A new thing: Tweets of the week

Welp, in order to add more relevant ‘content’ to the blog, and get me to do more stuff on it, I’m going to post some of my posts from Twitter (you can see my Twitter ‘feed’ at the top right of the blog page) as well as a brief backstory or further comment on the ‘Tweet’.

If you don’t know, Twitter is a micro-blogging sort of site, where you can post links to various things (pictures, articles, videos) and use it however you like. I tend to use it as a sort of expanded Facebook status update and link to articles & videos that are funny or politically interesting.

So like I said doing this will add some stuff to the blog and maybe get some comments or whatever. I’ll start with some from the past few weeks/months to get going, and every week or two add a few of the latest tweets.

Dec 16th: RT @annie170768: @alandavies1 have you seen the X-Factor does RATM? very funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AYUqVNSsY
…Basically, a lot of people think the X Factor (a vapid attempt at a reality/talent show) sucks and is a waste of time, doesn’t bring any actual ‘talent’ to the public attention span and is completely ridiculous. The YouTube link is for a video done by a group of people that want to make Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name of’ song the Christmas #1 song, which for some reason captures a significant percentage of the pop culture attention. This is direct competition for the X Factor’s endeavour for the Christmas #1 song, done by the winner of the X Factor show. Simon Cowell (the straight-talking Brit guy) says this is a stupid thing to do, but I’m sure it’s getting more idiots to buy the X Factor song anyway, so he’s still making money no matter what he says.

Dec 11th: sign spotted yesterday on drive home (in English Midlands, mind you): ‘Mexican X-Mas Sale –>’ ….so many things wrong with that
…Most Brits have the same idea of Mexicans that Americans have of…possibly every ethnic group/country outside the US. So when I imagine the British version of Mexican Christmas stuff, I kind of shudder. And the abbreviation ‘X-Mas’ just annoys me, even though I’m atheist.

Dec 11th: why you shouldn’t waste money on health & fitness magazines http://bit.ly/8DmjHV look at the past few year’s of January issues!
…usually in January I buy Men’s Fitness because there’s always some ‘get in shape for the new year’ article, but it’s ridiculous how they feed on this kind of thing. They’re worse than gyms that get people to sign up in January for a whole year. At least with the magazines you can turn the page and ignore the omnipresent ads for cologne and faddy fitness shite.

Dec 8th: researcher has possibly learned the language of Campbell’s monkeys…wow http://bit.ly/59Irgr
…stick that up your ass, creationists.

Dec 8th: but seriously, why is this news? RT @BreakingNews Hospital update on Tiger Woods’ mother-in-law – live video: http://bit.ly/EvUVF
…I don’t follow celebrity gossip and I’m not a MASSIVE HUGE fan of Tiger Woods, but come on folks. First of all, he’s a pro athlete. Women are going to literally throw themselves at him. Didn’t anyone go to high school and see this happening with the sports team? Second of all, this is private business between Tiger and his wife and all the women claiming to be his mistress(es). The whole ‘hey I can sell my story to the papers’ mentality/industry needs a real turnaround.

Dec 4th: RT @Oatmeal: How Twilight works: http://twurl.nl/jen73b
Dec 4th: wtf, local cinema not showing ‘The Informant’, showing 3 screens of Twilight shite instead
Dec 3rd: The 10 Most Depressing ‘My Life is Twighlight’ Entries http://bit.ly/75dewz ZOMG are people really this stup- oh wait it’s the internet…
Nov 26th: pssst: Twilight is shit http://bit.ly/5cRysL http://imgur.com/cB5Ce http://imgur.com/m1jBf
…holy snaps I hate Twilight. I haven’t read the books or seen the movie, but I have read the plot summaries and other stuff. Basically, anyone who’s a 13-year old girl, or still thinks like a 13-year old girl, will possibly like these stories. If you were still reading the Babysiter’s Club books in college…this might be for you. The mere fact that the author of these books is making hordes of money with this crap is beyond belief. Worse, it’s begun a whole new, expanded trend for vampy/goth/emo shit that sees no end! Remember when Interview with the Vampire came out and Brad and Tom were superhot and all the women were crazy about them?

Dec 2nd: RT @EFF: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Facebook make stand against UK’s Digital Economy bill: http://eff.org/r.2dx
This bill is bullshit. Why aren’t big media and the record/movie industry trying to work with new media, instead of trying to quash it? Old money doesn’t transfer into new understanding very well, if at all.

