Not so busy I can't update...

What kind of Autumn is it, I ask you, when it is so damned humid that you can grab chunks of atmosphere and wring them out into great sopping pools? It's not right and it's not fair¹.

At home in the Athenaeum Club, I have had to grab a number of paper backs from their shelves up in The Tower and hide them behind sturdier hardback books to prevent the covers curling up. This is an absolute first in my experience.

To add to my general level of bemusement, my PC has packed up again, proving impossible to run for longer than 8-10 minutes before shutting itself off. It has done more scan disks in the past week than it has in all the days of its prior life combined. And even if I turn it off properly, booted down and all, it still thinks it's been turned off badly and insists on a quick chkdsk before doing anything. Not a chkdsk /f mind, just a chkdsk. I can't really afford it this side of Christmas, but I fear that I may have to stump up for a new PC. I can't believe a wonky heat sink is responsible for all this calamity. Some of it, perhaps, but not all.

Luckily I have my trusty lappie which has yet to let me down (touch wood). Of course, the fact that many of the applications I use are not on it, and all my data is stored on a 200gig HD that I can't access on the big brute is a pain, but at least I can go on line and whine about it. Hurrah!

Probably the single most annoying part is the fact that I had downloaded about 25% of the first 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica season three when the computer had its most recent coronary. That meant hitting the torrents from scratch with my lappie and accepting the fact that disk space concessions will oblige me to watch and delete the two episodes instead of holding them for posterity as with previous seasons on the other machine.

The Karma Pixies had one final delight in store for me on that front. The bit trickles came in at such pathetic speeds yesterday that after 14 hours of download, I had less than 10% of each episode. That said, in 6 hours overnight, once I had given up and gone to bed, the speeds must have picked up to the equivalent of an electronic biblical flood, for the remainder had downloaded. So I have something to watch tonight, between the end of games night and bed!

In other news, Miss Furtle has completed work on the writing stage of her thesis, which means first and foremost that her overall stress levels will now drop out of the red for the first time in a couple of months and secondly that I can reclaim the table in my computer room. Hurrah, on both accounts! I confess that I hadn't realised just how much it was taking out of her until she had a small panic attack on Saturday evening and spent a few moments red of the eye and wet of the cheek. I'm not sure that it's properly sunk in on her either, but once the printing etc is sorted and the manuscript delivered to Reading later in the week, she can collapse and relax for a while until the (I am told)inevitable corrections arrive. Nonetheless, it's a hell of an achievement and nearly complete.

I am very proud of My Girl^TM.

I now take my leave to continue, in the busiest part of the year for us, to do my lackey's work as he has decided to be ill today. Ho-hum.


¹It's Mohammed Ali's left leg!

Not so busy I can't update...

What kind of Autumn is it, I ask you, when it is so damned humid that you can grab chunks of atmosphere and wring them out into great sopping pools? It's not right and it's not fair¹.

At home in the Athenaeum Club, I have had to grab a number of paper backs from their shelves up in The Tower and hide them behind sturdier hardback books to prevent the covers curling up. This is an absolute first in my experience.

To add to my general level of bemusement, my PC has packed up again, proving impossible to run for longer than 8-10 minutes before shutting itself off. It has done more scan disks in the past week than it has in all the days of its prior life combined. And even if I turn it off properly, booted down and all, it still thinks it's been turned off badly and insists on a quick chkdsk before doing anything. Not a chkdsk /f mind, just a chkdsk. I can't really afford it this side of Christmas, but I fear that I may have to stump up for a new PC. I can't believe a wonky heat sink is responsible for all this calamity. Some of it, perhaps, but not all.

Luckily I have my trusty lappie which has yet to let me down (touch wood). Of course, the fact that many of the applications I use are not on it, and all my data is stored on a 200gig HD that I can't access on the big brute is a pain, but at least I can go on line and whine about it. Hurrah!

Probably the single most annoying part is the fact that I had downloaded about 25% of the first 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica season three when the computer had its most recent coronary. That meant hitting the torrents from scratch with my lappie and accepting the fact that disk space concessions will oblige me to watch and delete the two episodes instead of holding them for posterity as with previous seasons on the other machine.

The Karma Pixies had one final delight in store for me on that front. The bit trickles came in at such pathetic speeds yesterday that after 14 hours of download, I had less than 10% of each episode. That said, in 6 hours overnight, once I had given up and gone to bed, the speeds must have picked up to the equivalent of an electronic biblical flood, for the remainder had downloaded. So I have something to watch tonight, between the end of games night and bed!

In other news, Miss Furtle has completed work on the writing stage of her thesis, which means first and foremost that her overall stress levels will now drop out of the red for the first time in a couple of months and secondly that I can reclaim the table in my computer room. Hurrah, on both accounts! I confess that I hadn't realised just how much it was taking out of her until she had a small panic attack on Saturday evening and spent a few moments red of the eye and wet of the cheek. I'm not sure that it's properly sunk in on her either, but once the printing etc is sorted and the manuscript delivered to Reading later in the week, she can collapse and relax for a while until the (I am told)inevitable corrections arrive. Nonetheless, it's a hell of an achievement and nearly complete.

I am very proud of My Girl^TM.

I now take my leave to continue, in the busiest part of the year for us, to do my lackey's work as he has decided to be ill today. Ho-hum.


¹It's Mohammed Ali's left leg!