleeping again. In
contradiction to my feelings at midnight, I didn't wake up again until
my alarm went off. So maybe I did not sleep that well after all.
I
think that tonight I will try and do some PC sort of stuff rather than
go to bed very early (although I am only halfway through the book I was
reading last night). I do have a little computer dilemna to try and
make some sense of. I think I wrote here some weeks ago about a
computer I had rescued by a bit of "dumpster diving". It had been
partly stripped before I got it - which wasn't a good sign. I did try
and see if I could get it to boot as far as the BIOS, but it wouldn't
even do that. There are two possibilities as to what the trouble is,
and one of those possibilities can be further broken down into a few
more possibilities. It could be the CPU that is faulty. It is a socket
478 2.8 GHz Celeron, and I don't have anything I could substitute for
it. The other possibility is that the motherboard is faulty, and I
don't have anything to substitute for that either. If it is the
motherboard then that could be caused by a faulty, or badly flashed,
BIOS chip. There is the possibility that some major catastrophe has
fried both the motherboard and the CPU, but the chances are that one or
the other is OK. It will be quite challenging to try and come to a
decision about this, but I think I ought to try doing just that tonight. | | Wednesday 22nd October 2008 | 08:22 BST
When
I left the house this morning the stars were shining, and the moon was
brilliant in the sky. It looked as if the sky was totally clear. The
downside of this was that it was also quite cold. According to a
weather forecast I saw last night some people outside of London would
have seen some from this morning. I didn't see any frost, but
everything was heavy with dew.
The sky is still very clear
now, and it looks as if it will be a very pleasant sunny day. It will
still be on the chilly side. I think the top temperature for London is
only suppose to rise to about 14° C. Tomorrow it is forecast to be two
degrees higher than that, but at the expense of thick clouds.
Yesterday
was quite pleasant. There was a lot of sunshine, and I was fortunate to
be able to leave work in time for a relatively unhurried journey home
in the sunshine. When I arrived home my front room felt quite thanks to
the sun pouring in to the south facing windows. It was quite
comfortable to sit watching TV with no extra heating on until I went to
bed very early with a book to read. I was actually in bed by 8 pm, but
I didn't turn out the light until after 9 pm, and I fell asleep very
soon afterwards.
I think I have had some warning signs
that my blood sugar level has crept up to unacceptable levels again. As
well as the general fatigue that has been bothersome for some time now,
I have also had some physical effects recently that are too unpleasant
to describe (unless you like reading about blood and pus etc.). It is
all rather reminiscent of an episode that happend 7 or 8 years ago. I
guess I am going to have to do some very careful eating for a while
until things stabilise again. The worst aspect is that I have to lay
off the booze. Personal experiments have shown that it is not the booze
itself that makes a great contribution to my blood suar level, but the
fierce hunger it generates and the decimation of any resistance to
fight that great hunger. Fortunately the Wetherspoon's "International Beer Festival"
is not due to start for another eight days. With care I should have
stabilised things enough that I will be able to enjoy a few pints of
some of the rarer beers. Even then I think I will have to do things in
moderation. Perhaps no more than two pints at a time, and then straight
home again for the lightest dinner I can force myself to accept. Then
probably straight to bed before further temptation sets in. | | Tuesday 21st October 2008 | 06:38 BST
I
don't think it is raining this morning, but Smudge has just come in
with slightly wet fur. She probably got wet from skulking around in the
wet undergrowth (of which there is a lot in my garden !). The weather
forecasters have promised that there will be a lot of sunny intervals
today. That will be a vast improvement on yesterday which was a very
dull day.
It did rain yesterday, and at the end of the day
it was quite heavy. The first showers were very light and started
around lunchtime. By the time I came to leave work to go home those
showers had got heavier, and while waiting for my train at Waterloo
East (which was late !!) it really pelted down. It got lighter again as
I walked home from the station, but there was still quite enough rain
to make sure I got very wet by the time I reached home. One part of me
did get extremely wet. I am not sure how I did it exactly, but while
trying to avoid treading in a deep puddle with one foot, my other foot
managed to come down in another part of the puddle and send a splurge
of freezing water right up my trouser leg !
Within minutes
of arriving at work yesterday I was presented with another crisis. A
rather strange fault had shown itself on some new circuit boards. It
was rather perplexing I'll admit, but identifying the cause of the
problem was relatively easy even if the precise failure mechanism was
(and is) still unexplained. At some point during the production run a
component from a different manufacturer had been used, and although the
specification seemed to be the same there was obviously something
different about it. With all that going on, and some other stuff, I
hardly got a chance to make a start on the special project I have been
given to do, and with somewhere in the region of 50 boards to modify
today I doubt I will make much progress today either.
Mondays
are often a tiresome day at work, and after my extra long weekend I did
feel more than usually drained when I got home again. I didn't think I
would do anything last night, but I did find myself doing some
experiments with running virtual machines on my Linux machine. After a
few false starts I did manage to install, and run, Windows 2000 on a
virtual hard disk using Qemu.
This morning it failed when I tried to boot it. So more is needed if I
feel the need to actually use it for real, but as an experiment it was
most interesting, and was certainly good enough to make me late for bed
last night. So today I will spend the day yawning ! | | Monday 20th October 2008 | 06:51 BST
It
is too early to say what the weather is like this morning. The sun is
not due to rise for at least another 40 minutes. From the feint light
in the sky I think I can see lots of clouds. It is dry at the moment,
but I suspect we could see some rain today.
My Linux
experiments got off to a flawed start yesterday afternoon. The old hard
disk I was using seems to have reached the end of it's days, and for
speed, I didn't choose to use the option to test for bad blocks when I
formatted the disk for the installation of Fedora 9. I think that
probably explains the panic message Fedora threw up as it came to a
crashing halt.
Mandriva faired better. It did install, but
bits of it would crash with no obvious reason why. I tried a different
hard disk, and this time Mandriva seemed to work OK except for the
package update, and installtion manager. It kept declaring that it
could not find any software sources. I attempted an upgrade using a
later version of Mandriva, but it was a live CD rather than an
installation CD. Upon trying the live install option the whole thing
came crashing down.
So it was on to tryting openSUSE 11.
