Category: General

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05/20/2002 Archived Entry: “Ramble…”

Well, this is just a rambly entry ‘cos I’m bored, slightly drunk and tired….

I’m also amazed – it seems like everyone actually likes the new look. I’ve not yet had a bad comment about it, well, one person doesn’t like the lessthan/greater than signs around the links, but, well, I do – so that’s tough. :-)

It must be said that I’m all in favour of this new diary entry system – much less hastle for me – although today I found out why so many people have livejournals – even people with their own websites (with diarys on their websites). It’s ‘cos people who have livejournals with “private” sections can’t – it would appear – just make random people “friends” (one would have assumed some sort of login/password thing would allow that – but that, obviously, wouldn’t make them money).

Which is irritating, because there’s (at least) one person who has said “if you’ve got a lj I’ll make you a ‘friend’ so you can see the ‘private’ entries”. So I’m left in the irritating position of one who wants to see this stuff but would have to get a live journal to do it. *grrr*

Tired…

With some assistance we won, although it turns out that our printer has a number of faults, so I’ll be RMAing it’s arse tomorrow – although I’m considering visiting the parental units tomorrow.

It seems that my bodies tendancy to awake at 8:something regardless of how much sleep I’ve had has caught me out today. Although I can often doze back off after that it’s never as effective as actually sleeping properly. *mutter*. Dune’s on Sci-Fi right now – normally I’d quite fancy watching Dune, but I really wasn’t in the mood yesterday and thus don’t really feel like watching it today. Also this big wave of tiredness has overcome me. I think spending a day ranting at printers has really taken it out of me more than I’d expect it to. Still, got the order shipped on time, thanks to Lauren.

[Tries to stay awake]

I just noticed there’s a bunch of infighting going on on one of the Acorn news site…on a show report?! It’s just insane – I wonder if the reviewer commented on not seeing any of the new hardware at the show….

Not that I’m saying it doesn’t exist. I believe that the prototype Omega exists….I wonder if they’ve called it that to confused people who’ve heard of Amiga…. ;-)

I had that urge again. I want a school reunion. I want to show them that I’m not a complete fuckup. I have visions of pulling up in the Morris Minor – they should all recognise that – in my purple dress (of which there is not yet a photo), with (any one of) my partner(s)…well, that’s as far as I’ve got. But that’s the kind o thing…Anyway…I’m off to IRC for a bit

Replies: 2 comments

ooh, lookie here:
Error Notice

Can’t open the mail program at /usr/lib/postfix. Please make sure you have this configured correctly.

Your diary told me that when sending the comment, and prolly this comment will say the same

Posted by amy @ 05/21/2002 01:46 PM GMT

That was my reason for getting a LJ. Or actually, it was more to get the friendspage since I realised that I read 5 or 6 different LJs, and getting them on one page was a lot more convinient.

Posted by amy @ 05/21/2002 01:45 PM GMT

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05/19/2002 Archived Entry: “Wheee….”

So, I’ve been tweaking this website on and off for a few weeks now, and it’s coming up to launch date. I’ve got through the first few directories of things – and so far as far as I know only Peter and Amy have seen it. Amy’s helped me tweak it a bit – so it should be at least reasonably lovely.

Of course, with me doing this there’ll be no new diary entries on the old in my brain section – which should confuse people. But anyway.

I was going to rant, but I’ll save it for later….

Replies: 2 comments

Hee hee… another Greymatter diarist. The whole “look” is good too.

Posted by Alyssa Palin @ 05/25/2002 12:31 PM GMT

Well done Kate – it looks good, and it works in lynx :-)

Posted by Peter @ 05/20/2002 07:18 AM GMT

17^th May 2002, 01:08.

You know it’s really annoying to have bits of my new website there and
working. I kind of want to show people what it’s going to look like – but it’s
not ready yet. So you’ll have to wait. It’s all tedious stuff now – y’know,
doing the extracting of the page content from the old pages and adding it to the
new ones….

