Archive for March, 2004
Cars
So I’m back on the road in a rented Nissan Primera. If you happen to drive one of these cars then I apologise in advance, but man, are they awful.
Ugly from the outside, even uglier on the inside. Silly placing of the dials in the centre, above the TV screen and joystick combo which requires more concentration than you really want to be expending while trying to drive at the same time. A seat which seems to be designed purely to hurt the part of my back which is sore from the crash, steering which seems unconnected to the very wheels it’s meant to be turning and a slightly flaky gearbox which finds 5th gear a difficult prospect. It is however a smooth ride and seems to be quite forgiving of my dodgy gear changing, so it’s not all bad. Apparently it has a rear view camera in order to aid reversing, something I will have to try and find tomorrow.
I am on the hunt for something more permanent, which I initially thought was going to be a BMW Mini. From the outside, I really like the look of this car and it was really the first one on my list to go see. So at lunchtime I took a trip to the local dealer and climbed inside one, only to find that the interior was not designed by anyone who should claim to have an aesthetic eye. Massive speedometer in the centre of the dash, cheap looking switches, tiny steering wheel, rear seating that would barely accommodate my dog… I could go on, but I won’t. Needless to say that has been well and truely crossed off my list.
So what’s left? Not a lot. Everything is either ugly or expensive, leaving me with little to no things to choose from. I like the Volkswagen Golf but they become really expensive for anything less than the basic model.
I’ve got a funny feeling I’m just going to buy another 206.
Tired
I’m tired. I wish I could sleep properly.
And I’m cold. Why is the heating taking so long to make the place warm?
And I’m hungry. But dinner is on, so that’s ok. Although if it’s like the other times I’ve tried to eat over the last 48 hours, I may end up in the bathroom again.
And I’m bored. I miss my girlfriend. Come home soon honey.
Bounce
I went round the bend just like I’d done so many times before. Except this time, it wasn’t like all the rest. All the other times, the back end of the car stayed fixed to the road. All the other times, I didn’t skid and lose control, hit the kerb, flip over a fence and bounce and roll five or six times across a field before coming to rest on my side, hanging by the seatbelt. This wasn’t like the other times.
The car, wrecked. The roof collapsed. The windows came in. Bits tore off.
Me, alive. Sore. So VERY sore.
The police found the car in the middle of the night while I was at the hospital. They expected to find a body, such was the damage. They hunted the field when it got light, looking for the damaged person crawling around looking for help. I keep being told I’m lucky to be alive, which is freaking me out.
Freaking me out even more is the constant playing of the accident in my head. It didn’t happen really fast, it didn’t happen in slow motion, I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes. I felt every bounce, and I’m living them over and over again.
Photos tomorrow if I can get them.
Combined
I launched myself a second blog, Todays Meal. It’s probably really dull, but I had the domain and figured I’d do something with it as a temporary measure until I think of an alternative. I’ll do my best to make it interesting, but no promises.
Went and paid my speeding ticket at lunchtime. Wasn’t sure exactly where I was meant to pay it, but as soon as I got into the correct street in Hamilton the large building in front of me which said "District Court House" was a bit of a clue. No queue, was in and out in a few minutes. £60 and three penalty points on my license. At least they can’t prosecute me now. Bastards.
Sold off my video camera to Edward, £225. I’m happy with that, never really used the thing anyway and I’m sure he’ll get some use out of it. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll probably be able to make the money back (or more) by selling it on ebay, but I’m too lazy for that.
I took the money and used it to pay for a few things from Overclockers. The first was a 200GB Western Digital Hard Disk for our video server, which has been low on space for a while now. The second was a combined ADSL Modem/Router/Firewall and 802.11g Base Station from Netgear.
I’ve been having problems with the Zoom ADSL X3 modem we currently have, constant crashing and resetting being the main ones. I’ve also been looking at the Airport Extreme to replace our current 802.11b Airport. I copy a lot of video files over the network and on B wireless, that’s very slow. The Netgear box solves both problems and it was a bit cheaper than the Airport Extreme too, so a win-win situation.
I had to get a couple of G network cards (one for each of the PC’s, all our Mac’s already have them), but they were a lot cheaper than the last time I bought PCI wireless cards so it wasn’t all bad.
It all turns up tomorrow, so it’ll be a night of trying to shoehorn a third hard disk into the tiny case I have for the video server. And once that one is full (which won’t be long) I’ll have to start looking at fancier disk array solutions.