That did install satisfactorily, and although it needed to be run
overnight because it was getting too late for me to stay up and watch
it, it seems to have succesfully updated itself. It wasn't quite that
straightforward though. Before it had proper access to the internet I
had to disable the ipv6 protocol in the network settings. Maybe that
would have been done automatically if I had not chosen to confige the
network manually. Now the only problem with openSUSE is that like many
modern distros, I cannot directly install XMMS, the Winamp-like mp3
player.
Reading some forum,s it seems that XMMS is
considered obsolete, and now everyone should use the iTunes like Amarok
though quite a few disagree. I don't know why iTunes should be cited as
the new gold standard for mp3 players. iTunes itself is a bloated pile
of steaming crap that, given the chance, would like to take over your
whole PC and call it it's own ! Amarok apparently does loads of
wonderful things, but I just want a simple mp3 player. Using Amarok is
like booking a theatre, surgeon, and anaethetist when you just want to
clip your nails. A nail clipper does the job simply and efficiently,
and so does XMMS for playing mp3 files. | | Sunday 19th October 2008 | 12:56 BST
This
morning has seen a mixture of sunshine and clouds, but now it seems as
if the clouds are slowly winning the battle to dominate the sky. So far
it doesn't seem that those clouds will bring any rain, but that could
change as the day goes by.
Yesterday stayed fairly sunny
until late afternoon. A strong breeze meant that it did not seem as
warm as the day before, but it wasn't too bad.
My saturation entertainment of all things Doctor Who continued yesterday when Aleemah brought along "The Sarah Jane Adventures" DVD. Although pitched at children it did have a lot of grown up (as opposed to "adult" !!!) content, and was quite enjoyable.
Today
is the last day of my (sort of) holiday, and it's back to work
tomorrow. That's not such a bad thing. I think I am getting a little
bored, and apart from the agony of the travelling, I'll look forward to
stretching my legs and brain again. To celebrate my last day of holiday
I have had a big breakfast of kippers and bagels, and now I feel
thoroughly horrible. I feel like I want to go back to bed even though I
think I had a good nights sleep.
Instead of going back
to bed I have decided to do something useful. Sometime in the last
week, or so, I mentioned some experiments to try various Linux
distributions on my laptop. At the time I tried 3 (or was it 4 ?)
different distributions, and I was not satisfied with any of them. I
have consistently found that it is one of the more minor distributions,
PCLinuxOS,
that seems to work best on my laptop. At the end of that experiment I
said I would try those distributions on one of my desktop machines. So
as I write I am installing Fedora 9
on my spare desktop machine. Some earlier research suggested that
people had trouble using the magazine cover disk I am using, and that
using the text only install was a working work around. So this time,
even though it is not a fair comparison to my laptop experiment, I am
using the text install, and default settings (apart from my own custom
disk partitioning). On this particular machine I have the home
partition on it's own hard disk. So I have made custom partitions on a
different small hard disk for the installation itself, and kept the
home partition intact on it's own hard disk.
The results of the first experiment came in as I was finishing that last sentence. The result was : FAIL !.
Towards the end of the packages installation I got a kernel panic, and
some sort of message about wrong region coding. If this was a Windows
installation I could believe it would check the region coding of my DVD
drive and possibly throw up it's hands in horror if it didn't match the
region I had selected for the language, keyboard, time and spelling,
but Linux wouldn't do that. It would not care, or would it ? No way -
unless Fedora has been infiltrated by the evil hand of the Motion
Pictures Arse Of America (MPAA). Anyhow, it doesn't matter because that attempted installation has now beem deleted and I am trying Mandriva 2007.
I seem to recall that this failed last time because it couldn't find a
virtual CD on the DVD that it had previously detected was there. No
doubt I will report success or failure later. | | Saturday 18th October 2008 | 09:38 BST
It
seems to be another bright, but cold, sunny morning. I don't know how
long this sunshine can last. There does seem to be some thicker clouds
in the sky, and it is possible they will envelope the whole sky by the
afternoon, but for now it looks nice.
Yesterday continued
bright and sunny all day. Despite the autumn sun being fairly weak, the
air did warm up, and it felt quite comfortable to be out even for a
little while after the sun set.
The parcel I was waiting
for in vain on Thursday finally turned up at a little after 2 pm
yesterday. In theory I could have immeadiately gone out shopping, or
something, but by that time I was in the middle of my second Dr Who
adventure for the day. It was a six part adventure, and must have
lasted the best part of three hours. By the time I had finished
watching that I felt like a snooze, and that was what I did.
I
woke up again at around 4 pm. What I should have done next was to go to
Tesco for some almost urgent supplies (My last bottle of diet cola was
almost empty !). However I also planned to meet Patricia for a drink
after she finished work. By the time I made myself presentable I didn't
feel like rushing around. So I abandoned my shopping trip and just hung
around for a little while until it was time to go out and meet Patricia.
I
felt good when I went out. I had somehow managed to curb my cravings
and had only eaten a bowl of soup and two apples during the day. It
made me feel a lot more lively with none of the stodgy hard work that
going out in the evening often entails. On top of that I had the
sub-micro adventure of using an Oyster card for the first time ever.
When I got on the bus to Lewisham the card reader bleeped and I was no
longer an Oyster virgin !
I had a couple of Pints in the
pub with Patricia, and thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I rather think
Patricia enjoyed it too. After I had seen her onto her bus home I was
still feeling good enough to go to the pub in Catford to see if anyone
was in there. I had a suspicion that Iain may have been lurking in
there, but I had already heard from Kevin to say he was working late
and would not be able to get there until quite late in the evening. I
couldn't see Iain in the pub, and I didn't fancy waiting around for an
hour or more for Kevin. So I went home and plotted what I might have
for dinner.
Of all the possibilities I had for food it was
pizza that seemed to grip my imagination. It is fairly rare that I eat
pizza, but last night it seemed to be what I wanted. Ideally I would
have continued my light eating, but what finally swayed me was that, at
a greatly inflated price, I could also get a bottle of diet coke
delivered with the pizza as well. I must say I did enjoy that pizza,
and the accessories I had ordered with it. It did seem like I had
ordered quite a lot, but I didn't feel bloated when I went up to bed,
and I feel sort of OK this morning.