Anyway, it’s been a while so:

You love to be pampered and romanced by your men and things like cuddling by
a fire, having an intimate meal, or having a long, deep conversation can always
put you in the mood. Sex to you is usually more about the man your with than the
act itself. Not a one-night stand kind of girl, newness and disconnectedness
just don’t do it for you. The mature, stable men you prefer to date appreciate
your loyalty and big heart, but they especially love the way you inspire their
more aggressive, protective masculine side.

And…

(Don’t worry, there’s more diary entry further down…)

So, I spent the day shopping. Yes, yes, I know I’m already broke but I’d
reached the point where my only remaining pair of leggings was unwearably
hole-y, and since that’s what I wear most of the time.

Also, my unfeasibly short tennis/teeshirt dress was, well, unfeasibly short.
It was short when I bought it in 1998, but after a few washes it’s shrunk.
Apparently you could see my underwear – and apparently (number 2) that’s a bad
thing ;-)

So, anyway, I went off to spain.

No, not really, I think I’m a bit tired for doing this.

I went down to Brizzle city centre with Lauren and attempted to track down
some leggings and some sort of replacement dress.

Having visted my usual haunts (I’m broke, so I tend to go to crap shops. Also
crap shops tend to do just plain leggings with no logos, and no faffing) -I was
shocked to discover that they appear to have outlawed leggings and tennis
dresses. This is the only explanation for it. Only one shop had a blackmarket
supply of leggings. Yes folks I was reduced to British…no, no, I can’t say
it…..

And the same place also had, yes, a decent dress.

So, that was me satisfied – we actually spent quite a nice day just
meandering around Bristol city centre.

Of course my problem is – there’s lots of things I want. I know in my heart
they won’t make me any happier – but I hate wandering around book shops and
sci-fi shops, and frankly around clothes shops and knowing that it doesn’t
matter what I want – I can’t really afford to buy it.

*sigh*

Need money to pay bills this month – which means going and hastling the
agency again. Which is less fun than it could be.

Anyway. I dunno. My moods been all screwy the last few days. I’ve been in one
of those “want to do something but know not what” kind of moods. I also keep
not-going-jogging – and I’ve not been swimming for ages – which I also want to
do.

*Mutter*

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
(No comments)
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15^th May 2002, 15:27.

Everybody has a novel in them, some people like that novel so much they
publish it twice.

The further I got into the book I’ve just been reading the more and more I
could see the other book of hers I’d read. And by about 3/4 of the way through I
was reading not because I wanted to see how it turned out (exactly as I
expected, sadly) but just to see if I was right about it.

And thinking about it afterwards I can see more and more scenes which are
essentially lifted from one book and put into another. The other book had the
advantage of being at least a bit more polished. This one I really ploughed
through the first part because the previous book I’d read was, well, better.

I think that if you read one of her books then, once you’re past the
tedious bit where she sets up the characters – which in this book particularly I
had to struggle to get through – ‘cos it just seemed to go on and on, without
developing the plot at all – then, if you like crime thrillers then you’ll enjoy
it. However, reading two of them isn’t a good idea.

Incidentally, I’m not saying that I could do any better, because from
previous experiance I quite clearly can’t. But it’s just annoying to find that
someone’s done that.

Anyway.

So, my bike test is booked for the week after next, the training is booked
and paid for, the mog is booked in for a service, the webserver has been
reconfigured to start on startup (cheers to Rachel for that one). My mail is
working. My website is running.

All is well with the world for the time being….

Anyway. Oh, and some of the underlying stuff for the new site is in place.
Mwuhahahahaha.

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
(No comments)
[ reply to this ]

14^th May 2002, 13:05.

So, some of you probably noticed that yesterday my machine went down for a
bit – it actually went down for a OS upgrade. What with my machine being
horribly screwed in so many, many ways, I decided that we’d bung a nice new
shiny linux install on – that and the fact that a new version of SuSE was out.

