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August 07, 2003
Deep Breathing Exercises
Sigh. Finally, after fiddling and messing and a little screaming, Thursday has come and gone. Well, nearly gone. Overall this has been the usual week off, but as I have a little longer to fill you in on (the last entry was at the end of July and I left you hanging with mum in Hospital due to building the computer and certain issues with the server at Digihosters...)
Well, to start with the most important stuff, Mum came out of hospital the following Monday (she cheated a little though to escape). I went to visit her on the Saturday, after stressing out over the fact that the PC wasn't working (more on this later) and one thing that struck me (apart from her being quieter due to the asthma and other problems) was the large number of Filipino nurses - after she got home she told me that they are all about 30 and looking for men to go out with for some fun (totally platonic). One of them had even noticed me (I hate it when they do that!) and mum had failed to introduce me. D'oh!! Still, she got home and to be fair, she did take it easy for a few hours, before she got down to the Community Action Group meetings, taking out leaflets, etc!!! Yesterday she even went to Beamish on a coach trip (lots of walking in the heat of the hottest day of the year - yeah, that'll help her!) Ah well, she's not quite rushing round like she was, but she's not been resting like she should either. But as we'll have to nail her into her coffin with big nails...
The bug/whatever has lurked around though - I'm still coughing, but after last week (very busy and totally insane) I'm not surprised - Still, despite everything I got home on Friday (with some paperwork that I still haven't finished but I'll try to do tomorrow after coming back from Manchester).
Now, the computer. Its cost a little bit of money (!) but thanks to special deals at Aria and on Ebay, I now have a Thermaltake case with a ABIT NF7-S motherboard, complete with 3000XP+ Athlon, GeForce 5600 128mb Ultra card and 1 gig of memory. Of course, there is a saga...
I put it together, but it wouldn't boot. Heck, I couldn't get power. I ended up calling James round, and after lots of trying wires in different places, he was close to giving up. Earlier he had said that the heatsink looked like it wasn't on right. It wasn't. Because the CPU wasn't in it's slot properly (see - I own up to it! My bad!!!). Once done, it worked. Windows set itself up, and all seemed well. But it started to crash out whenever it felt like it. After updating the drivers for the nForce 2 hardware, changing some settings in the bios and fiddling it now works. Though taking it to Nicks' the day after building it was a mistake. Taking it the week after wasn't, though. It ran things very well - MS Flight Simulator 2004, IL-2: Forgotten Battles, Midnight Club II... all ran without a problem, and fast! Nick on the other hand, had now got a slot DVD drive that was far faster than his old drives (ie it worked), but it was very hot last Sunday... and his PC kept dropping out of games (starting with IL2) which was a problem. Andy was desperate to leave, but we had to try and fix Nick's PC... he has a Zalman cooler and it seemed that the system was still overheating reaching 73 degrees C!!! A little too hot (mine was up to 60, but it was hot, and my heatsink/processor is probably slightly fragged after the problems of building...). This weekend it looks as if the first hour will be takijng Nick's PC apart to sort out the problem, not that it will overheat as much as it won't be as warm...
So, onto this past week! I spent a while this week working my arse off redoing the bedroom, tidying up, moving bookcases and tarantula tanks round to my satisfaction. In the heat. But I survived - the room looks better, and I really enjoyed listening to Journey Into Space: Operation Luna and The Red Planet. Surprisingly, I'd almost forgotten just how good the 50's radio serial was - between that and the Quatermass serials on TV, I think I'd have been failry happy in the 50's... though I'd probably miss Ayumi Hamasaki... 50's Jpop is just sooo... ummm... yeah.
At the weekend I emailed Perry's in Clitheroe to book my service on the car - got a call on Monday to confirm it. The person on the other end of the phone seemed a little bewildered, and when James & I headed over to get it done today it seems it hadn't been booked in. Still, the service was done, though it diod through up a couple of extra problems - apart from the indicator needing to be fixed at Blackburn (a new indicator stalk unit... sigh) - as the front brakes are a little worn (expected - due to be sorted in October when I have more money and time) and the drop link (whatever that is) needing doing. As I say, It will be going to Blackburn to get sorted out befor the MOT anyway, so no problem. Camille certainly goes better now!
While we were waiting, we walked round town, sitting on benches, watching ladies the world go by, looked in an book shop and ended up sitting by the river at Edisford Bridge watching ducks, with Jamius telling me how they used to go there (often involving taking the dinghy right down there...!) I also got the story about his Hillman Hunter... and the cursed Honda Civic! All tis and a nice day!. I even treated myself to fish'n'chips from the usual chippy. As we were eating it James told me about one of the girls who walked past... Because he drove buses over there for a while, he knows so many people, both drivers and passengers... and lots of things about them. He should write a book (or website!) about it... Confessions of a Bus Driver, anyone?
Ah - the website... I now have www.roguenoid.co.uk set up, but it is just a copy of Badgers at the moment - links don't work, no MT installed, etc. I've confused James to death by giving him a sub-domain of his own over there (www.jamius.roguenoid.co.uk) to use as he likes (though I will delete non-super-powered japanese schoolgirls!)... I'll be moving various parts of the site (Badgers side only) there, and use it for more storage and extra bandwidth for RNP, when I start doing the Flash properly... but that won't happen till the end of the month - I'll then close the Demon account, and save £11.75 per month! And all the hassle of going through 300+ emails a week offering me viagra, etc... Of course, I'll have all the fun installing Moveable Type again... and after the fiddling I was doing this afternoon to get it running here again, I should be an expert!!!
And so ends this long big-ass log entry. If I've missed anything important, Jamius can remind me, though it's too late now! Manchester awaits tomorrow! and the last day of my week off too... can I fit in Journey Into Space: World In Peril? Its only 8 hours long...!
Posted by Badgers at August 7, 2003 08:52 PM
Comments
And due to me going round this afternoon for a few hours,maybe he didn't fit it in.
Posted by: jamius at August 9, 2003 11:05 PM
Well, all but the last tape (listened to that tonight)... Just got Return to Mars to go... and the documentary!
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