I feel OK now, but I
am wondering if the pizza did have some strange effect on me. It seemed
hard to slip into the right reality when I woke up this morning. I
think the first time I (apparently) woke up I found I had been sleeping
in a shirt I threw away years ago. On my second attempt I woke up in a
room that was almost identical to my bedroom, but was longer and had
gained an extra small window. I think there were actually two slightly
different variants of that reality. The next attempt was bizzare in
that my bedroom was correct apart from the water gushng out from behind
the wardrobe. It was like there was a burst pipe in the wall because
there was also water seeping out from the bricked up old fireplace.
Strangely enough the water seemed to be going nowhere. It was a bit of
a relief when I finally woke up to this reality. This one seems normal
enough, and at least everything seems dry in it. However, when I come
to think about it, one of the earlier realities may not have been that
bad. The first one seemed to be summertime. So that would be OK, and
one of the variants with the extra window seemed fairly pleasant apart
from the impossibility of having a window that looked to the outside
when the other side of it should logically have been the staircase.
Now
that my hair has dried off a bit after washing it a bit earlier this
morning, I really must go out shopping. I am expecting Aleemah to visit
in about two hours time, and I need stuff to feed her, and I ought to
do a bit of clearing up before she arrives. | | Friday 17th October 2008 | 08:10 BST
The
sky is blue, the sun is shining, and it is very chilly outside !
Yesterday we had some lovely sunshine through much of the day, but it
did start to get cloudy as evening approached. It seems that cloud
dispersed again sometime during the night, and those clear skies let
any warmth we had out. It looks very calm outside. There is no movement
at all that I can see from the big tree I can see from my back room
window. If it stays calm the weak autumn sun may feel quite warm.
I
made a bit of an error yesterday. I was convinced that "guaranteed next
day delivery" meant the parcel I was waiting for yesterday, the day
after my order was processed, would arrive yesterday. In fact it is due
to arrive today. The despatch note and parcel tracking details arrived
in my inbox late yesterday afternoon - a whole 24 hours after I
recieved the "order complete" e-mail. I am now informed that my goods
were loaded onto a van at 07:18 this morning, and with luck will soon
be here. With the couriers depot just a couple of miles from here, it
is tempting to think that it should not take long to get here.
At
least now I have a realistic sort of target to semi-plan my day ahead.
Yesterday was difficult. It was with great trepidation that I ventured
out to the pub to meet Iain and Ivor for a pint. That was a mistake in
itself. I didn't get any confirmation from them that the plan was still
going ahead, and I didn't bother to check. I got to the pub more or
less on time, and proceeded to have one pint of beer, and a double
scotch on the rocks, by myself. Still it was nice sitting outside in
the sun with a beer in one hand, and a fag in the other.
Had
I known that I would definitely have been free, and not tied to
watching out for a phantom parcel delivery van, I could have tried some
more adventurous efforts at drinking, but then again maybe I would not
have. I ate too much on Wednesday, and I did have a breakfast yesterday
morning. The result of that was even the walk to the pub seemed like
hard, and almost painful, work. My lungs are so damaged, and my
arteries so clogged, that I just cannot walk any great distance with
food in my stomach. Somehow I must attempt to reduce my food intake
today so that I can get out for a pint tonight with possibly Patricia,
or the usual boozers. It will also help a lot if I get up to anything
with either Patricia or Aleemah tomorrow.
I didn't
actually do much of anything useful yesterday. I made a half hearted
attempt to clear up some more of the back room, but I got distracted
and watched a few Dr Who adventures instead. I had been attempting to
listen to some audio Dr Who adventures. I don't know if it is the way
the tapes are produced, or just the way I listen to them, but I find it
quite hard to immerse myself in the story line. I think the biggest
problem is that most of the audio stories are too long to take in all
at once. However the video tapes are always entertaining.
In
other news for today : It seems that NTL's (or Virgin Media's) mail
server seemed to have fallen over this morning. I tried several time to
get my e-mail, but the connection kept timing out. Eventually I got
nine spam messages through, and now I think their pop server is just
about up again, but the webmail server seems dead as a dodo still ! | | Thursday 16th October 2008 | 08:03 BST
After
a dull drizzly day yesterday I am looking forward to a brighter day
today. I can't recall any details from any weather forecasts yesterday,
but I hope the earlier prediction of a bright sunny day still stands.
Looking out the window, right now, it is hard to say what will happen.
I am sure it is a lot brighter than it was this time yesterday, but
there still seems to be a significant amount of cloud out there.
Hopefully the rising sun will disperse some of that cloud. It is
certainly getting cooler. When I opened my bedroom curtains I noticed
the windows were running with condensation. My bedroom did not feel
significantly cooler. So I conclude that the air temperature outside is
fairly cool.
Yesterday was a pleasant day. After my
morning chores I pottered about in a very relaxed way. It's hard to say
I did anything particularly significant with my time. That wasn't
really the point, but I did add some more data to my server, and do a
back up. I was actually quite surprised at how quick the day passed
considering how aimless I was. Days like that can sometimes drag a bit.
Perhaps I really did need a break from work, and this time without a
stinking cold like last time when time could not pass quickly enough
for me. My only ailment today is that while washing my hair immediately
before sitting down to write this, I managed to get a load of soap in
one eye. My right eye is still very slightly sore, and it can get a bit
blurry. It's improving by the minute, and should be OK again very soon.
On
the subject of washing, hygeine, etc, I am perplexed about something.
That something is to do with shaving. I have been shaving now for quite
a few years. More years that I care to remember ! Most of the time I
use an electric shaver, but as many as five times a month I have a wet
shave, and this morning was one of those times. I cannot work out why
sometimes a wet shave goes really well, and sometimes it is a disaster.
I use the same tools, and the same technique, but sometimes it is
almost painful, and at other times a matter of pure joy. This morning
was most joyous. The razor just seemed to glide over my face leaving it
as smooth as in the TV adverts for the "Wilkinsette 99 blade turbo
ultrasonic full face contour with beautiful woman assistant shaver".
Two or three weeks ago I had a shaving session that felt like I was
using a broken bottle for a blade. It was painful, and there was blood
everywhere ! As far as I can remember the amount of stubble I was
rasping off was the same as this morning, and I used the same make of
blade, and the same shaving foam. Not only that, but I was using the
same bathroom, the same mirror, hot water out of the same tap, and even
the same face ! So why should anything be different. Perhaps if I ever
find the answer to this I will have gone some way to discovering the
true secret of the universe.
