Aliss being helpful
It can be quite difficult to work at my desk sometimes …
oh yes …
I forgot. There was also Jarlsberg cheese (in slices, which is very nearly an Abomination, but is good in sandwiches nonetheless), and 473ml of Madagasgan Vanilla Extract for the stonking price of £3.99. Given that Lakeland, to take an example, charges £4.99 for 118ml, this is what I term A Bargain!
In other news, I have a hurty little toe on my left foot. *Really* hurty – is it possible to get arthritis in a toe? I bet it is :(
did you get the things we needed? (an occasional series)
I popped (or nipped) down to Costco to purchase the huge hunk of cured pig that I always do for Friday night at Team Waste Summer Camp, our annual gathering at geoffcampbell’s gaff (10 years this year – I can’t believe it). Here’s the recipe – it has no business working, but it does.
I came home with
- the aforementioned dead pig
- a 4Gb USB U3 memory stick, to try running Ameol as a portable application (see previous posts re server crashes etc)
- 2 large smoked Austrian cheese “sausages”
- 2 kgs of chicken thighs
- 1 kg of French unsalted butter
- a new dressing gown
- 6 bottles of wine
- the new Freya North paperback
- a pack of various smoked meats – chicken, duck, etc – will be nice for lunches this week, and
- 48 cans of cat food
- 16 part baked baguettes
Ho hum …
I hate hardware
What you don’t want, first thing in the morning, is to find that Detritus, our Linux development server, doesn’t want to talk. First thing, it isn’t *such* a problem – all I want from it is a Squid (easily turned off) and my Ameol messagebase (which I can live without, if it’s not for too long). I couldn’t get it to slogin, or ping, but I decided to wait until perlmonger surfaced.
In a bleary fashion, we discovered that one of the processor fans had died, and fried a proc. However, in an astonishing coincence, Detritus was due for an upgrade in the next few days – perlmonger had built his new machine made from recycled parts from geoffcampbell, and his old workstation was going to be turned into the new Detritus, so work of a moment to pull the two machines apart, and transfer the drives.
You’d think.
I don’t think I can be arsed to relate the rest, but we were left with two dead power supplies, (probably) two dead (and admittedly old) mobos, and no dev server. And we have no bloody idea why …
A quick call to Novatech elicited that yes, they did have a dual core Intel in stock, with a decent case, 2Gb of RAM, and a 500Gb hard drive. So we hurtled down to Portishead and bought it, with a matching 500Gb drive so we can raid it.
So we got it home, and took it to bits, and phoned their tech support to find out how the fsck you added drives. And then found that they hadn’t given us the appropriate screws [scream]. So I did another 18 mile round trip to pick some up, and then they were the wrong bloody ones.
Still, after a bit of Irish Screwdrivering, one is in, and it’s booting, but it won’t, as I type, talk to the LAN.
Still, with no file server, I took the opportunity to clear the study, and it looks really quite nice and tidy now, at least at my end. I also went through every single CD on the shelves, and threw most of them away. *And* there’s room for 24″ iMac, and clearance for its DVD drive. Shame I’ve just spent the budget on a new Linux box, really …
It came with a BFO graphics card, mind – an NVDIA 8600 GTS PCIE 256mb DDR TV out 2 x DVI. Not a great deal of use in a Linux box with no GUI, so I’ll be putting that on eBay. And I’ve got an old iMac onnastick to sell too, which is restoring to factory defaults as I type.
Tomorrow – the tip, I think, with a variety of dead computer carcasses and a load of bits.
an early start
The alarm went off at stupid o’clock this morning, and although we were very tempted to say “soddit”, we did actually struggle out of bed.
5.45 a.m. saw us setting off to Ashton Court at the other end of the village, to see the Mass Ascent at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. Despite having lived here for 9 years, this is the first time we’ve actually done this, as we are normally elsewhere the second weekend in August.
I’m so glad we went – it was a beautiful morning, sunny and warm, and spectacular balloony things all over the place. Half of Bristol was there, I think!
If we have the energy (and that’s a big if, as we’ve already done about 5 miles today, and my arthritis is complaining), we might go back for the Night Glow this evening.
And tomorrow, that Lunnon, to see Show of Hands in Regents Park. Which is nice.
I’m an idiot
I bought this t-shirt (with some others) from Insanely Great Tees. And I didn’t read the order confirmation properly, and it’s a medium, and so is too small for me, and the svelte perlmonger doesn’t fancy wearing it.
For sale at cost – $17 – at exchange rate on day of sale. Postage free.
a good day for free speech
from the Independent:
Environmental campaigners seeking to stage a protest at Heathrow airport this summer claimed a huge and symbolic victory yesterday after a High Court judge massively scaled back the terms of an injunction sought against them.
and
Meanwhile, in a separate victory for free speech, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, dismissed an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions that could have seen the Parliament Square anti-war protester Brian Haw restricted in his right to protest.
This doesn’t happen nearly often enough, of course, but we can celebrate it nonetheless.
musically, it’s a good week
By mac and has 2 comments.
Richard Thompson, one of my three favourite live acts, in Southampton, on Thursday.
And Show of Hands, another, in Regents Park on Sunday (with ccomley and Liz WINOLJ).
Now, if only Paul Buchanan could be persuaded to play Bristol on Friday, my week would be complete …
well, that was the weekend then
During which we watched the Corpse Bride (on DVD) (fabulous), Harry Potter 5 (in the cinema) (better than expected), made a batch of bolognese sauce for the freezer, went to the tip with the plastic bottles, bought some plants for the front garden, did my first cooking with ricotta (a spinach and ricotta lasagne, and a truly fabulous strawberry cheesecake).
We also came second in the pub quiz (don’t knock it, the team who come first have to buy the raffle prizes), had brunch in North Street and worked out how to sort out our photographers system.
And now it’s Monday, we are fairly quiet on work for a few days, and perlmonger is about to build himself a new box. Which means his temper will be fraying almost immediately …
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