Well it’s been a long time since I actually said something useful. In fact, so long that I can’t remember what I’ve been doing. For this reason this might be very dull as I cathartically reproduce my existence for the last 3 weeks in an entirely dissassembled order.
Well, I downloaded the Maxtor Powermax utility to assess the state of my disk. After running through the tests I was pleased to see it was fucked and gave me a code to use to request a replacement. So I sent my disk off and am awaiting a replacement. So thats that sorted.
I’ve sold a load of unused equipment, books, DVDs and games. I’ve made about £80 so that puts me close to the target to be able to pay off next months bills. Still means I can’t go anywhere or do anything but I have a lot of stuff left to sell, mostly books which seem to sell slowly. In the mean time I’m trying to apply for financial support from the uni, but as per usual they aren’t replying. I have nothing left in my bank account and 5 pence in my wallet. I only have my credit card left.
I went to the doctors and have been given some tablets thus adding weight to my application for extenuatiung circumstances for my final year project and modules, but they made me so nauseous I couldn’t get out of bed for 2 days and I had to stop taking them after a week so that I could actually do anything. I have to go back to the doctor for a change of prescription, get a doctors note for uni and enquire about the skin sample they took from my weird crusty hand thing (non-contagious ;)).
After 3 weeks of trying to contact my personal tutor, he finally replied and I met him on Friday. My hopes were high that I would get some kind of answers regarding where I stand and the procedure involved in applying for extensions but all I got was more forms and an even longer list of people to email. Which means it will take infinitely longer to sort out. It was relieving to have the guy finally get in touch but it left me pissed off that I was actually getting further away from a resolution.
As in previous posts, I have been running around trying to get a million things done for the last few weeks. My list of things that require immediate attention stands at around 12, though some of them are not exactly critical. I’ve spent a week trying to build a machine for sale out of all the parts and cases I have lying around, but I have had to start from scratch again 3 times until I realised the disk was damaged (these are untested salvage parts). The best machne I can make is a P200 so it’s not exactly worth it, but I decided I can turn it into a new Smoothwall box and get my current Smoothie, a leaving gift from my work placement, a Celeron 433, back in more worthy service or sell it.
Talking about work, I am in desperate need of a job. IT work, ideally Linux, is preferred quite simply because it will pay more and I will be happier doing it, but if it takes too long I’ll have to do anything I can get. One thing I won’t do is bar work. I did bar work for about 9 or 10 years on and off and it totally did my head in the last time. It’s horrible work after a certain age where the social setting isn’t what you want, it pays badly and most often, licensees treat their staff badly as they have no other world to think about, the job is their life and they see very little outside it. I liken it to shows such as Big Brother where the people are taken out of a regular lifestyle and all of the big life issues are managed for them and all they have to focus on is the miniutae of day to day existence, which means people go nuts over small issues because it’s all they have to focus on. I refer to it as ‘micro-focus’.
If you can offer me an IT job, or put me in touch with someone who can, please get in touch 🙂
My girlfriend however has just found a job as a trainee dental nurse. Having put a lot of effort into her CV, covering letter and interview skills with her, I am really pleased for her. It’s her first serious job and it’s as good an opportunity to make a proper career for herself that she is likely to get for quite a few years and one that is quite well paid. It seems to be going well and I’m really proud of her.
I managed to get some really cheap books the other day, I was delighted. It’s a long time since I actually bought some non-computer books and had time to read them. They had to go on my credit card of course as I don’t have any real money, but 4 great books for £12 is an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I got:
I’m really pleased with this lot. The Clash have been my favourite band since I was about 15. I’ve only just started this book but it is by far the most detailed account of the group’s history available. It includes interviews with not only the band and pivotal, perpheral figures, but also school friends, old acquaintences and people who worked with The Clash that have previously remained silent.
I’m probably the last geek to read HGttG, but it was recommended to me a few years back and I never got around to reading it. The recent film release means that the books are getting released again at knock down prices. I’ve always liked George Orwell, though admittedly my reading goes little further than 1984 and Animal Farm. I love that twisted political outlook so it will be interested to read one of the not so well know books. I’d liketo get my hands on Homage to Catalonia, The Road to Wigan Pier, Burmese Days and so on.
As for Lolita, well I’ve seen the film and I love these kind of 20th century classics, as I do George Orwell, but the books are most often far better as everyone knows. For £3 it seemed too good a book to ignore. I also wanted to buy a couple of other books on Bill Hicks, Ian Curtis of Joy Division and also one about the Stone Roses by John Robb who incidentally once produced a recording session for my band (the results were appalling and largely scrapped), but I could see the cost spriralling. As an aside, I really would like to get hold of some Bill Hicks DVDs, I saw one once and it had me in stitches, as does Doug Stanhope.