I think I have made a major
mistake. There was the opportunity for an advanced drinking session
today, but I think I will have to restrict myself to being out for only
about an hour at lunchtime. The reason is that I have ordered some
blank lightscribe CD and DVD disks, and I think, but can't be sure,
that they will be delivered today. If I miss the delivery I may
have to collect the parcel direct from the courier services offices. I
don't even know what courier service will be delivering my parcel, and
some of their offices are a bugger to get to. Even my most local
courier, City Link, whose offices are only two or three miles away are
a pain in the rear to get to. On balance I feel I will have to play as
safe as I can. I'll take a chance of being out for an hour, but
probably no longer. Of course if I am lucky the delivery will be made
before 1 pm when the drinking starts, but I am not that optimistic.
Even with that one hour I will allow myself I am hoping that my next
door neighbour will be able to take the parcel in if I am out at the
time, but I can't rely on her even being in. | | Wednesday 15th October 2008 | 10:58 BST
The
weather forecasts were correct - it is raining this morning. However
the rain is light, drizzly, and intermittent. Perhaps the worst aspect
of this morning's, and probably this afternoon's weather is just how
dull and gloomy it is. Tomorrow should be brighter. In fact we have
been promised a bright sunny, but rather cool day. I hope that forecast
is still valid.
I meant to try and leave work early last
night, but I got waylaid by a gas bag who would not shut up ! Instead
of getting home just before 5 pm, I ended up on the later train, and
didn't get home until almost half past five. I am off work today, using
up a bit more of my holiday entitlement, and with no real reason to get
up early I thought I might stay up late last night. Try as I might, I
was yawning by 9 pm, and I ended up in bed, and maybe even fast asleep,
by 10 pm.
This morning I did manage to sleep through to
nearly 05:30 - which is not much of an improvement over any other day.
There was one major difference though. After feeding Smudge, checking
my e-mail, and reading "The Register",
I went back to bed at about 7 am and managed to sleep through to 9.30
am. Since then I have washed, dressed, taken out the rubbish, done a
huge heap of washing up, and started off a load of washing in the
washing machine. Once I have finished writing this I will be out to do
some shopping. A bit later on I am hoping to get the call to attend the
local pub, but after that I am not sure what I will do.
One
possible amusement is to do some homework. I have been given a project
to try at work. Fortunately I have not been tasked to do the complete
job, but just to do some preliminary work on devising some ways to
control some miniature stepper motors. I am tempted to do the job with
a huge mass of discrete logic gates and analogue circuitry, but I think
a microcontroller would actually be neater.
Our
development team suggested that a Renesas microcontroller could be a
good bet. Apparently the suggested unit is very cheap and easy to
programme. In support of this we have a Renesas Starter Kit
which has the very cheap controller on a demo board along with a few
other bits and pieces. I took a brief look at it before leaving work
last night, and took a copy of the CD that came with it.
It
may have contributed to my excess yawning last night when I installed
the Renesas development software on my laptop, and tried to make some
sense of it. To be honest I was mind boggled. So my homework (purely
out of curiosity) could be to try and work out how to use it.
If
another look at that software continues to make no sense then I will
revert to plan A. This was to use an Atmel microcontroller. One of the
students we had in for the summer was using such a device in his
project, and we have several spare chips left unused. One great thing
about these particular chips is that they are in a "through hole"
package. It would take too long to explain that, but it would make my
life a lot easier when it comes to constructing prototypes. The
particular chip is called an ATMEGA168.
It seems that the documentation for this Atmel chip is better than for
the Renesas chip, or at least it makes more sense to me. On the web
page I have provided the link for are many pdf files containing useful
information, and one of these is a guide to programming for the novice.
I was quite excited when I read that at work. It makes it look as if
the integrated development suite is very nice, and easy to understand.
They show a very simple program, written in assembler, and I could work
out what it did almost immeadiately.
I have to face it that I have zero knowledge of programming using the C language, but I have fiddled with assembly language for the Zilog Z80 chip as used in the famous Sinclair ZX81
computer from the distant past. The Atmel programming environment
actually looks quite familiar to me in some ways. Using assembler is
one thing, but the whole structure of the program looks very similar to
the structure of programs written using OPL for the old Psion organisers.
(I believe there is more than one OPL. The one I knew quite well was
for the Psion Organiser II, and was really a special variant of BASIC).
So if I fail to grasp the Renesas way of doing things I feel fairly
confident that I may be able to make some headway using the Atmel way
of doing things.
The good and bad thing about this project I have been given is that I can waste
spend a lot of time satisfying some of my curiosities, and learn some
new stuff all while being paid to do it. The bad part is that I am not
really used to doing that. I do like doing my repairs. It is satisfying
having a pile of finished end product at the end of the day, and as
much of my repair work involves bringing the dead back to life it makes
me feel like I am god !!! Meanwhile, I shall just enjoy my next few
days off work in purely mortal pleasures ! | | Tuesday 14th October 2008 | 08:34 BST
For
some reason I was expecting it to rain this morning, but I think I was
confusing today with tomorrow (when the forecast is
for rain). In fact the sky was fairly clear when I left home to come to
work. There was only the faintest glimmer of light creeping over the
eastern horizon at that time, so the sky may have looked clearer than
it actually was. Right now the sky is hazy with misty looking cloud.
There could be a good chance that the misty cloud will clear allowing
some sunshine through before heavier clouds waft in from the north west.
Tomorrow
is supposed to be quite wet, but I don't mind. I am taking the rest of
the week off work. I feel like immersing myself in a good book
tomorrow, but on Thursday I ought to try and get out and about
somewhere. The forecast for Thursday is for a fine sunny day, but the
temperature will be a lot lower than the 23° C that was recorded in
London on Sunday (my estimate was only 22° C).
