Category: General

16^th January 2002. 12:18:09.

Well, I’ve updated the afp pages, or at least I will have actually finished uploading the pictures and so on by the time I’ve done this, and hopefully the actual web-pages too. I’ve used PNG’s on one of the pages, blame Peter if you don’t like pngs – who viciously attacked me for my use of JPEGs ;-)

Yes.

[Thinks] he really ought to have a link from my links page. Hrm. Maybe update that in a bit, depends if any work drifts my way. I also need to do some stuff for the shop website, but I want to wait until k’s about to see how she fancies tackling it.

Anyway, so, onto what’s been going on. Well, I’ve also updated the MZ pages – quite dramatically. Hrm, my left hand’s starting to ache in that “oooh, I’m going to really start hurting in a bit” way.

Oh yes, that’s one of the things I was going to ramble about, my bones. They hurt. It’s really beginning to worry me somewhat. Both my knees are hurting, my back’s aching. I’m not sure why, it just seems to be hurting – perhaps it’s lack of exercise, I’ll go out in a bit and see if I can find a sports-shop in Stroud, and get a swimming costume if I can find one.

And some lunch.

I seem to have had this sodding sore throat for a couple of days now. Grrowl.

My bike, as you’ll see if you’ve read my nice shiny MZ rebuild page, is knackered again. The electrics on it have died, fortunately they perked back up with alot of wiggling and prodding so I could get the bike home, then they semi-died one turning before home (the relay was clicking over, but the indicators weren’t flashing). Yet again, they’ve perked back up having been left for a few days – but that’s it for the electrics, they’ve given me grief once too often.

So, it’s goodbye to the Mechanical regulator and every last inch of that bikes wiring. I’ve had enough of fiddling with it and being let down by it. It’s the very last thing that seems to have suffered, but then allowing an insane monkey with a inline-fuse and connector block fetish rewire it (as has clearly happened at some point in the past) never does electrics any good.

But that leads me onto my next bit of ramble.

Actually, that leads me to lunch.

14:23:24

Okay, I’m back from lunch….right. Hrm.

Yes, so, my bike needs rewiring, but not as per the original spec – ‘cos it’s getting an electronic revcounter (well, hopefully, we managed to kill the kit I bought because the stuff we potted it in (B&Q; silicone sealant) contains something conductive – despite not mentioning it), and it’s got electronic ignition, and an electronic regulator. However.

The explanation of how to fit an electronic regulator describes the process for a Lucas NCB403, I think. Anyway, whatever it is Lucas don’t make that part anymore, instead they supply a “compatible” one made by CarGo. Only, just to be confusing, the CarGo one has a different set of connectors on it, which makes things a *little* more complicated.

So I sat down, wiring diagram as it should be, ‘simplified’ wiring diagram from the MZ-Tech website, the instructions for fitting an electronic alternator, a pen and some paper.

The intention being to go from a wiring diagram to a written set of connections. Basically, you know, Alternator DF to Regulator DF to Fusebox 15A to whatever. You get the picture. Anyway, it took me hours to work out which connections were which on the sodding regulator, and then further hours to actually reach any kind of understanding of the circuit diagram.

It was depressing, really, really depressing. Okay, so I’ve not looked at a circuit diagram for years, but still, I shouldn’t be having so much trouble with a very basic circuit.

My brain just doesn’t seem to work anymore, it was like, a few weeks back I was, briefly, on the ball – and I could feel it. I could actually think. It wasn’t like swimming in treacle. I could come up with witty responses to things. My problem solving abilites reappeared. I’d forgotten what it felt like. Even at uni this stuff was clearly coming and going. I mean, I had bursts of being able to think fast and clearly and periods when I couldn’t. But normally sitting there and just battling through stuff slowly would result in my brain kind of firing, like an unreliable car, on a couple of cylinders and then slowly limping fully into life.