Nov 26th: Glen Beck needs to be drafted and dropped into combat.
…Really.The guy is a moron. He uses fear and religion to drum up hatred from his pulpit on Faux News. If he’s so patriotic, join the fuck up and request front-line combat duty, asshole!  Jon Stewart recently pointed out that he tells people, on his own show, that gold is the only answer to savings in the recession, and he’s s spokeman for a company that sells gold! I mean, morals, conflict of interest, anything, anybody?! Also, I realize now I’d spelled his name wrong, but I don’t care. He should have his name forcibly changed to Complete Douchebag.

Nov 25th: RT @engadget: iPhone to be sold by Tesco in the UK, hemorrhages cachet http://bit.ly/4TlP4h
…Well this just nibbles away at the cool factor of the iPhone IMO. If I had the money and didn’t have to fix my clutch in January (among other things) I’d be in line for the new Google Nexus One phone.

in

Making friends on the bus (but mostly pissing off the drivers)

So…yeah it’s been a while since I updated ye olde blogge. At this point I don’t even know when I last updated.

Long story short, things are going OK, I’m eating much more healthy lately in an attempt to yet again lose weight, I’m exercising regularly (except for the past week and a half, I’ve tweaked my back a little) and I found out last night I have to get a new clutch in my car so I started taking the bus to work today.

So this morning I woke up a little before 6, showered and dressed and realized that I would have time to drive (carefully) to the nearby supermarket to get to the cash machine, since I didn’t have enough money to get on the bus. Parked up in front of the house and had to grind the gears to get into reverse so I can parallel park on the narrow road…so that’s the last time it’s being driven until the new year, then.

Walked to the bus stop a few minutes away and the first person I annoyed was a random bus driver that stopped because I was right next to the curb (kerb) and looking at my watch as he came up. I tried to wave him off but he was stopping and opening the door anyway, but eventually he closed the door and drove off.

I only had to make one change, in the town centre of the town near my work, so I paid my fare and got on. Noticed there was a fare special if you buy 10 trips at once, alrighty, sounds like a deal, I just paid £2.30 for one trip and I can get 10 trips for £14, that’s £1.40 each, saving 90p each time. Score. I waited until the bus was stopped and asked the driver if I could buy the 10-trip ticket on the bus, he said sure and started printing up the ticket as he was driving. At the next stoplight I gave him a £20 note and he said, ‘I don’t have change, mate, I just started.’

OK, slight hiccup, so I found £4 in coins and handed him £24, expecting he’d at least have 2 £5 notes or a single £10 note…’I just started, I don’t have a ten-pound note mate.’

This is where I started to think he wasn’t really thinking of me as a mate, and using ‘mate’ in this instance would be akin to a west coast Dude-type saying, ‘man’ or a New Yorker saying, ‘you asshole’.

Well. What to do.

He was stuck because he didn’t have the cash to give me change, and said he’d take the £20 note and I take the ticket and hope for other people that get on and pay with coins, otherwise I could get my change at the depot. I said that’s fine and sat down.

The possibility of getting change from other passengers wasn’t looking likely, and proved correct as no one else got on until the village bus station, and those who did get on just flashed bus passes. The poor bus driver was already counting off change as I approached his window, and I told him I’d be happy to go there, but there were the angrily-counted-off coins, £6 (I think, I didn’t count it) and he was huffing, ‘You don’t need to go to the bus station, I just won’t have change for other passengers.’

…

Now this is where I think he went a bit wrong. I *did* offer to take up his suggestion of going to the bus depot, which would almost certainly be closed by the time I got there at about 6 in the evening. Or maybe writing up a receipt and explaining the situation to his route manager (or whatever they’re called in the bus trade) would be more hassle than dealing with the possibility of not having enough change for passengers in the short term.

Anyway, it was a mildly interesting first day commuting by bus.

—-

Bus vs car commuting cost analysis…just for kicks

If it weren’t for the fact it takes more than twice as long to take the bus as it does to drive, I would seriously consider it as the main way to get to work. I use up about half a tank of fuel per week getting to and from work by car, which is about £30-35.