Yesterday
felt like a very long day. After catching the 06:31 train in the
morning I was nearly half an hour early for work. Using my unofficial
flexitime rules I should have left work early too. I did leave ten
minutes early, but my commute home was thrown into disarray by a lack
of buses between work and the station. In theory I could walk all the
way to the station, it's little more than ten minutes to the foot of
the long tiresome staircase up to the platform, but I have already paid
for a bus by using a travelcard, and so I use the bus. Besides, once
you have waited for a bus for a matter of a minute, or maybe two, you
have lost any time advantage of getting to the station. I waited about
three minutes for the first bus to arrive. It was most unusual that the
driver did not open the doors to let anyone on. The bus was fairly
full, but it seems the normal usage of the buses in Earlsfield is
modelled on bus services in India - a huge crush of bodies with limbs
hanging out of every window, and if there was anything to hold on to,
50 - 100 people clinging to the sides and the roof. I thought that one
bus driver might have had some reason for not increasing the crush
inside, but the next driver did the same. Fortunately the third bus
that arrived had enough room in it to let me, and the small crowd that
had gathered at the bust stop, onto the bus. By that time I had no hope
of getting to Earlsfield station in time to get to Waterloo in time, to
make my connection at Waterloo East. I did get to Waterloo East in time
to catch the next train, the 16:55, and that got me home approximately
eleven and a half hours after I had originally left home in the
morning. It felt like a very long day!! | | Monday 13th October 2008 | 07:53 BST
The
sky is very misty this morning. At first I thought it was cloud (and
technically it is), but it is just mistiness that is already beginning
to disperse as the sun hauls itself up above the horizon. The forecast
is that this morning is supposed to be cloudy, but a lot of that cloud
will clear away during the afternoon to give some sunny spells.
It
is no surprise that it is misty this morning. We have had another
rather gorgeous weekend. Several weeks ago they said we had seen the
last warm weekend for the year, but they were wrong. Saturday was
mostly bright and sunny, and Sunday was even better. The sky was a
brilliant blue and the temperature may have got as high as 22° C. It is
still quite mild this morning. Rushing about on my way to work raised
quite a sweat when I got on an overwarm train. After sitting on that
train between Waterloo and Earlsfield for the 12 -15 minute journey, I
began too almost feel acclimatised to the warmth inside, but it was
nice to get off into the fresh air again.
On Friday night
I thought I may have been installing some software onto Patricia's
laptop. That didn't happen. She had forgotten to take her laptop with
her to work, and was too tired to go home and fetch it. I must admit I
was feeling quite tired after a weeks work too. Patricia decided that
she preferred to go straight home from work rather than come and visit
me, and so I was free to go to the pub and sample some of their fine
wares. It was an early start, and I think I had about four pints before
going home again sometime just before 8 pm.
On Saturday Aleemah came over to visit. Amongst other things, we watched the film Dirty Weekend (1993).
Surprisngly for such a raunchy sounding title it was not raunchy at all
apart from a few seconds of bra, stockings and suspenders. Some critics
said it was a really bad film. For the first ten or fifteen minutes I
thought I might be agreeing with them, but as the film progressed I
came to like it more and more.
It might have been nice to
take advantage of the warm sunshine on Saturday instead of watching a
film in a semi darkened room, but I am not sure what we could have
done. However it did make the trips to the station to greet, and later
wave off, Aleemah, quite pleasant.
I should have been able
to think of something to take advantage of the even brighter sunshine,
and even warmer air on Sunday, but I didn't. I spent some time playing
with my laptop. I have yet to get my "Freeview" digital TV USB stick to
work on my laptop when it is booted to Linux. So I put in my spare hard
rive and tried some newere Linux distros to see if anything would
happen. I thought I would stick with mainstream distros, and I had
magazine cover disk versions of openSUSE 11, Mandrive, and Fedora 9.
I
started with openSUSE 11. The installation seemed to go quite well
until it came to setting the graphics driver configuration. At this
point, and I tried it several times in different ways, it just crashed
in the most spectacular fashion. Some would say that I should have
tried a manual configuration from the command line, but they forget one
thing. The X server is also often tied in with the keyboard and mouse
(although for the life of me I can't think why the keyboard should be
affected). When the X server crashed I lost all input options. My mouse
did not work, nor did my keyboard, and I had a blank screen. It was a
tricky one to get out of, but fortunately the power button still
responded.
Having given up on openSUSE 11 I tried Mandriva
(2007 - I think). That installed OK, but it had one issue that clouded
my judgement against continuing the experiment. Mandrive could not use
my Intel Pro 2200 wifi card. When I tried to configure it I got a
message telling me that it could not find the firmware. It did tell me
where to find it, and what to do with the files once I had downloaded
them. Upon going to the indicated web page (using a wired connection) I
found there were several tarballs with the firmware I wanted. The first
one I downloaded, and unpacked was useless because the file names were
incorrect. They lacked the 2200 part from the file name. So I tried
several others. They unpacked with the correct filenames, but Mandrive
kept insisting that one particular file was missing. I could have
persevered, but I moved on to Fedora 9.
When I booted off
the Fedora 9 DVD it first asked if I wanted to check the media (the DVD
itself) before using it. Normally I would say no, and I meant to this
time, but I pushed the tab key one too many times and ended ack on the
"Yes" button. The media was found to be perfect and I started the
install. Everything was going fine, but I was a bit bemused as to why
the installer thought that I had several CDs instead of one DVD.
Several times it asked for the next CD. It would spit out the DVD, and
I would reload it. This happened two or three times successfully until
the very last time when it refused to believe the files it wanted were
on the DVD. Maybe they weren't, but after several attempts I gave up
and refitted the hard disk with the perfectly working copy of PCLinuxOS
2007 on it.
From time to time I read stories about Linux
being hard to install, but usually I have just scoffed at them. My
usual experince is that with modern distros you just throw the install
disk in, make s few mouse clicks, and hey presto you now have a fully
working distro installed on your PC. Maybe some of those stories are
not so wrong after all. I have no idea why openSUSE 11 got it's
knickers in a twist. The failure for Mandriva was in not being willing
to incorporate certain files on it's install media. Maybe this was for
licencing reasons, but they had the Intel graphics and sound drivers,
so why not the wireless card drivers. I thought that Intel were
relatively pro Linux and I am sure Mandriva could have done some sort
of deal with them.
I am not sure if I should blame Fedora
or the magazine that made up the installation disk for the bizarre cock
up with installing Fedora 9. It certainly was very cranky, and I feel
it was more likely that the magazine had not packaged the Fedora
installation files properly. Now that is a great pity. Anyone trying to
install Linux for the first time will probably have got a cover disk
(or more likely an inside the cover disk lately) from a magazine. It
would be a shame if a bit of carelessness there could put of a
potential convert for life.