So. All the backing up was done. – On the 10th of May I’d burned a backup
disk, yesterday I backed up my mail and shutdown the very screwed SuSE 7.2/7.3
hybrid that had been residing on my machine.

30 minutes later, or there abouts I got to the X config and *SPLAT*. Yes, the
installer still didn’t like my graphics card. The aged FireGL struck again and
destroyed that install – because unlike the SuSE 7.2 install which just carried
on after losing the graphics card this one didn’t.

So, Much swearing and a decision to go back to SuSE 7.3. No, that wouldn’t
fly either. Well, I didn’t really want to go all the way back to SuSE 7.2. So –
a decision was made. It was finally time to loose the FireGL card.

And at the same time I decided to replace the case – because the powersupply
in the old case had always been “a bit iffy” – and was possibly responsible for
the graphics quality problems I’d always had.

So. The decision was made. I went to PC World (yeah, yeah, I know).

Picked up a TNT2 and a new case, walked to the counter, found I couldn’t find
my purse. Drove home. Found purse in bag. Went to local shop to check prices.
Found they had a cheaper case but a vastly more expensive graphics card. Checked
the other local shop. They had a *very* cheap case (10 quid, ‘cos it was old
stock), and a reasonably price TNT2. Oookay.

Get case and card home. Open case. No drive carriers. None. Not one.

Return case. Go to other local shop. Find it’s staffed by an idiot. Try to explain
the concept of AT/ATX motherboards. Fail. Eventually manage to get out of him
that yes, some of the cases do have the alternate blanking plate for the back.
Manage to buy one when he manages to find a blanking plate.

Get home, open bursar. Discover that bursar is *revolting* and appears to
have sucked in the entirity of the paint/wallpaper dust removed from the walls.
The fan is completely covered in black fluff. The entire motherboard is grey
with dust.

Dissasemble bursar. Discover that the motherboard really doesn’t want
to come out of the case. Swear. Lots. Manage to force the motherboard out of the
case and remove the plastic standoffs. Mount board in new case.

Remove and clean processor fan. Put machine back together.

Discover that the processor fan is sickly, but still running. Install SuSE 8.
Be impressed by the amazing quality of the new graphics card compared to the old
one.

Spend hours trying to get DVD playback working (very nearly there, just a
*tad* slow).

Discover that virtually everything I expect isn’t installed as default
anymore and slowly work through installing it.

F*ck up mail configuration and thus lose 32 e-mails. They should all have
been bounced so at least people will know I didn’t get them.

Finally got everything sorted, bar the fact that Apache doesn’t start on
startup and I need a new processor fan at some point soon – not made easier by
the fact that the fan *only just* fits, because my motherboard is approximately
the size of a stamp.

Which brings us to now.

When I’m stopping for a bit.

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
Peter at Tue May 14 13:30:25 2002 said:

But it’s working! Yay! :-)

 

Kate E at Tue May 14 13:31:42 2002 said:

Quick test after the upgrade…

 

[ reply to this ]

[Main Index] [Next entry: “Wheee….”]

05/14/2002 Archived Entry: “Quick test”

So, here’s a quick test before we redo the style

13^th May 2002, 12:47.

Especially for peter….

This is an entry especially for peter, who’s
clearly very bored at work. I can tell this because he’s bemoaning the lack of
diary updates from me.

Well, here’s an update….I’ve not actually got anything to say, but maybe
it’ll give Peter something to do for a few
minutes :-)

[grin]

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
Peter at Mon May 13 13:16:52 2002 said:

yay! *grins*

*hugs*

 

[ reply to this ]

11^th May 2002, 16:14.

Eeep, it’s 16:14.

I wasn’t expecting that just yet. Anyway, I’m afraid my plans for the new
website are slightly on hold. This is due to a mistake I made many moons ago.
For some inexplicable reason, at some point in the past I set the install medium
on bursar to be the wrong version of SuSE Linux.

