radiac.net

So, I've been back in England for 5 days now! And I think it's rained every day. Despite not going through much of a timezone difference (1 hour + 1 hour leaving BST), I appear to be jetlagged - getting tired at midnight and waking up at 6am is not really my style...

I am gutted at the lack of comments on my South Africa entries. I know lots of people read things and don't bother to comment because they don't know what to say, but all that's needed is a little 'Sounds like fun', 'You suck' or 'I like cheese' etc, just to show that I'm not here all alone. Some of you will have noticed the halloween decorations up over the weekend, but for those of you who can't be bothered to check my website every day, you missed out on a treat. However, you will notice that I've changed the normal design to a pale background - I was waiting until I'd finished my CMS before I changed the design (along with the rest of the site), but I was fed up with my eyes hurting when I tried to read my site so decided to just go with it now.

I'm in Bath at the moment, planning my personal projects, doing no real work on them, and generally wasting time. At the moment I'm watching the BBC election coverage - why, I'm not sure, I think they're both as bad as one another so don't really care what happens. And I'd like to know why we have an entire tv channel dedicated to it - yes it's one of the most important countries in the world, but it's blown out of all proportion - the elections from any other country are consigned to a 15 second mention on the news at 6; a small bar chart sitting in the corner of normal programming seems far more appropriate to me, with full-time coverage on one of the digital-only channels for those who can't get enough of presenters babbling in circles to waste time waiting for the next state to be called. Ahh, my license fees in action...

Miss me?

Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous entries, and may everyone else burn in the eternal fires of hell!

Speaking of fires, I went to a fireworks display last Friday in Bath, it was quite cool. Well, it was bloody freezing (ahhaha I crack myself up sometimes, I really do), but I stood there anyway and watched thousands of pounds go up in smoke and pretty explosions.

Saturday was our housewarming party! Having seen the invitation list, I was quite terrified that our house would be filled to bursting and it would then burst and lose us our million pound deposits. However, a very good number of people showed up, not too many and not too few, and it was great. Only one glass was broken, nearly all of the food I cooked was eaten, and people brought chocolate which I ate - it would have been rude not to, thank you. There were lots of people with cameras, but I haven't seen any pictures. Please send me pictures and I'll stick them online.

Sunday I saw The Grudge with Leela. It's a very scary film, but I love the Ahk-hk-hk-hk-hk-hk noise. I was actually quite terrified to go to sleep... In the week before I went to Ikea in Bristol to get Tristan a table and bought myself a nice chair, then went round the corner to an auction place where I collected an archery bow for my dad. I didn't get lost once! Maps rock. I also spend much of my time checking with Homebase to see if they have some wood in so I can fix my bed. No luck yet.

I'm currently back in Sevenoaks, trying to get around to doing some work, and hearing tales of how Leela has fallen down a hill and destroyed her knee and ankle and wrist and things. How careless! ;)

I'm also waiting for a dabs order to arrive, but it's not looking very hopeful now - my printer ran out of ink, so I bought a new printer because it's cheaper to do that than get new cartridges. Something very wrong there...

Went out for lunch today, ordered the meal at 1.30, it didn't arrive until 2.45. What a joke. But not all is bad - after many years of biding my time, that bastard who stole my radiac hotmail account has lost it, and I have re-registered it! Vengence is mine!

So, there's a mumps epidemic here in Bath - many friends have fallen, and many others convinced that that ache or that tickle in their throat is the onset of the disease. I'm booked for immunisation injection of joy on Wednesday, but I don't know that there's much point in that - either I have it already, or I won't get it. Still, may as well eh? It will also be a handy opportunity for me to get my glasses - yes, that's right, I am in Bath, but my glasses are still in Sevenoaks. I am a genius. A genius who has had his contact lenses in for far too long...

In other news, it was Hannah's birthday party on Saturday, which was fun - we went to Bristol, had a meal and went to a club. Loud, but fun.

If you're into computer games, you'll probably know that tomorrow is the release date for Half-life 2. Play e-mailed me earlier to let me know my copy has been shipped - neato! Can pick that up when I'm at home too!

Ow, my tooth hurts. Maybe I have the mumps...

So this morning a little jiffy bag arrived from Play - yay!

I'm not sure about this Steam nonsense, but Half-Life 2 looks pretty neat, even on this machine. I was just going to go in and mess about a bit, but in the end I accidentally played through the first few levels. I was as hooked as in Far Cry, only I didn't even have any weapons. I was mostly amused by the way the scientist looked shocked when I threw a can of coke at his head. And when I clubbed a policeman round the head with my crowbar and got my first pistol, the game became a very beautiful thing. I can see myself playing this a lot...

Anyway, I'm off to be injected with viruses now - yay!

Many people ask me what I spend my days doing, what with me not having a job and not having uni or anything. Well, since today is pretty much the second or third day since coming back to Bath where I have nothing specific to do and therefore appears to be an excellent candidate for describing to you, my faithful readers.

So, without further ado, here is My Monday*.

