Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Horror stories

    So, I’ve spent some of the morning watching Spin (that there is a Google Video type link); I got the link from Sonjaaa’s Live Journal. It’s 60 minutes long and I really recommend it to you guys. You can actually download it in mp4 format from here, rather than watching it on GV. Although I can’t say what the quality is like ‘cos I’ve not finished downloading it yet…

    It’s really quite unnerving, the extent to which the media manipulates the news; and is manipulated by the politicians. Things like the complete exclusion of a candidate from the presidential race from the media. How is that justifyable? And the lack of transparency – allowing politically generated footage to air on the news as ‘news’ and not as a political message.

    It’s just… frightening. I’d always assumed that the media filmed and edited the news to reflect what it wanted, and to forward the agenda of whoever is in charge of the media outlet at that time – not that I wish to sound like a paranoid nutcase, but I don’t assume that anyone ever gives an entirely unbiased story. But starting to grasp the extent of it, well, it’s really quite scary.

  • Dark Angel

    So, I finally got to watching the rest of DA, I’ve been on somewhat of a DA kick of late and have just finished watching Season 2; including the last few episodes which I’d previously not seen. Season 2 is vastly better than Season 1; I guess that’s what comes of giving your characters a backstory that the viewer is aware of. It’s much darker too; the new enemy bringing a much more sinister plot line than that of season 1.

    Which makes the ending of the story, where it does end, that much more frustrating. There are story lines which are clearly waiting to unfold. the writers finally tangling all the  threads of the story into one complex mass; but then… the season ends…

    Lauren says there’s two books which quickly finish off the story but tell no-where near all of the possible threads… It turns out there’s a third book that’s a prequel, which I may have to nab. It all adds to my collect of series that I thought were really good which got canned. Feh.

  • The Universe, now extracting urine.

    Did I say to my PC when I built it, “please piss me off endlessly”?

    Did I? I don’t recall saying it. It’s just died (again) with a new and shiny error – a problem with an NTFS driver. This is in my list of things that shouldn’t be happening. I did however manage to find out when my ex-mentor is working, so I can encourage her to send the reference off. I also booked shifts. What’s that you said about a Social Life?

    I also got Kate’s prezzie. I got some shiny shiny oil for the bike, and I may have obtained more crap… I came across an old garage sign that they’d found doing some construction work. Apparently they’re planning to have a display of the stuff they’ve found when they finish. In the unlikely event that they finish before I leave Brizzy, they may ring and say I can have it. It’s an old Mobiloil advert on enamel. Just saw it and thought ‘hey, I fancy that’ so I asked and maybe I’ll get it.

    So, really, it’s quite a positive day apart from the whole computer issue, which is driving me to the brink of insanity.

  • Screaming silently at the wind

    It’s been a tiring few days – what with the Starter Motor on the car failing at the least opportune moment (I’d just finished a shift and was about to head home having parked in a ‘quite dodgy area’ when it decided that it’s raison d’être was to be a giant power consuming magnet instead of a motor. This was just before the police arrived to have a chat with a lovely group of people screaming at each other in the 5th / 6th floor flat – which you could hear quite clearly down inside my car). Still, that’s in Warranty.

    Which is good.

    So is the fact that the clutch *finally* arrived for Cherry, who is *finally* back on the road – and being lovely to ride. I must, however, go buy more two stroke oil as I’m fearing the stuff that I poured out may have bits of shite in it, and therefore is only suitable for premix.

    Unfortunately, the goodness ends there. My mum – who I argued the case with about her continuing to pay me… and said she shouldn’t. Well, it seems that the bank saved her the hastle – because my dad presumably set up the direct debit / transfer to stop in July. So I didn’t get any money in August. So the fact I’m still in credit is… shocking. Of course, the fact I’m only notionally in credit – the money I owe to Lauren for rent, and for council tax, is yet to come out. The money I owe to the credit cards is also yet to come out – astoundingly my bank loan has come out. Oh, and because it took them so long to process my timesheet I’m now not getting paid for work I did on the 17th until… wait for it… the 7th.

    *sighs*

    And my PC is still defunked. I am starting to run out of ideas – James suggested that maybe it needs the Inno graphics card drivers; because it’s an Inno card (rather than the nVidia generic drivers). So I’m trying that now (but I’m downloading them on the laptop because I don’t trust the desktop to stay running that long). Or the processor could be sick. Or… well, that’s it really. Graphics card and processor are all that remain that haven’t been eliminated as the cause of the problem. If it *is* the processor I’m going to cry, because having bought a new motherboard… well… I’d rather have bought a step-up board rather than the same S754 thing, and if it’s the graphics card I’m also going to cry because it’s new-but-off-ebay. So the word guarantee doesn’t apply. But hey. I can’t really afford any of this now anyway. Right at this moment I’m feeling a little bit fed up, really, to say the least.

  • Plot == Lost

    Argh! I’ve replaced now:

    – Motherboard
    – Diskdrives
    – Powersupply
    – Graphics Card
    – Processor fan (old one was noisy, anyhow).

    And y’know what, it’s *still* randomly crashing and rebooting. The problem got *worse* after I changed the graphics card (way back when), I’ve got a brand new unpatched, unmolested version of XP on there – running on only one disk – nothing else is connected. The only thing left is the Firewire card. Sadly, I have to go to work now, but I guess that’s the last thing to pull out. After I get home I may have more of a play. I still want to go *ARGH* though.

  • Piddle

    It appears that my finger waving at the Abit motherboard was somewhat wrong. Well, possibly. Now we’ve got “spontaneous reboot syndrome”. I’m wondering if the powersupply is toast (again); it does smell faintly of old over hot component but I’m not 100% convinced it’s the cause of the problem. However, if I apply load to it, the system does appear to reboot. It is, however, frustrating. I don’t know if it’s the cause or not.

    Hopefully I can find the recipt, but probably not. I shall try and take it back today though. Also frustratingly I wanted to put OS X on the machine, but have the wrong install disk.

  • More Pink Bike Shots

    Real progress today, she’s starting to resemble something that might become a motorbike

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  • Good old Auntie

    So, years and years ago I taped Planes, Trains and Automobiles when it was shown on my beloved BBC. tonight, for the first time I’m watching it on Sky, in Widescreen – and without it being the BBC’s re-edited and dubbed for early evening showing version.

    I must ad mist I was quite suprised when Steve Martin is shouting at the Rental woman (“I want a fucking car fucking NOW!”) – I’d never even realised that it was that edited and that dubbed. Now despite the fact I should have gone to bed ages ago I’m forced to watch the rest of it to find out what else was edited…

  • Wallwart, circa 1960.

    So, I could have been hugely rich, it turns out. My dad invented the wallwart, to power his dansette. Or Frankensette as it should perhaps be called. For there is much that contradicts nature which occurs within the dansette of doom.

    No, but seriously, if my dad had patented that idea… well, we’d be responsible for the hideousness that’s a wallwart – but rich at the same time ;-)

    Clicky for pointless photos, and for progress on ‘t bikes.

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  • A battle with no winners.

    It appears razors are up to 5 blades. 5. When will the madness end?!