Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Post upgrade test post

    If it aint working, tell me. Postcards to the usual address (kate at the domain name)

  • ’tis the season to be overheated

    ’tis hot, and ’tis continuing to maliciously be hot without any good reason.

    Yes. So.

    Here I am, home again, my dissertation meeting went well, some suggested modifications (essentially, I need to link back more to my earlier critique, and there’s a couple of comments I made which he felt should have been referenced) which I can make and then on to the discussion. I didn’t realise that the copyright with my dissertation apparently lies with the university; I find this most odd. These days, the university is paid by me (in this case, by the NHS) to provide a service; unlike a job where *they* pay me to do work, I *pay* them to teach me. So why should I let them have the copyright on my work? Hrmph.
    I picked up the ScanJet 3300C today, so I’m ‘with scanner’ again, which is good news. ‘cos I’ve missed having one. Of course, working out where *exactly* a scanner fits into the room is… challenging, to say the least.

    Yeah, anyway, main point of this post; Aisling pointed me at Breakfast on Pluto, which she thought I’d enjoy – and it’s true I did. I really found it excellent; incredibly funny but also incredbly touching. Filled with brilliant music… It’s now on my to buy DVD list.

    It does have a few continunity glitches but within their budget they’ve done an astounding job of recreating the right look.

  • What’s that you say? I’m meant to be getting rid of crap?

    Well, I saw it, see, and despite my ‘getting rid of crap’ plan I asked for it, I mean, I never thought I’d get it.

    Look! Over there! A Really damn cool video.

    Yeah, um, I might have got a 21″ monitor… that goes with the other 21″ monitor. Freakily, my room now has compaq and digital logos. I may also have, well, bought a FX 5500 dual head graphics card. I better edit some damn video now :-)

    Of course, with Pride coming up… well… It *is* traditional.

    It took me about an hour of solid pissing about to cram the monitor into the ‘space’ of my desk. When I say space. Let’s just say, it’s a little tight in here now.

    The office with two monitors of doom.

    Clicky for the big version.

    It’s a bizzare feeling to be surrounded by a mixture of anicent and modern. My main monitor is made by a company subsumed by the company who made the monitor next to it, which was again consumed by the company that made the printer to the right of them. The tech in here ranges from the 30s (the fan on the window sill) through to the printer (last year) and the keyboard (this year). A lot of it’s second user (the laser under the desk, both monitors, the fan, the light, the speakers, the camera used to take the picture, the chair, most of the folders, the mic… Anyway, so that’s my office. I can’t wait to get a graphics card with working XP drivers; and having dual head. Ooooh. I am still a geek somewhere deep down. It should make editing video that bit easier anyway :-)

  • I’ve always wanted…

    …to make a film. And I can say that honestly. When I was in my teens I laid my hands on a 8mm cine camera and made a film with my friends (no, I won’t be sharing that). And the film bug bit me. But I can’t write. I really, really have no apptitude for script writing. Well, for any kind of narritive writing, fiction, that’s the word I’m hunting for.

    Yeah, so I’ve go no talent for it, believe me I’ve tried.

    So, what I need is someone to produce a script for a nice simple short that I can make with people that I know. Of course, you’d think with the number of people I’m friends with who write this would be possible, but somehow it’s never worked out that way.

    Anyway, so I’m having a whine. I want to make a film. A short, just a short will do. For now.

  • I’d ask where my day went, but I know…

    For once I really did do stuff with the weekend.

    Yesterday I got to the stage where I’d finished to first-draft stage chapter 3 of the dissertation; which meant that today I could tackle a few other jobs, namely cleaning the bathroom (done), tidying the garage (sort of done), small jobs on Cherry (speedo drive, new chain casing, greasing and adjusting the chain, etc). I also did a run to the supermarket. It doesn’t sound like that much, but really, it was. I’ve freecycled a bunch more stuff. And now I’m really *really* tired.

    I have however remembered what it was like before I started my course, when I had a life. It was nice.

  • How did people cope before word counts?

    3988 words in Chapter three. The minimum length for chapter 3 is 4000 words (well, slightly less actually assuming I hit the 2000 word minimum for chapter 4); I’m happy. Why am I happy? Because there’s lots of leeway in this and I’ve got another couple of hundred words I want to write. Hehehe.

    Raaaaaar.

    And my 1930’s fan is wobbling away cheerily. I think it might not be perfectly balanced. Incidentally, anyone know where you can get scintered bearings made for very cheap?

  • Thing the first

    Thing the first – I have a badge; this goes on my police woman’s hat, thus making it look that bit more authentic. I need some black felt too, I think, but rarrr. Ultra-special raar because it’s a St. Petersburg Police badge, thus unlikely to be mistaken for the Met Police (although, dubiously, I note that you can buy police hatbadges for most UK policeforces on e-bay).