Then, much later, after I’d forgotten I’d done it, or indeed why I’d done it
I installed quite a lot of stuff, using Yast2, which popped up in its usual way
and said “oi, this is *allll* out of date, shall I fix it?” and foolishly I said
yes.

Now, having managed to get Yast2 at least apparently working again, although
in a rather cludgy sort of way, I felt quite smug and left the machine in a
state which I thought was, well, if not well was acceptible by my standards
(i.e. it appeared to be working and it’s been up for 26 days….so it can’t be
that sickly ;-)

Unfortunately today I discovered that it’s really not that well. Yes, further
checking shows that although Yast2 appears to load and run, it doesn’t
*actually* work.

*sigh*

So, I think that in the interests of having a machine which actually works as
opposed to one which quite clearly doesn’t I’ll probably nuke it fairly soon.
Which is, to be frank, a good thing, since I broke the printing system many many
moons ago (bloody HP).

Anyway, I guess I can work on the look of the site rather more. It’s still
very rough, but I think I know what it’ll look like :-)

Yet again, I’m intrigued to know who it is who reads this site. I mean,
initally it was obviously basically my friends who wanted to know what was going
on in my weird, twisted little mind – because I’m not very good at expressing
myself verbally and I tend to, well, fuck it up, would probably be the best way
of putting it.

Whereas on here, well, I still screw up quite often but not nearly as often
as I do when it comes to speaking how I’m feeling. I guess I’m also better at
describing how I’m feeling in writing rather than in speech – probably because I
can think about it more – and delete stuff – which you can’t do in speech.

And it doesn’t matter if I get stuck in the middle of a sentance, or forget
what the next word is I can just stop and then carry on later.

I don’t intend, incidentally, for this to become a debate on politics/rise of
the right in Europe/etc. I just thought I’d comment on what Snappygirl
said after my 4^th May entry….

“I am not that kind of racist but i know why BNP won three seats, cos the
voters just fed up with lots of foreigner come over here to stay UK instead
other european counties.”

*sigh*

I know why the BNP got in, and it’s not actually the fact that they got in
that bothers me. Well, obviously that bothers me enormously, scares me witless
actually

Some information for you….

“The BNP got an average of 12% in the 66 seats they contested.” Now, obviously, the BNP only really contested seats where they had a chance of winning, but that’s still 66 seats where there are enough nazis in the area to give them an average of 12% of the vote. And that disturbs me. (And incidentally, I’ve had it from members of the BNP before “I’m not a racist but…”. Well, you can fuck right off. If you’re voting for the BNP then you *are* a racist, and there’s no point in trying to hide behind your manifold ‘other’ reasons for voting for them.). And it gets worse. In Oldham the BNP had candidates in 5 wards and they took an average of 28% of the vote. So, of the people who could be bothered to vote, almost one third of them voted for the BNP. Go read this: article

What bothers me is that everyone is playing down the importance of these
results. Because quite simply there are clearly major issues that need to be
tackled, both in these areas where the BNP did well – and elsewhere.

The BNP’s manifesto is an impressive piece of populist policy making, and is
clearly designed to appeal to as many people as possible – and it scares me.
Because I recognise it. I recognise it from the translations of the Nazis.

I’m going to leave you now with a couple of lines that scare me:

“The British people were never asked if they wanted a multi-cultural
society, immigration was forced on us undemocratically and against the clear
wishes of the majority.”

“we would put in place a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those
foreigners resident in Britain would be encouraged to return to their lands of
origin. “

there’s more

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
Tam at Sun May 12 12:12:15 2002 said:

The BNP are really scary :( I really hope they don’t become any more popular. I know what it’s like when people who hate other groups of people get control – not good!

 

[ reply to this ]

4^th May 2002, 20:56.

Hrm.

So, I’m feeling much less neurotic you’ll be glad to hear. Although my
fingers are sodding freezing. Perhaps I should stick the heating on.

The main thing I wanted to comment on is the whole BNP thing. I mean, that
scares me witless frankly – that the BNP got in. And not only that but the BNP
didn’t just get 1 seat, or 2, they got 3 – one of which represented – not the
centre of burnley – where I could understand it at least.

