The beach was frosty this morning, and the tide was high and the sun low.
The view from Jack’s bedroom window is of frozen fields and woods this morning. And rising houses.
I’ll Do It Tomorrow
In addition to that previous entry, I thought I’d mention that I finally got round to filing my tax return this evening (for year ending April 05). Just one day before the deadline. Sheesh. Every year I say I’m going to do this thing in April. It doesn’t even take that long to submit online. It’s finding the paperwork that’s the pain. Fingers crossed that the servers are set to run under heavy load today and tomorrow, because I’m guessing that I’m not the only one filing at the last minute.
Work avoidance techniques
I went to see Blue C the other day. He’s not all powered up yet, but he’s all set up in a nice big room. He’s our new IBM supercomputer at Swansea University, by the way.
Yes, OK, it’s Sunday evening and I’m blogging because I’m procrastinating. I’m preparing my teaching for tomorrow morning (the anatomy of the pharynx) and I’m finding just about anything else I can do to avoid it.
Doing your homework on a Sunday evening doesn’t get easier just because you get older.
Updates
Just to update you all, that thing the other day went fine (they always do, and I didn’t hack up on anyone important), Cheltenham lost 2-0 to Newcastle (and made an awful lot of money in the process), and all of my computers are currently working. Kinda.
P-p-p-powerbook
Read the prank to catch out this eBay scammer.
Link.
Click click
I’ve almost got my home theatre PC back up & running after some major problems developed in the last week. Like it wouldn’t start up. And it wouldn’t play any media files. Which would be important for a multimedia PC.
So without going into details, lets just say I spent much time repairing XP & reinstalling drivers & software. Very dull, very frustrating. But now it all works. And it works well. I can’t get the thing to crash, no matter how nasty I am to it. The picture from DVDs is great, all my music from iTunes is available in a slick interface, & all my TV shows play beautifully.
Now the sound has started to drop out occaisionally. Oh God. Its random. I check & recheck all the settings & driver versions I can. I observe & record CPU & RAM load to try and spot changes with the drops. I check XP’s automated stuff. I defrag (because I can’t think of anything else). I give up. Time for a coffee.
When I return to the room & switch the light on, Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me loses sound for a beat. You know what? Whenever I switch a light on the sound drops out. Oh crap. This is just the atypical bloody thing that happens when building PCs. Bizarrely, the increased load (on a separate ring!) when switching a light on affects the sound output of my PC.
Why do I put myself through this?
Cheltenham Town vs Newcastle United
It’s probably the most famous game Cheltenham Town will ever play, round 4 of the 2005-6 FA Cup against giants Newcastle United. It’s great to read on the BBC Sport page, “Souness wary of Cheltenham”, but not quite as nice to be regarded as “a potential banana skin”. But hey, it’s true. It should be a fun game, but unfortunately, I’ll be taping it as we’re out for the day. Go the Robins!
The police might be a little happier, as a big horse racing meet up at the race course today has been cancelled because of frozen turf.
BBC link.
Coff
Today, I ha’ bin mostly coffin’ up phlegm. Hack hack.
Note the time elapsed between Jack’s birthday party and family illness (Kim’s the same).
Timing
Today I have to do a very easy thing, but it has to be done well. The Head of Department has asked me to give a 5 minute tour of the Anatomy department to some visiting bigwigs – some people who are important to us and our funding. Easy peasy. No problem. Except that I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a head cold. I don’t sound too good, and my brain is working even more slowly than normal. Forget those super impressive TV adverts that clear away the flu for a big event. They don’t sell those on campus. Atchoo.
And this tie isn’t helping. Fingers crossed.
Frozen
It was so cold this morning that my beard froze cycling to work. By the end of the Clyne Valley path the rear mech on my bike had frozen too, so I couldn’t change gear until I gave it a bang. The sun was very welcome when I reached the bay – a beautiful morning. It’s going to take until lunch-time to warm my legs up.
Middle left in this image is the Mumbles.