Overall it is a bit of a bad
show that I failed to install three different, but mainstream, Linux
distros on a laptop that has a very common Intel chipset. I think I
will have to try those three disks on a desktop machine. At least that
will cut out the wireless card problem. In fact I might try those disks
on two machines that I know are working perfectly with other Linux
installations. | | Friday 10th October 2008 | 08:01 BST
It's
hard to tell if this morning is a little gloomy, or if it is just too
early in the morning for the sun to reclaim the sky. It may well be the
latter. When I left home to go to work it most definitely still night.
Even when I arrived at Waterloo East station it was still a little
twilighty. The days are getting shorter and shorter. It won't be long
before it will still be dark when I arrive at work, and the days of
travelling home in the dark will follow soon after.
Observing
the small portion of sky I can see through my office window I see lots
of very high whispy cloud with almost blue bits between them. I am sure
it should be brighter than this. Maybe the sun has died, or about to go
nova.
I sometimes wonder if I would have made a good
farmer back in the 19th century. The answer is probably not, but I do
seem to share one attribute of those mythical farmers. I seem to work
best when I get up with the sun, and go to bed when the sun sets. I was
in bed shortly after 8 pm last night. Night had truly fallen, it was
fully dark outside, and it didn't feel like I was in bed unusually
early. I presume I must have got a good nights sleep because I woke up
half an hour before my alarm was due to go off. I felt wide awake and
fine then, but after feeding Smudge, checking my email, and taking a
hot shower, I did not feel like rushing off to work. I could quite
cheerfully have "surfed the net" for another half hour before going
back to bed. Instead I left early to get the early train to work.
Tonight
I face a possible dilemma. I believe that Patricia is bringing her
laptop over for me to install some software on it. With luck she will
stay a few hours, but that conflicts with the probability that some
boozing may be going on tonight. Maybe, depending on the timing, I may
be able to do both, but if Patricia accepts some dinner from me I will
be eating too, and I can't drink on a full stomach. | | Thursday 9th October 2008 | 19:31 BST
It
was quite chilly when I left home to go to work this morning. I am sure
that an earlier forecast suggested it should have been milder. The day
soon warmed up though. For much of the day the sky was blue, and the
sun was shining. There was a bit of a breeze that cooled things down a
bit, but when that dropped the sun did feel very warm. There was a bit
more cloud before the sun went down tonight, but the forceast is that
tomorrow will be fairly similar to today.
Wednesday
evening was very mild too. After I had done my shopping on the way home
from work, and after feeding Smudge, I went out for a couple of quick
beers. It had felt so warm on my way home from work that I did not
bother to wear a coat to walk to the pub. I did literally just have two
pints of beer, and when I walked home the western sky was still bright
as the sun slowly set. It was a little cooler as I walked home, but I
still felt perfectly comfortable wearing just a shirt with the sleeves
rolled up.
I am not sure why I didn't write anything here
this morning. I managed to leave for my train on time, so I didn't have
any time to write before leaving for work, but I did arrive at work a
few minutes before 8 am, and that did leave me plenty of time to do
some writing. I think I got distracted, but I am not sure how.
During
the morning, while outside work having a fag, I noticed someone had
dumped an old PC next to the compactor. I couldn't resist taking a look
at it. One panel of the case was missing, as was the power supply,
memory, optical drive, and hard disk, but the motherboard looked
intact, and the processor was still fitted. If the spec. on the case
was to be believed that processor was a 2.8GHz Intel Celeron. So it's
nothing too special, but still faster than anything I have currently
working here. Naturally I took it back inside and hid it under my
bench. The missing power supply worries me. If the original one had
blown up, perhaps violently, there is a fair chance it has killed the
CPU. I couldn't lay my hands on any DDR memory at work, but I shall
take a stick in tomorrow and give the motherboard a test with a spare
power supply that is hanging around at work. If it does work I will
then face a dilemna. Shall I lug the whole thing home, knowing that the
side panel is missing, or shall I just take the motherboard and put it
in a new case ?
There is one aspect I like about the
case it is in. It has front mounted USB and audio sockets. I haven't
got a case here that has those facilities, and after a close call
nearly overdrawing my bank account last month, I do not want to spend
money on a new case. At least not this month I don't. Lugging a
complete PC home, which I have already done once from work, is a pain
in several places as well as the obvious place ! Maybe I'll find that I
have just rescued a piece of junk, but if I haven't I think I'll make
the decision about what to carry home next week - or maybe tomorrow :-) | | Wednesday 8th October 2008 | 06:50 BST
The
sky looks fairly clear. So with a bit of luck we will have some
sunshine today. It doesn't feel that cold this morning. I would have
expected the temperature to plummet with the clear skies, but maybe the
sky only cleared quite recently. Yesterday was quite interesting. There
was a fair amount of rain, as the weather forecasters predicted, but it
was almost warm outside. In fact if there had not been a bit windy it
might have actually been warm. The wind definitely cooled things off a
bit. During lulls in both the wind and the rain it did feel quite
pleasant out. There was even a few minutes of sunshine in the middle of
the day. However I did get wet going to work, and I got wet coming home
again.
I learnt that there was some drinking going on last
night. I didn't find out until this morning, but I don't think I would
have gone out for a beer even if I had forewarned. Last night was one
of those nights where I turned the TV off at 8 pm and slowly made my
way to bed. I think I was fast asleep before 9 pm.
Drinking
tonight could possibly be a temptation, but I am not aware of any going
on just yet. What I definitely need to do is to do some shopping on the
way home. There is some stuff I need, and I am sure Smudge will mutiny
if she gets the same old flavour cat food again tonight ! Maybe I might
defer my drinking skills to Friday night, or maybe not. |
| Tuesday 7th October 2008 |
06:47 BST
Lot's
of rain is forecast for today. It is not raining now, but the ground is
very wet. The rain actually started as a light shower last night at
about 7 pm. I really rather hate days that are as gloomy as this one is
forecast to be, but every cloud has a silver lining. The clouds, and
maybe the lack of any significant winds, mean that this morning is
really rather mild.
I had my Linux guru give my server a
quick once over yesterday. Thankfully it appears to be clean, and my
web pages are safe to surf. (Thanks Steve). This is one definite
advantage of just serving plain old html web pages. Not only does it
relieve you of having to watch bright flashing Flash images, but you
can read it all on the very simplest web brower without any fancy
plug-ins and the like.
After getting into work late
yesterday I naturally stayed late to make up the time (or some of it).