No, a small village.

Full of fucking racists.

I’ve spent years telling my mum that that *kind* of racism just didn’t seem
to exist here. That the KKK got kicked out of the UK. And what do I find – that
I was wrong. There *are* people in this country who classify people by skin
colour. *sigh*

I’m angry and I’m frustrated.

And there’s not much I can do about it at this point. *sigh*.

So. Yes.

Christ I’m cold.

Yes. Anyway. In better news, I went swimming today. Managed a staggering 3
lengths? We think? Anyway, everyone’s been saying “is that all” – but frankly
I’m quite pleased with myself. 3 lengths isn’t bad for someone who’s not swum at
all in 7-8 years. And last time they did swim it was just across a canal,
wearing a life jacket, having fallen in.

So, I’m knackered and quite pleased with myself…..anyway, I’m going to
collapse in a heap soon.

The pond is now done, btw. Attempt 2 was successful.

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
SnappyGirl at Thu May 9 02:26:28 2002 said:

I just let you know, i am not that kind of racsit but i know why BNP won three seats, cos the voters just fed up with lots of foreigner come over here to stay UK instead other european counties. That all i know, Oh by the way Germany Nazi kill disabled people, I am born deaf, i know if they come in power then i will leave here.

Snappygirl

 

[ reply to this ]

01/05/02, 12:25

C4’s Gay-o-meter reports that I am 56% gay. “Very open minded between the sheets and just as balanced when out on the streets”. Apparently.

It seems to be that time of the month where I get cranky and have to resist stabbing everyone to death. Which is hard because absolutely everything seems like provocation at the moment. Perhaps anger is an appropriate emotion to describe me.

Must remember to fix the 26^th and the 29^th entry.

I know that I have – particularly at the moment – somewhat of a short fuse. And at points I have to struggle to keep my temper under control. I know what I can do if I lose it – so I don’t.

*sigh*

So anyway – I suppose it’s good that I’m fairly aware of this. It doesn’t stop other people driving me spare.

Does anyone out there fancy doing a review of a prototype website for me? Thing is – while I was at uni I used to get James’ opinion on sites (I’d link to his homepage but he last updated that about the same time as I left Eastbury). This worked quite well – at least as far as I was concerned – he’d say “okay, this is good, and this is good, and this is nice, but this sucks, and I’d do this like this and this like this. Maybe make this bigger? Oh and this doesn’t work”

This allowed me to know at least what he thought was good/bad/neither in my many sites. Now webdesign has moved on a lot since then – and those early sites look incredibly ropey now :-)

Anyway, my problem now is that no-one offers me that kind of critique of the stuff I do. I either get people who just say “yes, it’s fantastic” – or I get people saying “I don’t like it”. I never get “I like it but” anymore. I’m all for constructive criticism, but when you never get a positive remark (a real one, not just an “it’s lovely”) it’s completely disheartning.

I have enough self confidence issues as it is.

[I have to wonder if anyone else in this company goes to the loo – I know there’s only one loo in the office, but only twice in 8 days has there been anyone else in there!]

At one point I got so bored of it I considered pulling all my websites. Well. That mostly amounts to this one and the 194 sites, since the pretentious gallery site was taken down due to making me look like a complete tosser.

So anyway. If anyone who doesn’t just hate the style of my websites fancies having a quick lookover a development site for me, I’d be very grateful.

On a totally different topic I went out to the Mog this morning and discovered a flat battery. Unfortunately, Halogen headlamps, the heater, a dynamo and traffic jams do not mix.

And so I discovered why the Mog didn’t come back with it’s starting handle. The repairs to my front bumper required a strengthening piece in the centre. This blocks off the ‘ole where the starting handle would go. Fortunately starting it off the spare battery in the house worked – ‘cos I really didn’t fancy doing the mixture on the bike at 8 in the morning.

Which lead me to thinking about getting the alternator….and obviously everything else I fancy for the mog….