For bus travel, the daily prices are £4.60 round trip for the first bus from Derby to Burton, and another £4.60 for the local bus from Burton to the town I work in, but weekly prices are about £20 for the first bus (I think) and £14 for the second, which roughly equals the spend for car fuel. I’d have to check out what monthly fares work out to, if they’re available.

The ultimate solution is to move closer to work so I can bike in regularly. I’d do it more often now but 16 miles one way is sometimes a bit too much, but the bus takes about as long and I’d get even more exercise on the bike.

Second meditation class tonight

So tonight was the second class in meditation from the nearby Buddhist centre. It didn’t go as well as the first class because a guy’s phone went off during the first meditation, then another guy was super fidgety and scratchy and coughy and…well to make it simple he was really distracting.

We got through it OK, basically you have to accept that not every meditation session will be quiet and peaceful and all that, some people are just fidgety and, well,  annoying.

But like any distraction or thought during meditation, you let it pass, gently bring your focus back to your breathing or whatever you’re meant to be meditating about, and you move on. Like someone replied on a forum thread I started, you treat the distraction or thought like a puppy that wants to play: you acknowledge it and then let it go on its way. I really liked that way of putting it.

Still, I found it difficult to meditate properly, but that is part of it anyway.

Today’s teaching was on giving, and how much happier you can be if you give as much as you can. It was a good talk, and afterwards in the discussion I brought up Freecycle, which I participate in, and of course the amount of ’stuff’ I’ve ended up getting from it as well.

Apart from the distractions it went fine, but I have to work on the whole focus thing. And giving more stuff away!

Favorite memories, pt 1

staying up the first night I met my girlfriend, talking about everything and anything

driving back from mountain biking with my friend Robert, with our bikes in the back of his Isuzu P’up, rocking out to White Zombie on a crap stereo system

playing Quake for hours every night with my friend James and his son Steve, then watching Seinfeld reruns at 10:30 after the nightly news

sleeping under the stars in Joshua Tree National Park, watching stars and satellites pass overhead

seeing my car in the parking lot at the start/finish point of my first overnight backpacking trip

Meditation class tonight

I went to an evening meditation class organized by the local Buddhist center, it was very mellow, instructive and quite nice.

I guess this is kind of long but maybe it will help some folks to google ‘(local area) meditation class’ like I did:
There were just 3 other people plus a helper from the Buddhist center and an actual monk (in robes, etc.). After initial greetings from the helper everyone sat down and the lady went through some of the courses and things the center is doing soon, then the monk came in. A young woman, probably 30 or younger, which was a little surprising since ‘every Buddhist monk is Tibetan, of course’. She said hello and we went almost right into a nice breathing meditation which I want to write down because it was very useful. Basically we sat in our chairs (which were kind of uncomfortable, I’d rather sit on the ground) and she talked us through focusing on the room, then seeing ourselves in the room, then seeing ourselves floating and relaxing all the muscles from the top of your head to your toes. Then breathing out our bad thoughts and worries as black smoke, which dissipates to nothing. Then breathing in white light, then maybe doing both (light/smoke) at the same time instead of concentrating on just one or the other.

After this there was a talk from the monk. I was still getting used to the idea of the whole thing so I didn’t absorb it all and just checked out her shaved head, hand-knit robes, etc., but she used a book called The New Meditation Handbook, written by a Tibetan monk who’d moved to the UK some 30+ years ago, and read some passages from it to us between just talking about the feeling and purpose of meditation.

There wasn’t any evangelical ‘join Buddha’ talk but there were many references, but it certainly wasn’t a sermon in any way (I was raised Roman Catholic). There were some concepts such as meditation can cure or fix anything, and stuff like that (I may be remembering it wrong, forgive me). There were points I was thinking ‘if this person were older I’d feel more confident in this advice’ but basically I felt that was skepticism and tried to ignore it.

After the talk we had a focused meditation, I forget what she called it but it was about feeling love for everyone: we were told to concentrate on the breath coming into our nostrils and the breath going out, and then concentrated on someone who’d given us love and affection. After we concentrated on them we also concentrated on someone else and then tried to spread that love to everyone. I guess this is a ‘basic’ meditation but I got the idea. It was nice.