I attempted to leave in time to get the later train from Waterloo East
so I would be home in plenty of time to start preparing for Patricia's
visit. It didn't quite work out the way I planned ! I arrived at
Waterloo main line at 16:55 which was the same time as my train was
departing from Waterloo East. One plus point was that it gave me time
to smoke a quick fag before I attempted to catch the 17:17 train.
Unfortunately
the 17:17 train was cancelled, although this was only revealed to us
poor bloody commuters some ten minutes after the train was due, and
after it had disappeared from the customer information screens on the
platform which had done the normal countdown to it's arrival time, and
then moved on to the next service. So I waited and waited until finally
the next service arrived at 17:41.
To my surprise this
train was not overly packed, but I still had to stand the whole way
home. Towards the end of the journey, and after standing on the
platform for so long, my right leg was beginning to ache quite badly.
As the train approached Catford Bridge station I noticed Patricia
walking up the road towards the station. She had called at my house,
and wisely, upon finding I was not at home, decided to meet me at the
station.
My original plan was that I would cook dinner for
Patricia, but she decided that a cup of coffee and some Jaffa cakes
would be quite enough for her. So we had a good natter together, and I
demonstrated my USB digital TV receiver stick. She has now taken my
spare one to see if it works in her flat on her laptop. Hopefully it
will, and she will now be able to catch up on some of her favourite
programmes that are only shown on the Freeview channels. |
| Monday 6th October 2008 |
06:41 BST
It
is cool and damp outside. By cool I mean around 6° C, and by damp I
mean a lot of dew rather than rain. A vaguelly remembered weather
forecast on TV last night suggests that this morning will be fairly
bright with some sunshine, but the afternoon will be overcast with a
chance of showers. The top temperature is predicted to be a mere 16° C.
It
seems surprising that after a day, or even two days, of doing very
little, and getting lots of rest, that I feel almost tired this
morning. I am up, washed, dressed, and ready to go to work, but I don't
feel ready to leave just yet. For some unexplained reason I decided to
do some reading in bed last night. After all the leisure time I had
during the day it seemed a strange idea, and this morning it seems as
if it was a bad idea. I didn't turn out the light until just gone 10
pm, and that seems to have been late enough to throw my internal clock
out of sync with my normal habits. Monday morning is one day when,
against the flow of the rest of humanity, I am usually early for work.
This morning I will do what the rest of the world does and turn up a
bit late.
I notice from my logs that that this website has
become a target for hackers. Sometime over the weekend someone tried
their best to plant something nasty in my SQL server. It is an
increasingly popular hacking trick that has added comprimised links
into all sorts of web sites.These are known as drive by attacks. For
those using Windows it is possible to become infected with a virus or
trojan just by visiting a web site. Even some very hgh profile web
sites have fallen for this type of attack including, if my memory
serves me well, the Americans department of homeland security
(sometimes known as the Stasi or SS). Fortunately I have a secret
weapon that makes the hackers attempts worthless - I don't have an SQL
server ! This entire web site uses plain old html without any fancy
scripting and the like. Despite my "secret weapon" I am not complacent
about the possibility of other nasties creeping in, and I do try and
keep an eye open for anything weird happening. However I am not an
expert at this, and maybe I should call on my friendly Linux guru to do
a security audit on my server.
Tonight I am hoping to
have the pleasure of cooking dinner for Patricia. I never got to see
her yesterday. She was having some back pain, and wisely decided to
stay in the warm and dry. |
| Sunday 5th October 2008 |
13:03 BST
This
morning started off very wet. Surprisingly it was also rather mild. The
rain has mostly stopped now, but everywhere outside is still very soggy
and dripping. Yesterday started off dry, but it was a lot chillier. It
must have been around midday that the weather started to get worse as
the sky got darker, and eventually it was raining. Another feature of
last night was the wind. Maybe it was just the direction it was coming
from, but from indoors it seemed as if it was more gales than wind.
Friday
was one of those days at work which was quite busy, and yet quite
satisfying. I had the chance to be a bit creative, and the (work) day
finished with my creation (actually a bit of test equipment) almost
finished, and working well. It looked good too, and all I have to do to
finish it is some labelling, and if I am feeling generous, a bit of
documentation to go with it.
After work I did a bit of
shopping in Tesco, and at about 6:20 pm I joined Kevin and Iain for a
couple of pints in the pub. I guess it was about three pints, and I
also had a double scotch on the rocks to finish up on. I
think it
was that double scotch that was the tipping point that upset my eating
plans for the evening. I had mainly just eaten fruit all day, and I was
feeling rather peckish after the booze. I had planned a nice healthy
fish and salad for my dinner, but somehow that didn't appeal at the
time. So I ordered a large mixed kebab and chips. It was very nice.
Very nice indeed, but it did make me feel pretty rotten in the morning.
Yesterday
I didn't feel like doing much. I wasn't seeing Aleemah, and I wasn't
seeing Patricia. So I reckoned I deserved a very lazy day. I got up
very early in the morning (before 5 am) and fed Smudge. Then I pottered
around for another hour or two before going back to bed. I was quite
surprised to find it had gone 9 am when I woke up again. Even after
that extra sleep I didn't feel like rushing around, but I did want to
get to the building society before they closed. Eventually I got myself
washed and dressed and headed out to the shops. My first stop was W H
Smths to buy some magazines (and to use up all my credit on the W H
Smiths clubcard because that scheme has now ended).
Having
done my business in W H Smiths I made my way to the building society.
It was later than I thought it was, but I did get there twenty minutes
beforfe they closed. My next stop was the 99p shop.
The
99p shop always intrigues me. Some stuff is no particular bargain, and
some food stuffs are not significantly cheaper than anywhere else, but
some things do defy the imagination as to how they can be sold so
cheaply. The packet of needle files I bought for 99p held no
mystery. They were really bad quality, but at that price I have no
qualms about taking them into work where they will eventually be either
lost or abused. Two other items I bought were pretty amazing. It wasn't
so long ago that white LEDs were prohibitively expensive, but I bought
a twin pack of little bulkhead lights for 99p. Each of the two light
fittings has three white LEDs in a sort of chromed plastic reflector
which you push to turn on, and push again to turn off. They run off
three AAA cells (not included) and do give off enough light for
something like a staircase during a power cut. I fitted one at the top
of my stairs using the supplied adhesive pad, and the other I am using
as a sort of torch in my bedroom.