10:00	Wake up, stomp to computer, check e-mail, read the news and my daily comics. I have something to do to the tonbschl site, Iran have stopped playing with uranium and Torg pushed the demon lord down the hill rather than killing him. Lame.
10:30	Stomp downstairs, have breakfast while watching 'Under The Hammer' on TV. Someone in Brighton bought a flat at auction, did it up and made something like £20,000. Nice one.
11:05	Have a shower. Now I don't smell quite as bad.
11:20	Read the tonbschl e-mail again and do that. Repeat 'I enjoy writing HTML' 100 times. Bored yet? Well, you did ask...
12:00	Plan some details of my new calendar script.
12:15	Have in-depth discussion with Dan about whether or not rsync fulfils my requirements, decide (yet again) that it doesn't.
12:30	Turn on laptop to copy onto server the latest version of dirsync, my intelligent version of rsync (still a work in progress). Remember that file transfer on wifi is lame, google for solution.
12:45	Having upgraded the WAP's firmware and being satisfied with the speed gain, copy files to server.
12:46	Good work. Time for bubbles.
13:10	Not even 50,000 this time, nowhere close to my record score of 238,230 yesterday, when I completed it. Completing it twice in 24 hours is looking unlikely... I need to get out more. How about a diary entry about my day. Yep, sounds good.
13:23	Having started this entry by estimating the times for the morning, start keeping track of when I'm doing what. Change playlist from Chemical Brothers to Belle and Sebastian, fire up textpad and resume work on dirsync.
13:24	In the process of trying to find the bit of paper with my dirsync notes on, I end up tidying the room and packing away washed clothes. Have invented new way of neatly storing underpants, perhaps I should patent it. Note that one pair of socks now has 3 socks, they must be breeding.
13:35	Ponder the meaning of life from the point of view of a sock.
13:54	Good work. Time for bubbles.
14:10	Give up, am bored and no end in sight. Have re-affirmed belief that I like 'the boy with the Arab strap', is a good track. Resume work on dirsync.
15:21	Feel ill, maybe I have the mumps.
15:27	Come to the conclusion that it is not the mumps, I am just hungry. Go for lunch.
15:28	Having consumed the penguin, I return to dirsync.
15:47	I am cold, but my jumper is downstairs.
16:02	I am still cold. I had better get my jumper.
16:37	I went downstairs to get my jumper, but got side-tracked by the fridge. And then my washing up and the overflowing rubbish bin. But back on track now!
19:26	Hurrah, it nearly works!
19:27	Oops, meant to be meeting Leela on campus at 7.30...
19:34	Meet Leela on campus. Love cars.
19:45	Go to Sainburys to buy water and Tropicana supplies for tomorrow. Return home after looking at Leela's rattly window and agreeing that it sucks.
20:00	Arrive at Faulkland Road in car. Attempt to park.
20:17	Still can not find a space. Am now exploring roads near Bear Flat.
20:25	Find a parking space and ditch the car. Do not recognise this area, but must be in Bradford-on-Avon by now.
20:35	I am cold.
20:36	I should have brought my scarf and gloves.
20:38	I did bring my scart and gloves. Where did I leave them?
20:40	Hmm, I left them in the car. Oh well, nearly home now.
21:00	Hurrah, am home. I believe this calls for a celebratory feast of pasta and treacle tart before resuming dirsync.
00:17	Oops, damn that television. Oh well, perhaps I should give Half-Life 2 a go, seeing as I haven't played it all day...
03:21	Have been playing CS online and had some fun, but the past two maps have been one on one, so it must be time for bed.
04:02	Err, completed bubbles again, 178470...

And there you have it, every thought I have had today. Time for bed.
* Times may not be entirely accurate.

This morning, I awoke to the 'beep-beep--beep-beep' of my phone. It was from Leela, who informed me that she had walked into the mantlepiece, hit her head and passed out. Having discussed times with her, I believe she passed out for about half an hour. She then proceeded to be fairly concussed and confused for the rest of the day, which was quite amusing when we went for lunch. Although she refused to let me take her to the hospital, she did let me check her pupils, which, in my expert opinion, were round. So I think she's ok...

In other news, Leela bought me a coat for Christmas! So after 4 years of wearing a t-shirt all the time and being cold in the winter, I will now be toasty warm in my coat and my gloves and my scarf and laugh at everyone else in their frozen misery.

I want a shower.

I have woken up, done some work, had some breakfast and it is now time for a shower. But there are men sitting outside in garden chairs, staring through my bathroom window, which doesn't have a curtain. So I'm going to hang around and wait for them to leave. They can't sit there all day?

I knew it was only a matter of time, but I am now recieving more spam per minute than my server can handle.

I checked my mail queue today and it was 102 waiting to be processed and delivered. By the time it had got the queue down to 58, it had downloaded another 17 and pushed it up again. Sure, it'll catch up eventually, and I'm assigning another process to max out the cpu and help it clear the backlog, but with nearly 7000 spams a day and only 3 or 4 real e-mails (and even those are mostly mailing lists), almost 1.5gb of spam a month is not really very funny.