Afterwards we had tea & coffee and shared what we were trying to get out of meditation. One woman was trying it for the very first time and has an autistic teen son. Another woman is a stressed IT pro who’s tried all sorts of things from Daoism (sp?) to who knows what. The last guy had been to several classes previously and works as a home carer for autistic and sick people and was the most ‘experienced’ of us there, other than the monk. We all agreed that CDs and books are good but a ‘formal’ meditation with an actual person was great, and this one in particular. I think the main reason was because you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get with a meditation CD, whereas I was pretty sure with a Buddhist monk leading the way I wasn’t going to get some strange crap thrown at me.

Anyway, I quite liked it, will be going again next week.

If you’re feeling stressed or want to focus on something or anything like that, I’d recommend giving meditation a try!

The bike list

So a post on a bike thread over at the Something Awful forums asked how many bikes the regular posters have. I have three at the moment:

1. a circa 1998  Giant hard tail mtb with good components that I got off eBay which I ride few times a year at the moment;
2. an older steel frame Raliegh hybrid (I think) from Freecycle that is the exclusive commuter;
3. an even older Criterium brand (I think) road bike from Freecycle that I want to do up as a road bike but it needs some tune-up work and tires. To give you an idea, it’s old enough it has double brake levers up front… Supposedly it’s a French bike but there are a ton of bike brands and models called ‘Criterium’, plus it doesn’t help that a criterium is a type of bike race!

I’m hoping to get a new road bike (for exercising) through a gov’t cycle commuting plan but that’ll probably take a while to work out. This would be one of those serious ’starter’ road bikes that’s about $800 or £650.

I’ve had a couple other bikes off Freecycle that I’ve nicked parts off of (forks for truing mainly) or just looked at, and then given away again. There’s just not enough room to have more than one ‘project’ bike, so at the moment that will be the road bike (mainly just to get it rolling reliably) and any bikes I get will either be whole or used for parts.

My next project – the Barbour jacket

So I got this classic Barbour Border jacket from Freecycle and instead of paying £70 or more for repairs to a few tears on the sleeves and other fixes, I want to see about doing the repairs on my own and saving a bundle.

The style of the jacket is ‘vintage English country gentleman’ and comes from the Barbour ’shooting’ range of clothing – it’s meant to be something you go out walking the countryside with, a shotgun under one arm and your sheepdog (or a selection of your well-heeled aristocratic mates) at your side.

This is an example of a waxed cotton jacket (just happens to be the same one I got), you can see it’s a fairly expensive jacket, they run from £160 to £200 new! Waxed cotton jackets have been popular since at least WW2, many retro motorcyclists use them for riding.

This is the official price list for patches, repairs and reproofing from the original company…£10 for a patch, damn

So there are two stages of things to deal with…

The first thing to deal with is a bunch of tears, this jacket has been well-used inside and out:

• multiple tears on the lower sleeves (there is a full-length sleeve patch where it’s been repaired before, it must have been sent in at some point)
• the lining has big tears in a few places
• one of the handwarmer pocket flaps is starting to come off (there is another patch on the other handwarmer pocket)
• the hang tab is torn
• a few small holes elsewhere on the outer fabric
• fraying around the sleeve cuffs

A few evenings of hand-sewing will take care of these I think, except for the cuffs, I’m not sure how to deal with those. If you send the jacket to the company they give you the option of adding cotton cuffs to cover up the fraying/holes, I don’t know how to add these at this point. The first step here is to get some matching fabric (tight-knit dark green cotton) and thread.

The other issue I have is reproofing the cotton with wax. As I understand it, each company that offers waxed cotton clothing uses their own blend of wax, so you’re meant to use their own. (If you’re just waxing a bag or pair of jeans, I understand beeswax works pretty well, although it might not be as long-wearing.) I’ve got my eye on an eBay auction of some Barbour ‘Thornproof Dressing’ so I hope I get them, then I can try reproofing the jacket after I’m done patching it up. Apparently reproofing involves warming up the jacket, heating up the tin of wax and using tightly rolled-up rags to apply the wax, then using a hair dryer to melt the wax in and let the cotton absorb it. With daily use you’re meant to reproof approximately once a year.

So, I’m not sure how long this project will take, but it’s something that can be done while watching TV or listening to music, which is pretty cool.