But that doesn’t seem to work anymore. However hard I try and force it it just won’t come. It worries me. I hadn’t realised how much I’d lost becuase I hardly ever do anything that involves intelligence, I just vegitate. *sigh*

I seem to struggle with stuff that I can see is simple. Stuff I can see that I can do – but I just don’t seem to be able to grasp it. It’s like as I found myself I lost the rights to being bright. Of course, you have to start to wonder if you were ever bright – did I just work harder at learning than I do now?

Gah.

Oh well.

Anyway. By the way, it’s best if when you’re looking for a shop you look at the actual contents of the shop and don’t just barge past going “no, it wasn’t called that”. Because that leads you to waste an hour in stroud on a trip that should have taken 10 minutes.

Gah.

—

Kate

7^th January 2001, 12:59:59.

Well, I thought it was probably time I wrote something again, I’m feeling staggeringly tired, despite getting about 7 hours sleep last night, or was it 6. Probably 6 – I’m still not caught up – not aided by going to a party at the weekend.

I’ve really got to stop going to these tranny do’s, in fact I think I’ll promise myself here and now not to repeat it. I don’t mind going to things were there are multiple TG people, that’s fine. But going to a specifically TG party is not something I enjoy. No. It’s just people I have nothing but a medical condition in common with – which means that the conversation keeps drifting around to sodding TS/IS/TG stuff. Gah.

Okay, sometimes I want to talk about this stuff – but generally not when I’ve gone out for a party. No.

Ah well, you learn these things I guess.

*yawn*

I also seem to have done my knee in somewhat – although I’m not sure how, or how badly. Never mind. So. Anyway, I was going to ramble – I’ve still got a bit of work to do, which I’ve promised Nikki’ll be done by the end of the week. But, well, right now I don’t really feel like it – I’ve spent the last few hours researching the cost of second hand Mac kit, water rates, rates, poking around looking to see if I could find a cheap, legal copy of Impression Publisher (I couldn’t). Having another quick looksie for large format printers, and the like.

I’m really beginning to feel much more positive about the chances of this shop coming off. Anyway, with that in mind I bought a keyboard this weekend. Korg X5 anybody? Christ those things are complicated – I’m used to a piano for christs sake! Anyway, so I’ve found this in my search for some music – ‘cos I can’t play without music. Yes, yes, I’m crap, I know.

Anyway, I was very good. I didn’t buy an electric guitar – despite wanting one and it being a useful thing for the shop – although this was more due to the cheap one having disappeared.

Soo. Yes.

You know it’s odd – having the people around me read this is kind of strange – especially when they do it when I’m in the sodding room!. No. I mean, I never really expected anyone to read this – it was just my random wibbling which I stuck on the internet – I mean, my first site, 400 visitors in 3 years. 4 years really. Barely anyone.

I didn’t really think that this site would be so much vastly more popular – and I didn’t really think anyone’d be interesting in the random neurotic thoughts of a 20something ts. It’s not like I’ve got a fantastic writing style, or that I’m particularly interesting. It can’t be, because I’m not.

Perhaps I’m more open in here than a lot of people expect – I dunno, whatever it is, it’s odd because I never expected to meet anyone who’d read it. I dunno. It’s very odd.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing this of course. I think I’m addicted to having a pointless huge website. Which, you’ll have to agree covers this monstrosity.

Again, the thought that I really ought to fix it up and sort out the diary entry section so it actually, well, was sesibly structured and had search facilities, and so on…..occurs. But I still can’t quite be arsed.

—

Kate

1^st January 2002, 00:41

Happy New Year! 23531 hits…..

I think that calls for a song….

B .left;

.left ROR r0,r0,#1;

LD hips, {hands};

LD r1, {knees};

BL tighten;

[Thanks there to kira]

Can you guess what it is yet?

—

Kate E

Hrm, I’ll have to fix the index tomorrow….but look, the copyright notice
is correct!

31^th December 2001, 12:40

Oh, shit, it’s NYE, well, NYA I suppose, you’re probably all expecting
something deep and meaningful from me. Oh, no, you know me by now so…you’re
probably expecting something depressing? Ah…well….

No, actually, despite the fact that L is ill….(*sigh*), I’m still feeling
very positive at the moment. I’m not sure how long it’s going to last, but I
really *do* feel positive. I get this vague sensation that my whole life is
slowly coming together. Yes, it’s still rather a state. I’ve not strictly got a
job, and I’m soon to be very, very broke. And so on. But still.