I can’t afford it right now, well, lets be fair: £871 just on “tweaks” is a little bit much!

That breakdown did have one nice effect – something that’s put me in a good mood for the day. Well, I’m still in a good mood. Despite me repeated telling him not to, Martin sent me a book for my birthday :-)

So, despite feeling slightly embaressed and feeling slightly guilty I also am smiling loads – so, a big Thank you to Martin, my AFP fiancee….even if his link to my site is broken….

15:21

So, the clock on my iPAQ is about 12 hours out. Never mind.

In my boredom, as usually happens I started trecking around the ‘net looking
for diary entries to read. Then I remembered the Army of Kittens website – and how it had arrested a previous fit of boredom (I feel this comes off aj unfairly negative actually – I really like the current itteration of that site). So, off I went. Then a moments interest has hopefully saved me shedloads of work.

Which is handy because my computer time is fairly limited at the moment – what with the only computer of mine actually on the network (i.e. this one) being Monitor/Keyboard/Mouseless (yup, it really is being a server) – the other two being in one case, in bits (RiscPC) and both being a long way away from a network connection. We need more space.

I’ve probably upset everyone with this entry. It’s a while since I’ve done that. I should probably make a point of not doing diary entries when I’m so moody….

In other news – I got the radio-cassette working in the mog; one of the speakers was indeed knackered.

16:14

It’s funny. I don’t feel so bad the rest of the month, but right now my brain is doing its upmost to kick me while I’m down.

The self-hatred used to be very directed – I hated myself – I felt like a liar, cheat and a fraud. But most of it was directed at my body. No, I’m not going to talk about the self harm.

For a long time I didn’t consider it self harm. It’s only looking back I can see it for what it was.

I digress. These days, the self loathing is much more directed at failings in me. [That’s right, sit and smile at your temporary colleagues]. Hatred of my self. I know it’s not there throughout the month. That doesn’t help. Not at the moment. [smile and laugh]. Right now? My brain is back on the find something you’re good at problem. This being a problem because I’ve still not found anything I’m good at.

Nothing that involves thought or creativity anyway. I get very jealous of people with talent/s. Writing, programming, drawing, music. Anything really – just because there is nothing at which I excel. I meander through life being mediocre. Part of that is obviously my fear of trying – I’ve failed so often before that these days I’m scared to try.

Why haven’t I re-written this site using jsp? Because I’m scared of fucking it up. Because I already feel stupid e-fucking-nough without screwing up something else. Why is it I ask questions about cooking when I managed to cook perfectly fucking well for three years? Why is it that despite being involved in setting up a studio I’ve barely touched the software? Why the FUCK. [smile, damnit, smile for your audience].

[breathe. calm down]

I promised myself that I wouldn’t let my fears of failure stop me anymore. Well, there’s a suprise – another broken promise.

One part of my brain is screaming STOP. I don’t know if this is something which with enough thought I can defeat, if it’s something I can “get through”. Or is it like ts-ism, something I can think myself into oblivion with? Something that no matter how much I think about it it doesn’t get any better. I’d like to think I was more in control of it now. But I’ve always been able to put it all away, out of site, with only a few seconds notice.

16:58

During my ‘saner’ moments I sometimes wonder why I hate myself so much. I think the thing that gets to me the most is my own mediority.

I have this desperate need to be good at something. It’s not actually the things I’m bad at that get to me, I can kind of accept that. Although being bad at expressing myself does bug me. You’d think I’d be better at it by now. It’s the things that I’m okay at. The things I can do, but not particularly well.

And that’s nearly everything.

—

Kate E

Comments:

 
amy at Thu May 2 15:51:55 2002 said:

Does anyone out there fancy doing a review of a prototype website for me?
memememememememememeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! pick me! over her! meee! mememe!

 

Martin Wisse at Mon May 6 00:06:54 2002 said:

“….even if his link to my site is broken….”

Your wish is my command. Fixed.

 

[ reply to this ]