31 things every guy should own…

from Esquire (loaded with ads, full list below)

full list:
Cast-Iron Skillet – yep
Valid Passport – yep
Multipurpose Tool – yep
Waiter’s Corkscrew/Bottle Opener/Knife – yep
Ax – yep
WD-40 – yep
Cordless Drill – yep
Weekend Shoulder Bag – yep
Giant Wool Blanket Never Removed from the Trunk of the Car – yep
Chain Saw – no…maybe I have to work on this one
Work Gloves – yep
Carpenter’s Level – yep
Boots for the Shop
Boots for Everywhere Else – yep
Jack – yep
Claw Hammer – yep
Lantern – yep
Chef’s Knife – yep
Flying Disc – yep
(U.S.) Road Atlas – yep
Air Pump – yep
Jumper Cables – yep
Charcoal Grill – yep
Card Holder – yep
Pocket Knife – yep
Grease – yep
Lucky Charm – yep
$1,000 Hidden in Your House – ha!
LED Flashlight – yep
Money Clip – I gotta wallet
Joy of Cooking – yep

29 out of 31 ain’t bad

Latest & current hobbies

I change hobbies like other people change shoes or jackets, so I’m just curious with the weather/time change what hobbies people do regularly. I could list backpacking, writing and a whole host of things that I don’t actually have time for, but what I actually make time for are:

• computer games (Fallout 3 at the moment, but also Call of Duty 5 online)
• Formula 1 and Moto GP watching and discussing on the web
• role-playing games (yep, Dungeons & Dragons, been doing it since I was 13)
• just getting into gardening again with the warm weather, want to keep it up this year
• reading

what I want to make time for include:

• cycling
• sewing projects (with that sewing machine I got last year)
• trekking (multi-day walks like when I did Hadrian’s Wall)
• writing (this is a very long-term goal)

I’ve tried to pare down the number of things I try to do because there’s not 36 hours in a day and I need to keep my job

Timeline of a PC upgrade

The last upgrade: late 2004, when I was given a development AMD FX-53 CPU. I had to get a new motherboard because at the time I was using an older AMD CPU with a different pin configuration. The new motherboard (an ABIT Third Eye with on-the-fly overclocking ability) featured then-new DDR RAM, so I got new RAM as well: 1GB of OCZ Platinum Edition with a lifetime warranty so I could overclock the CPU safely. I kept my current AGP video card. Several months later, I upgraded the video card to an ATI X1600 Pro and have had this setup ever since.

I ended up never overclocking the hardware.

Fast-forward to several months ago, when I started detecting a dangerous feeling of inadequacy as my computer gaming friends were upgrading their computers. Previously, I’d been the owner of the fastest computer at our LAN parties, but I’d fallen well behind the times. Losing the bragging rights didn’t bother me much, nowhere near as much as knowing I was basically unable to play the latest computer shooter games like Crysis and Fallout 2. So when the mediocre reviews came out for these games I felt a bit justified in waiting so long.

In the meantime, about a year ago, I’d bought a faulty (RRoD) Xbox 360 off eBay, plus all the cables, etc., to make it work. Microsoft told me it’d never been registered, so they fixed it for free (yay! very cool). I’d purchased a grand total of two games for it (Forza 2 and Colin McRae: Dirt) but that was it, I hadn’t played it for several months by the end of the year.

Towards autumn I decided I’d have to start doing a bit of research to find out what was going on in the world of PC upgrading. This is when I found out about DDR2, DDR3, AM2, AM2+, socket 775, i7 and much more. I already knew about PCI-E so hey at least I could skip learning about that.

Basically I found out that I couldn’t upgrade just the CPU because the 939 chip die was basically obsolete now. Upgrading the DDR RAM would cost 2 or 3 times as much as getting new DDR2 RAM, and there was no way I could upgrade the AGP video card to a PCI-E…it became clear that a completely new set-up would be required: RAM, CPU and motherboard, plus video card. Luckily I already had a PCI-E video card from a home theater PC that never got finished, but it’s only as fast as my current AGP card – but it’ll do until I could afford a whiz-bang PCI-E card.

After carefully considering things, I came up with a long checklist of features:

• best bang-for-the-buck CPU (fastest for the money)
• dual- or quad-core (didn’t matter which, I do enough multi-tasking to justify a quad-core)
• 4GB of RAM that’s safe to overclock
• PCI-E 2.0 spec, for a bit more PCI bus speeds
• easily overclocked and updated motherboard
• ATX size to fit in my current case

Not a terribly long list but some of these requirements would push up the cost from what could have been quite cheap.

