T O T K a t - 2 0 0 6

*sigh*

Almost no change in the building works. The tiles are 1/2 grouted in the bathroom and the extension walls are stripped back to the concrete blocks. It took me a while to find the radiatiors.

I still can't have a shower. My kitchen is freezing cold, which is a good thing seeing as the freezer/fridge is on strike. I'm going to defrost the freezer to see if it is just too iced-up to work properly. If not, it might be the pump.

No sign of builders today. I'm guessing they won't come until after New Year's day bank holiday on Monday. I've called the boss and left a message. What more can I do?

*wriggle*

I'm so excited. I have a kitchen ceiling. For the first time in 7 years. A proper kitchen ceiling. With recessed, swivelling spotlights. And a bathroom door. A proper bathroom door, not just a louvred cupboard door with wood tacked onto the back. My house will be pretty much paintable by early January.

Seriously charming man

Graham Higgins is the most charming man I have ever met. And Apple now have a feature on their web site about him, entitled "Monsters, Magician and Macs".

Almost there...

I'm back from a lovely weekend in Edinburgh. The weather was fantastic; cold, clear and sunny. The food was rather excellent, especially on Sunday at Café St Honoré where I had the most enormous chunk of seared dead cow after a game terrine, along with a rather nice Muscadet.

The builders are back and putting some doors up at the moment. I'm just about to wrap some presents. UPS are coming to pick up iBook at some point today. And a bunch of stuff I'm selling on eBay finishes auction today. Lots happening!

One less/more complication

iBook is covered by the extended logic board replacement scheme. This means that Apple will send me a UPS shipping box and some instructions. It will probably arrive when I'm not here, but I can always drive to the UPS depot to pick it up. And while I'm there, pack up the iBook and leave it there for UPS to send back to Apple without having them come and collect it, saving some time.

Anyway. It is Christmas soon enough so there may be the odd delay in at least some of the process. But if I get a working iBook at the end of the journey I'll be happy.

There is hope...

iBook may yet be saved. The serial number is in the range for the "Expanded iBook Logic Board Repair Extension Program". I'll phone a service centre tomorrow.

*gurgle*

Lookit my poor house!

My study	The spare bedroom	The alcove under the stairs
The alcove under the stairs	The bathroom	The shower
The kitchen wall	The front porch.

Spam spam spam spam

It made me smile...

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 02:55:41 -0000 [Friday, 03 December 2004 02:55:41 GMT]
From: Neateye <NitaiGouranga@aol.com>
Subject: Gouranga
Priority: 1

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Sickly iBook

My iBook has decided it doesn't want to talk to me any more. Looks like the well documented "black screen of doom". The display went bitty for a while and now it is permanently black. Waggling the hinge doesn't make any difference at all, I can hear it boot, the CD eject and volume keys work, just no display. Bum. Time to investigate Apple repairage of some form.

Infestation of builders!

Wooooo yeah! I am infested with builders! Thanks paul_kruzycki! Lots and lots!

Now I get to see how bad the water damage is to the bathroom wall. I think I'll make sure I'm out at the post office or buying sugar (I so do not have enough sugar for builders' tea in the house) when that hardboard comes off the wall and the tiles on the other side. Hopefully it can dry over the weekend and will be workable on Monday or something.

Kerb droppage

...is ordered and paid for. I think it is _outrageous_ that the work will be done 6-8 weeks _after_ the payment is received. Outrageous! Nobody but the local council would get away with this.

Not right at all, I think

So I was sitting at my PC at home last night when the land line rang. I was expecting a possible call at some point in the evening so I actually answered it instead of letting the machine get it. Bad move. A clearly pre-recorded message had started up even before I picked up the call and was talking along the lines of "Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa has chosen YOU for a SPECIAL present this year. Press 9 to find out what it is." Now, it was significantly longer and more spiel than that, but as soon as I realised it was a machine I hung up. I was using my headset so I can hear the line after I hang up. Hitting the button on the main block should hang up, but because the machine at the other end hadn't disconnected I was still connected to it and it was still "Ho! Ho! Ho!"ing at me. I tried to hang up several times to get the stupid thing off my line but it didn't go away for a good couple of minutes. I must say, I found it really rather sinister at the time.

Given that I'm on the register of numbers for not getting any telemarketing rubbish, I wanted to find out the number it had come from to complain to someone, but 1471 yielded "The last person who called you withheld their number." So I can't do anything about it at all.

*brain melt*

I've spent the last 48 hours (OK, not all of them. Obviously I was sleeping and out partying for some of them.) making the helpdesk server work again after someone outside the department made a change to something related without telling us.

The hard bit was getting people to do stuff in a timely manner. Still, there are buttons to push and being polite, pleasant and complimentary when people have helped things along really does help the cause.

The final part of the fix was something odd and the resolution wasn't one of those nicely satisfying break-throughs of logical thinking or any kind of sensible knowledge-based thing. But still, it is fixed now and we're all happy. Well, mostly.

Before the storm

Currently the most informative article on what's going on; the "radical new blueprint for the BBC". All speculation of course. The announcements are at 10am.

Happy Birthday Simes!

Hope the day is good to you Simes and you don't feel quite as creaky and auld as I do. Enjoy it!

Humbug

I've designed all of my Christmas cards but not put them together yet. Should take less time than last year for more cards made, which is nice. Now I need to find enough people to send them all to. If I didn't send you one last year and you would like one this year... drop me an email with your address. (Because I'm rubbish and have almost no real postal addresses for anyone.)

*happy*

The drive is done, barring having one brick in the old gatepost fixed. It looks _so_ _much_ _better_! I'll be able to park on it tomorrow, but I'll have to go up next door's kerb dip until I get my own.