I have an assignment due in on Friday and an exam on Monday. I’ve been doing this assignment for about a month now and until last week I’d been given the wrong port number which meant I couldn’t access my server outside uni and I had to work out the problems blind via SSH. Inside uni, I was getting Apache ‘Forbidden’ permission errors. Now I’ve been given the right port number the thing just started working until I changed a few details and now it doesn’t work again and I can’t remember what I changed. I have a week to sort it out, install a stats analysis package, do some SSI and a few other things. it’s not that hard and I should get an A if I can sort out the problem and do the rest in time. I really need a good mark here as I couldn’t get my last assignment to work and I was dismayed to get an E, even though it had some stuff required for a C.
In other news, I’ve had a reasonably cheap and chaotic few weekends. 3 weeks ago I had to go to Huddersfield again to take my girlfriend to visit her sister, it’s something I could have done without but the petrol was paid for so all I had to do was pay for my own drinks and food. That was cool and uneventful apart from getting a bit lost on the way home and losing an hour or so by missing juntions and going the wrong way around Manchester on the way visit my friend carl who had a Belkin Bluetooth dongle (F8T003) and a Belkin KVM switch for me. We stayed a little longer than intended at Carl’s and with getting lost, probably took an extra 2 or 3 hours to get home. The bluetooth dongle was a gamble and thankfully works with Linux as I didn’t know which model it was in advance. I backed up my new phone using MultiSync, and , I can get stuff off using Gnome-Bluetooth, I just can’t transfer any files to it for some reason.
The weekend after was a quietish one, with a party at Celine’s flat for her birthday, just about 8 or 10 people and a lot of beer. This weekend I was feeling tired, grumpy and was dragged to somebody’s birthday party in a nightclub. My girlfriend had to buy most of my drinks because I have no money of my own and I was miserable company until she was hideously drunk and started getting depressed about herself. She has this delusion that I am the most handsome, attractive man in the world, which is nice but wildly inaccurate.
The night after was Jim’s birthday, Celine’s boyfriend and friend of mine and Carl’s from Scumbag College. I have to say, Jim’s one of the coolest guys I know, I really wish I saw more of him. Nevertheless, from feeling tired and grumpy the night before, amplified by the fact that I didn’t get to stay in as I had wished and was now hungover to boot, we were quite late getting to Celine’s flat, carrying little more than the beer we had left over from the previous week. I was in a shitty mood for most of the day until I’d sunk a few beers and chilled out. As hard as it is to motivate and communicate when I don’t feel up to it, good company is hard to beat.
As the early hours drew upon us, my girlfriend received a call from her sister saying that their mother, who had gone on holiday alone to Egypt to visit people she had met over there previously and was due back early Saturday evening, had still not returned or been in touch. Their mother had promised and failed to call earlier in the week and was fairly reliable with such things, the sisters were a little panicked, assisted by growing inebriation. As light began to dawn, my girlf was getting pretty hammered and further calls to and from her sister whipped them up into a frenzy and they began to fear the worst when they called their mother and her phone didn’t respond. Being fairly sensible about such things and it not being my mother, I assured my other half that it was most likely a flight delay and promised that we would contact the airline and various authorities if there wasn’t any news by the morning (which was only a matter of hours away). She then went to the loo and didn’t return and I found her crying in the bathroom, having just swallowed most of a bottle of wine. That was scary, I would be upset as she was if it were me, but the alcohol she’d consumed beforehand had made her panicky and the bottle of wine would have almost certain impending vomit and inability to walk potential. The next hour wasn’t fun believe me, but I eventually got her off to sleep and kept an eye on her to make sure she didn’t vomit in her sleep. Thankfully we recieved a call around 9am from her mother to say she was ok but the flight had been delayed by 5 hours, she had no phone signal at the airport and there were no payphones for several miles to call on. Panic over, but my poor princess was in a desperately hungover state until mid afternoon 😉
Finally, I have made an upgrade request to my broadband account. I am currently on a 512Kb connection with no transfer limit for £22.50 with Freedom to Surf and I have been reluctant to change my account over to a higher speed connection due to the increased fee and the transfer limit they place on the deals. However, they have recently upped the transfer limit to 100GB per month, (I currently do about 15GB per month) with no fee increase so I emailed their sales team to enquire about the fees I would be subject to if I were to move to 2Mb. F2S replied today to say that the cost is approximately £1.50 per month more than my currect deal for 4 times the speed with no extra fees provided I have been with them for 12 months, which I just about have. So, subject to a line check, I will have 2Mb broadband within the next 10 days at amost no extra cost. I really recommend F2S to anyone looking for ADSL in the UK, if you want to know why you can email me (addess on my website), nothing radical or secret, just details of why I think it’s a good service.
I have a few other things to post about, but I’ll do them in other posts. They’ll be above this one. This one is really just a ‘touching base’ post about whats going on right now.
See you in a minute…