Finally, the time would come. Just a couple of weeks ago, I decided to trade in my unused, dust-collecting Xbox 360 and get store credit from a nationwide chain of stores that buy and resell video games, consoles, hardware, etc. The £120 I would get (according to their site) would pay for an Intel Core 2 Quad processor (used) – ideal!

So…here, the story truly begins:

Friday, the 19th February: pop down to the local mall to trade in the 360 console, hard drive, power adapter, video cable, wireless joypad, headset and some games. I’m told they can’t take the console without an official Microsoft video cable, so I hand over everything and say fine, just give me the credit. £64 store credit, to use online or in the store. Cool. I go home, get on the store’s website and order a video cable – £1.50 but the minimum purchase is £2 so I order a PC copy of Colin McRae: Dirt for another £6.

The following Tuesday I receive the replacement video cable.

Thursday, the 27th of February: pop down to the mall (again paying £2 for parking) and hand over the console with new (used) video cable. Am told the store can’t take consoles without the controller. To avoid strangling everyone in site I ask to talk to ‘the tall guy’ who is the store manager. He remembered me from the previous week and sorts out something so that I can trade in the console and they use a wired controller from their stock. I forget about reminding him that I traded in a wireless controller to avoid any further pain. I walk across the street while the console is tested. I come back 15 minutes later to the news that they can’t take my console because the video cable doesn’t work. To avoid strangling everyone in site I mention the cable came from the store’s online site and I’ll just have to deal with returning it to them.

The next day, Friday, I send an email to the company telling them about the faulty cable and I get a reasonably quick reply telling me their returns policy. They’ll even pay for the return postage, which is nice of them. I decide that since today is payday I’ll go ahead and order the 4GB of OCZ Reaper RAM (with not just aluminum heatsinks, but heatpipes with additional heatsinks) and a Gigabyte motherboard, plus a PCI-E power adapter for the future video card purchase. Total cost is about £160 from ebuyer. Later that day, I receive an email saying my order is processed and ready for delivery, expected delivery date is Monday.

Monday, the 2nd of March: receive the motherboard and RAM, woohoo! A fire alarm forces out of the building and I regret not taking my fresh new parts with me to the safety area, just in case it was a real fire. I decide that I’m getting a bit impatient so I decide to use my credit voucher to order the Core 2 Quad CPU from the exchange store site, but the buggering thing is out of stock. Besides, in order to claim the voucher online, one must order the part online then MAIL the voucher receipt to the company for a credit to the order. How Web 0.9! I go back to trusty ol’ ebuyer.com to place an order for a new CPU.

Tuesday, the 3rd of March: send off the faulty cable with all the documentation the company require and sit and wait.

Wednesday, the 4th: receive the new CPU and a couple of other small bits, but I have no time to work on the new build after work as I have to go gaming (actual, face-to-face gaming). I start transferring the last MP3 files to spare hard drives and set off. When I return I find that there’s some problem and only about 25% have transferred. Great. Start the transfer again.

Thursday: wake up, only about 20% of the remaining files have transferred. Try transferring again. Do some quick addition and subtraction and realize I don’t have enough hard drive space to do the install. Ack! Let the computer rest for the night while I think and scheme. Borrowed an SATA to USB adapter from work to hopefully speed up things. Meanwhile, I’m told that if I really want to use the 1GB video card I want to get, while still utilizing the 4GB of RAM I have now, I’ll need a 64-bit OS, meaning buying 64-bit Vista. That’s another £80 or so of unexpected spending there.

Friday: Get home from work and the laptop is now full to bursting with MP3s. The 20GB drive won’t fille up more than 10GB for some reason and the 120GB drive that could be my saviour isn’t getting recognized by my laptop or the desktop. Decide that I could try transferring the files at work or try temporarily installing XP to the 120GB (if it is recognized), transfer files to it and that would be fine. I also decide that instead of ordering the 8-pin 12v plug adapter I need to get the motherboard to work I’ll just pop into an electronics store during the weekend.

Sunday: get the power adapter while out of town. Get home, and can’t find it. Dammit! Where the hell is it?! Hook up the new motherboard to the 120GB drive just to have something to do.

Monday (today): look one final time in my room and the car…no idea where that damn cable is!! If I left it out of town I’m considering buying a whole new one (just £2.50) so I can at least have something to work with on my half-day holiday this Wednesday. And I still haven’t heard back from the shop with my faulty video cable.