The other item
that I bought, and that amazed me, was a USB2 SD/MMC flash memory card
reader. It looks a bit plasticky, but to my surprise it handles the
latest high capacity memory cards. Recently I was contemplating buying
a similar device while ordering some computer bits from one of the very
cheap internet suppliers. They wanted £1.99 for one, and I thought that
was very reasonable. So to get one for a mere 99p is really rather
incredible. If I had the energy I would go out and buy a few more this
afternoon. I suppose I do have the energy, but I can't be bothered.
However next time I pass the 99p shop I will get a few more just for
the hell of it if they are still available.
After I
finished playing with my new toys I did little more than lie back
reading the magazines I bought. One magazine, "Linux Magazine", I found
to be a little disappointing. I am only an occasional buyer of computer
magazines these days (I used to spend far too much money on them until
I managed to break the addiction), and I would normally buy "Linux
Format" if I bought anything at all. Linux Format is written in a far
more friendly way than Linux Magazine. Perhaps I was just being a bit
dense yesterday, or maybe Linux Magazine was showing it's German roots,
but I do prefer to read why I should do something, and some of the
thgeory behind it rather than "to set up ze filesharing you vill type
vese commandz into ze shell EXACTLY !!!!!". As I flicked through the
pages I read stuff about stuff I had never heard of with no explanation
of why it might be useful to me. I can only liken it to reading a
magazine where every first page of an article had been removed. Perhaps
I was just being a bit thick, but once I have finished reading the
other comics I will take a second look at it and try and digest a
little more of what they were saying.
I could spend some
time studying "Linux Magazine" this afternoon, but I am rather hoping I
will be getting a visit from Patricia. However it has just started
bucketting down with rain again, and I would not blame her if she
preferred to stay in the warm and dry at home. |
| Thursday 2nd October 2008 |
08:50 BST
This
morning it is very chilly. That is partly due to clear skies overnight,
and partly due to cold winds from the north. Once the sun rose it
chased away any lingering mistiness, and it is now bright and sunny.
Unfortunately the weak autumn sun will not be strong enough to really
warm things up, and the wind, although only a breeze now, is still
quite chilly.
Last night there was no drinking so I was
able to spend a fair amount of time playing with my Pinnacle USB DVB-T
receiver. The aim was to try and get it to work on my laptop when
booted into PCLinuxOS. I never did achieve that. I followed one set of
instructions that included downloading a file, but that failed at the
second to last step when it refused to compile for some reason that I
could not identify. I did have more luck when using my desktop machine
with Kubuntu linux on it. I found a complete debian package for that,
and it installed OK. At first nothing worked. Using Kaffeine (the multi
media player) as recommended by the website where I found some of the
installation information, I could finally scan through, and tune in,
the TV channels, but I could not actually see any pictures. I am not
sure what I did to finally make it work, but eventually I did get
pictures (and sound).
I am not sure if it is because TV
reception is normally bad in my back room where I was doing the
experiments on the desktop machine, but after clearing out all the
channels (many of which had become duplicated in my attempt to get the
thing working) I found I could only find one multiplex when I did a
scan through all the available channels. So even though only one
multiplex was apparently visible I was still getting good pictures from
the last channel I had used, and that channel was on a different
multiplex. The next time I tried to go to the tuning options I found
that it had disappeared. I have concluded that Linux still has some way
to go before things like these USB TV adaptors become easy to use, and
that is a shame because so many other things on Linux work so well.
One
other useful bit of research I did with these USB DVB-T TV sticks was
to try using the Pinnacle stick with the MSI (Windows) software. The
Pinnacle user interface I thought to be rather crappy. While the MSI
supplied software (actually by Arcsoft) had a rather pleasant user
interface. My life was made easier by Pinnacle, on their installation
CD, providing drivers in easily accessible form not just for my device
but for many DVB-T devices. So with the MSI "Digivox II) software
installed and working I plugged in the Pinnacle stick. Windows "Found
New Hardware" and wanted drivers for it. I pointed Windows to the
drivers files on the Pinnacle CD, and it found everthing it needed. So
now I can watch digital TV using the nice ser interface with either USB
device - which is good ! |
| Wednesday 1st October 2008 |
08:19 BST
Autumn
is definitely upon us. Or is it ? It is cool this morning, but no
cooler than yesterday. In fact it may be very slightly warmer. There is
eveidence that there have been a few showers this morning, but I
haven't seen any rain myself. The road was very wet outside Earlsfield
station suggesting that there had been a recent shower, but now the sky
is mostly blue, and the sun is shining. One big clue to the recent
autumnness (a new word specially crafted for the occasion) is the
growing accumulations of leaves blowing about. Strong winds are
forecast, and this will undoubtably strip more leaves from the trees.
Last
night was one of those nights which I only remember as a sort of blur.
I was late into work yesterday, and so I left late. To make matters
worse I went home via Tesco, and it was almost 6 pm before I got home.
After feeding Smudge, feeding myself, watching TV for an
hour,
and writing an e-mail, it was close to 9 pm, and time for bed.
I
think I probably slept quite well last night. The last soggy bits of my
recent cold have almost dried out, and I can't recall having any
difficulty getting to sleep because of coughing. I did wake once in the
night to have a pee, but it seems I needed my sleep to a sufficient
extent that I needed to be woken up by my clock radio.
Getting
a good nights sleep last night because I may be late getting to bed
tonight. I have a theory that I might end up drinking a couple of pints
in the local boozer tonight. I won't let that make me very late for
bed, but there is an added complication that could make me late for
bed. I have ordered a new USB based digital (Freeview) TV stick. I am
expecting it to be delivered today, and obviously want to play with it
as soon as possible. The last one I bought I was very impressed with,
but it seems it was incompatible with Linux. If I was a real hacker I
may have been able to make it work, but I erred on the side of making
life easy for myself (or have I ?). Some research suggested that the
Pinnacle PCTV USB DVB-T stick was available fairly cheaply (about £19
if my memory is correct), and further research showed up that people
had used it with Ubuntu Linux. One person even posted a You Tube video
clip of his working. So I live in high hopes that I will be able to use
my new one on my laptop. That is running PCLinuxOS rather than Ubuntu,
but I live in hope. Perhaps the answer to the late for bed problem is
to take my laptop to the pub and do the experiment there ! |
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