I have plans, I have people I care about, yes. Definately slowly improving.
Remind me to look at this entry when I’m next depressed.

Hrm, I’m also hungry….

Anyway, so, Happy New Year, when it arrives, to everyone (let’s check out
that hit counter….23521…not bad). How did that survey go? Well – let’s see:
survey
results.

Okay, that didn’t go *quite* as I intended. Currently standing at 60%
thinking I looked like an anime character. Yes. Hrm. And 30% thinking I didn’t
look like an anime character – the no-answer was me, checking it was working and
being too lazy to delete the result ;-)

I suppose I should put myself down as a No, I didn’t look like an anime
character, but annoyingly I can see what these people were thinking when they
said it. Gits. :-)

Anyway, so, onto the tests, don’t blame me, this is all ‘cos of Amy who keeps pointing these tests
out to me. So. On with the results:

You’re a very open and adventurous person, you’ve been around the block and back several times. Yet, as all people do, you realize that this life style cannot go on forever and need to settle down. Hopefully as more time progresses you’ll stick to one gender and not be so greedy! Take The “Which Kevin Smith Female Are You?” Quiz!!

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

Take the What Should Your New Year’s Resolution Be? Quiz

Yes. So. Apparently I’m Alyssa/Kanga who should become a homeless wanderer. I
wonder what you could glean by sticking together all the different quizzes I’ve
done over time – probably a great deal of completely useless information. Then
again, this website consists of about 42Mb of useless information (yes folks,
inculding the images, it really *is* that big).

You know, it occurs that I’ve been remarkably prolific. I mean, I don’t know
what the average number of entries is – and no, I’m not going to work it out,
but it can’t be that far below 1 per day – given my occasional bursts of 2 or
3 a day.

I dunno, it’s a bit hard to say. And no. I’m quite definately not going to
work it out.

Anyway, so. What are my New Year’s Resolutions? I dunno. I tried to think of
some but I really couldn’t think of any. There’s nothing I do to excess – apart
from getting depressed, which I guess I’ll try and avoid.

It’s odd, I feel *really* positive when I get up, but usually, by the evening
I’m feeling much less positive.

Hrmph.

Anyway, I’m going to stop rambling now, ‘cos this is a particularly
meaningless diary entry.

—

Kate E

25^th December 2001, 23:12.

Well, it’s been an odd xmas day/eve. I suppose a quick rundown of what I got for Xmas? Well – A picture, this one’s a bit hard to describe – its a watercolour of a building and of a architectural drawing of it – apparently it’s from the late 19th century. Anyway, I like it :-)

A copy of Stephen Fry’s new book, a photograph album, some incense, I think that’s it. It’s downstairs in the lounge (well, there was a packet of shortbread and something else…Oh, yes, an excercise book – a small hint from my mother there then).

Anyway, so, I’m sat here with RSI, waiting for a tape to be sampled….and then encoded. Can I just moan for a second? EAC – Exact Audio Copy, is the only piece of software I’ve got on this machine which can record from the Line in on this soundcard. Okay, so I record a track and say “Convert to MP3”. Argh! I’ve set it to 256kbps, and for this track 128kbps is more than enough (it’s speech). So I hit Cancel conversion…does it just stop conversion? No. It also deletes the original Wav file.

*sigh*

Which is actually why you’re getting a diary entry. I wasn’t going to do it now – I was feeling lazy. But because I’m stuck here trying to do this one more time – just to check it works ‘fore tomorrow.

Anyway, so.

It’s kind of been stressful – nice, but stressful. It’s scary, because my dad is beginning, no, more than beginning, he’s showing distinct chemotherapy related problems. I suppose I’m still used to him being so completely well, all the time. And he’s not anymore. Although it sounds like the chemo is helping. I’m hoping that it’s working. Godess I’m hoping that it’s working.

It’s also been kind of hard because John was here, John is my little Nephew – and he was being very well behaved – and very sweet….and of course I start thinking about the fact I can’t have kids.