    Thing the second – with careful arrangement the letters P, O, L, I, C and E fit onto a sheet of A4 twice, even when the letters are 3 inches high by two and a chunk inches wide. This is good. This means that by purchasing some inkjet-cling-white-magnetic paper, Rebecca can proclaim POLICE on the boot, the doors, and the bonnet (oh, and on a roofsign, did I mention that?) and look most police-like. I can also *try* and print it (although I may have to get Nikki to do so ‘cos I think it’s straight-through-paper-path stuff which won’t go through my HP very well) with stuff wot says ‘Whipem Down Police Dept’ and “Whipping Criminals Into Shape” or whatever (and also MMLGBT – Morris Minor LGBT Group) so that people know who were are :-)

    See the ultracool?

    Thing the Third – It’s a gorgeous day, made more gorgeous by the fact that instead of saying “Kellaway (lying & theiving) Motorcycles Incorporated” on the number plate (tempting though), it now says ‘MZ – Es ist eine Lesbiche Sache’ (although spelt correctly, which that probably isn’t). Raaar.

    Thing the fourth – I’ve added a huge chunk to C3 of my dissertation, and am going to make some tea before continuing. This is goodness.

    ETA: Thing the fifth – the house in Brum that looks *perfect* for me is still available; it disappeared for a while but it’s come back. Now I just need a job there. This is *DEFINATELY* goodness

    Tinned goodness of a good variety.

  • Summer has arrived…

    …and brought with it blue skys, little fluffy clouds, and hayfever. Bugger. Let’s dispose of nervous happy Kate and leap to runny nose’d, sore eye’d, pissed off Kate. I want my hayfever to, and i say this with quite deliberate malice, I want it to fuck right off and die. It’s not even that bad yet, my eyes are just ‘itchy’ and the toilet roll is rapidly disappearing. Hopefully my Neoloritadine will knock this idea on the head quickly, but it always takes my body a while to react to it.

    It also meant that the computer room got ‘hot’. To be fair, it’s a tiny room and it’s got a Sempron and 21″ CRT monitor in it. It got hot enough yesterday, even with the window open, that I was forced to use the fan. Now, there are sensible people in this world, they’d probably have gone downstairs and dug out the 2 year old desk fan; not me; oh no. I connected up my 1930’s desk fan – partially repaired – okay, Bodged. It worked though and is shockingly effective at shifting air (if somewhat noisy). It really needs me to spend some time on it though.

    So today is, hopefully, finishing Chapter 3 of my Dissertation (the Critical Evaluation of the Literature). I’ve read through the last few papers this morning to make more notes (as if I didn’t have enough notes) which should be enough knowledge to get that section written up. Anyway, I suppose I should get on.

  • So, tell me, how do you feel?

    Your best friend from when you were a kid mails you – you’re trying to keep in touch, and enjoy each other’s company, but just are very bad at actually keeping in touch – and says… his dad has bowel cancer.

    It sounds like they’ve caught it early; and it sounds like he’ll be okay; which is good. But it’s left me feeling very strange. Very strange. I can’t place any specific emotion. It’s all blurry and confused. I kind of feel like I’ve stepped outside my emotions and that in a bit it’ll all become more something, but I don’t yet know what the something is.

  • There’s no mistaking human error

    I’d say my bike let me down today, but it’d be a lie. My brain let me down today. I had the best day I’ve had on this ward so far. I didn’t do anything stupid, I looked after a patient of my own and started to grasp what I was looking for while looking after him, and when the end of the day came I left in gorgeous cool sunlight.

    I walked to my bike and realised, having loaded my bike up, that I was a moron. I’d left the lights on; see, it’s a zed, a zed with the ignition switch based lights, and it goes:

    Parking lights & Steering lock | Steering lock | OFF | IGN | Lights and IGN

    And as I’d struggled to wiggle it past Off to Steering lock I’d managed to wiggle it one step too far, and not noticed this morning (Although I remember thinking it looked a bit wrong. But was more thinking about work. Anyway, after an hour the AA turned up (I’ve not needed ’em for a year, and then twice in 1 week… :-/ ). And I headed home. Sadly, because I was leaving at 4:30, not 3:30 the traffic was *terrible* by the time I got to Brizzy. Awful. Appauling. They’re digging up the A4174 – as far as I can tell, this is a permanent process – this time they appear to be digging up the barriers and central reservation to replace it with… more barriers and a new central reservation… that’s the same size as the old one.

    I did see something saying they were going to tarmac it to make the road wider while they re-lay the tarmac on the section that they widened (but didn’t relay the road surface on) because obviously, partially closing the road to make it  three lanes, then closing a lane to tarmac the middle, then closing the new lanes makes perfect sense to someone…

    Anyway, the narrow road-works lanes were so thin that I couldn’t filter through great chunks, and I managed to smack my hand-protector against a BMW – I was astounded when the guy just waved me off, although it was probably at 1mph – and at worst he’s got a bit of red to rub off.

    Still I was glad to make it home and get my contact lenses off….