Fantastic
I’ll write more tomorrow, as right now I have to go pass out, but I just have to say that Saturday was fantastic and I hope to have more days like that in the future.
Knock
So there I was, driving through Larkhall, minding my own business. I’m following behind a white van as we approach the Spar (the local Kwik-E-Mart equivelant) and he signals that he’s pulling into one of the parking spaces on the left hand side. I’m far enough back at this point that I can see the passenger side door start to open, but I move a little to the right in order to drive past the now parked van.
And that’s when I almost seriously injured somebody, as the person who had removed himself from the passenger side of the van had decided that he was so eager to get to the shop that he would run across the road from in front of the van without first checking to see if anybody was going to be there.
Thankfully I managed to slam the brakes on in time and he managed to slam his proverbial brakes on too, and a collision was avoided. So very close.
Shaken, I continued on my way.
Brakes
The brake lights on my car, which as mentioned in a previous post were always on, were fixed today. It took them less than 2 minutes to do so. What they actually did I’m not too sure, but the cable that was hanging loose under the glove box is no longer hanging. Surely that wasn’t it? That seems far too simple and far too strange that a cable being out there would cause the lights to always be on.
It was also a week after we realised the lights were always on that we noticed that cable hanging out, which means I’m almost positive it fell out afterwards. I’ll be pretty annoyed if that’s all it was, I could easily have pushed the cable back in myself and had intended to do it after they’d fixed the lights.
I guess I’ll never know.
Swings
This morning I was the happiest bear in the world. Now I’m the saddest. I hope the night picks up soon.
Feed
I added RSS feeds to Blogbear this afternoon, should any of you be into such things. It’s a bit hacky and is probably easy broken, but I’m trying not to put too much effort into changing writing code that will be ultimately be replaced by the Bearscript version anyway.
Linked from the sidebar, but my feed is also here.
If you’re looking for an RSS reader, I recommend NetNewsWire Lite for OS X. For Windows, try FeedReader, which I’ve never used, but it looks fine from the screenshots. Or wait a couple of months when there might be one built into Bearkey Alerts.
Toaster
I just noticed that our toaster says “WARNING: Metal parts will become very hot during use” on the front.
Not so much a warning as a description of what the equipment actually does.
Names
Trying to think up names for things is difficult. Been trying to come up with a name to replace all the current different services. So instead of Chatbear, IRC Bear, Blogbear etc, I need one name that covers it all, since all services are being combined under one customisable site building umbrella.
It seems that every decent bear related domain is already gone, which would be ok, it doesn’t need to have bear in the title. But then, as you look further, it appears that almost every decent non-bear related domain is gone too.
Been at this for weeks now and there’s still no end in sight.
Comedy
BASEketball is funny. I’ve seen it many times before, but I needed to laugh.
Empty
Time ticks by.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Each passing moment brings a new emotion. Love. Regret. Loss. Hope. Coherent thoughts find it hard to surface, body finds it hard to move, stomach finds it hard to cope.
As the final moments come closer, emotions are amplified, panic starts to creep in. How to cope? How to stay strong? How to keep the army on the battlefield.
Then comes the holding. The hugging. Comforting, calming. Emotions change, must hold on, grabbing, gripping, squeezing.
Hold. Love. Let go. Fear of losing love. But still love.
But most importantly, this is not the end. The army will fight on. Until each and every last soldier is gone.
Battle
Surveying the battlefield in front of him, the commander could see his troops had been outnumbered. Bodies were strewn across the hills, arrows in their chests and backs, limbs were scattered among the foilage, heads rolled in the wind.
Eight long years this battle had been raging, and many times the commander could feel victory within his grasp. He dreamed of peace, of going home and living out the rest of his life with the one he loved. But it was not to be, every time the enemy found new ways to win, new ways to push the commander’s forces back.
Now he was tired. The years of fighting had taken their toll and he was weak. He considered surrender, but he was a believer, he believed in a better way of life for all, and submitting to the forces of darkness was not the way he was going to end his time in this life.
He decided to call his forces back, to retreat and regroup. Only a small handful of soldiers remained, and although he hated the idea of pulling back and hiding, he had no choice. There would be other battles, other chances to strike back at the enemy, one more attempt at ending this battle for good.
And maybe, just maybe, he would find the strength to be on the battlefield.
Locked
When we were away last weekend, on the Saturday night hotel, I locked myself in the bathroom.
I forgot to mention that at the time. Now I have.
That is all.
Castle
As promised, here’s some pictures of Windsor Castle that I took.