Which is fairly unhealthy. So I’ve been on IRC trying not to think about it – and encoding this ancient (well, okay, about 6 y/o) radio program….

*sigh* I felt so lonely last night, missing k, R and L. *sigh*

I think that might be why I’m avoiding going to bed. I don’t want to go to bed alone, again. It’s so much worse than being alone in Brizzle, because in brizzle if I’m on my own I can hear k and R…

Anyway, I’m hungry. And tired. And it’s nearly finished encoding.

—

Kate E

21^th December 2001, 18:43

Well, hrm. What can I say….

It’s getting very near to xmas, like *really* near. And we know what that
means…it’s that time of year when I look at page-hits. Yes.

Well, actually, given that this site has only been here for, what, 2 years.
(Good godess, it’s been that long!). Erm, yes, so, it’s a bit hard to do major
page stats. Anyway, so:

Well, there you go. Over the 3 years that this wasn’t Kate’s Cavern we got
approximately 400 staggering hits. Then, all of a sudden it lept up to over 10k
when Kate’s Cavern was born. Then it seems to have managed a staggering 6k a
year. Well, okay, it’s hardly staggering, but it’s moderately suprising for a
crappy little personal webpage on the edge of existance.

Anyway, so, this will probably be my last entry before Xmas, and maybe even
before New year, when, yet again I suppose I’ll do my rundown of what’s happened
this year. And I promise I’ll try harder to make it through the year without
resorting to “and then this happened and then this happened and then this
happened”….

So, I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry
Non-Faith-Based-Holiday and a happy New Year.

—

Kate E

God that felt good.

You’ve got to love MZ’s. It’s cold, it’s been pissing down with rain/sleet all night, it’s damp, there’s been ice on the saddles. The bike’s been stood for a month and a half and not started once in that time.

You give it 8 priming kicks, more than usual, but a desperate attempt to make up for the fact that the tank is half full of water. Kick. Nothing. Kick. Nothing. Kick-cough-riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiingningnignignignigning-riiiingningnignignignig-riiiiiing-nig-nig-nig-nig….

You pull off in a cloud of two-stroke fumes and up the road….

Out onto open country lanes, white with salt, the air is crisp and dry. Steam obscures your vision as you breathe out….

Open the throttle………30..40..50…55….60…..65…..70 and you cruise along….slowly freezing to death with this enormous grin of satisfaction on your face.

30 miles later you pull in to work, still with an enormous grin on your face, your fingers frozen to the handlebars, but insanely happy…

Anyway, so that was my afternoon.

This morning – we went to look at the shop that we want to rent, maybe, and it does look good, lots of work, but still…

Anyway, so some of yesterday was spent doing this. Which amused me, if no one else.

And now…

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go camping, and pitch their tent under the stars. During the night, Holmes wakes his companion and says: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce.”

Watson says: “I see millions of stars, and even if a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.”

There’s a pause, then a second later Holmes replies: “Watson, you idiot. Somebody stole our tent … ”

Yes.

That’ll do…

—

Kate E

11^th December 2001, 11:38

If you had an infinite number of monkeys, with an infinite number of PC’s
running Windows 2, they would still never come up with a program so poorly
designed and implemented as this one.

Just trying to document it makes me want to go out into the carpark and
scream. I want to jump up and down and shout at the programmer it’s so bad.
It’s just awful throughout. You keep thinking that it can’t get any worse. I
promised myself that I’d not get pissed off with the quality of the
internal software I’m documenting. But I can’t do it. I just *can’t*. It’s
so unremittingly awful. Every dialog has at least one fault. At no point do
you think “Oh, that’s a nice feature”. It’s actually managed to hit the very
low level of quality at which I think “christ, I could do better than
that”. I’m trying to work, but it’s so frustrating. It’s infurating
to try and explain something – and it ends up being 2 pages of explanation
for something which should simple and could be simple with a better
UI, but just because it’s so badly designed it can’t be easily explained.
Things are completely counterintuitive. Things don’t work. Dialogs are
missing things they should have. The window titles have grammatical errors
in. It’s just AWFUL. ARGH!.

And even that rant hasn’t managed to reduce my anguish to a level where I
can work. I just sit here and stare at this damn software trying to work out
how someone can allow something so bad out. It’s like the Yugo, where I was
driving along and suddenly I thought “how could any self-respecting
engineer have allowed these cars out of the factory. How could anyone have
designed this and thought ‘yes, that’s good enough’?”. It’s like that.

Not that it matters, I’ll probably be made redundant on Wednesday, and
frankly, right now that’d be a godsend. It’d take the “I need to sort out my
life” decision out of my hands, I’d actually have to do something,
and I wouldn’t feel so bad, because this company did employ me knowing that
I was going to be off work for a month and a half after just six months
working for them. And despite the generally fairly miserable time I’ve had
here I do feel that was quite generous of them. The fact I’ve got RSI in
both hands is obviously something that pushes me to do it, but it’s not been
so bad the last week. Although I can definately feel it in my left hand
(which is bad, because it’s traditionally been the right hand that’s worse).

I notice that the surv
ey isn’t going quite the way I wanted…or maybe it is. I dunno. Do I want to look like an Anime
character? Hrm… Anyway, at some point I’ll pop up some of the comments.
Well, I might. It depends *g*.

Apparently my pelvis is changing shape. Well, k reckons so, I can’t tell.
I ache that’s for sure. I can’t sit comfortably in my office chair anymore.
My back hurts like hell while I’m at work. I spend half the day just
shuffling myself around in my chair.

Hrm, I don’t have enough (any really) Divine Comedy. Also I want to hear
the strokes track. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to download MP3s at
work….So I’ll just have to put up with the stuff I’ve got here.

Anyway, enough of this. I’ve got a program to stare at.

—

Kate E

9^thDecember 2001. 15:58

God I’m tired. I don’t even know *why* I’m so tired, I mean, I know I didn’t
get to sleep until past 3am, but still, I slept until midday and I still feel
like hell. I’m a bit pissed off because my weekend seems to have vaporised. I’d
forgotten how short weekends are when you’re working.

One minute you’re going “yay! It’s friday afternoon”, and the next it’s
monday morning and you’re crawling into work. I need longer weekends that’s for
sure. I’m actually just waiting for the parrot stuffing I’ve put on the wall to
dry – then I’ll put some more there, and hopefully, after a bit of a scrape,
that wall’ll be ready to be painted.

Pfer.

I’m so tired.

Sorry, that’s made a big impression on me.

Anyway, so, I managed, after much work to find a dvd I’ve been after for
*ages*. Imdb told me it didn’t exist, but after a stroke of genius on my part I
managed to find it. Malcolm is a
film I taped many years ago, and have really wanted a better copy of since I got
it. It’s taken me years to track it down, and so I’m quietly pleased with myself
for finding it…

At the other end of the scale is the DVD I picked up from the petrol station
on my way home from work. I actually saw it on my way to work, and mentioned it
on IRC at lunchtime. R then told me to get it – although she claims she was
joking…..This Classic title
sounded so awful it was irrisistible:

“Million-dollar effects, fabulous vistas, a cavalcade of stars… don’t appear in
this film.”

” I expected a predictable plot with senseless gore and terrible dialog but
what I got was much, much worse.”

Anyway, so I’m looking forward to watching that one….

Something else passed through my mind. I can’t remember what it was.

Oh, yes. :-P to Rachel. See, now, my diary doesn’t just go: I’m so
depressed/I’m so fucked up etc…

So :-PPPP

*grin*

That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for putting in, but it’ll do. Oh, I
remember, but I can’t be arsed to do it now. The “Do I look like an anime
character in this photo” poll. I’m not going to say which photo, incase I
suddenly…oh sod it. Let’s do the Survey….or you
can just see the results so
far.

—

Kate E

8^thDecember 2001. 20:38

Okay, okay, it’s just another test. But this one was so wrong that I had to
post it…how could it be so innacurate?!

Take the What Cat Are You? test by webkin!

—

Kate E