Journal Entries
British Leyland CAN make cars!
Posted Aug 29, 2003
Just so you don't all think I've completely cracked up...
The title is due to the fact that yesterday I finally got my hands on my 
MG Migit (after long negotiations with my ex-wife). (Long story - we bought it before we separated and both of us wanted it )
It hadn't been moved or started since August 1999 So I went to pick it up with a car transporter to get it back to my place...
I arrive, drag the car out of its garage and have a quick look at the engine...
Oil levels fine - oil looked as good as the day I'd put it in
Water levels fine - well, I had to put a teacup full into it to bring it back up to max level.
Everything else looked fine so I decided to see if - by any miracle, it would run...
Plugged in a new battery, turned the key and she fired first time 
How many other 25 year old cars do you know that would do that after spending four years sat in a garage with the temperature varying between +40°C and -20°C.
I'm going out to play with my new toy this weekend
Discuss this Journal entry [19]
Latest reply: Aug 29, 2003
I'm not all here!
Posted Jul 18, 2003
So, what's new about that? I here you ask...
Last minute cheap flight and holiday to get rid of means I'm taking my son to England for a couple of weeks... I'm sure I'll manage to log on from time to time (even if it means using my father's clockwork modem 
)... In the meantime... have fun and don't do anything too silly (I'll only get jealous)...
Thinks to do and find...
- Fish & Chips
- Indian Restaurant
- Theakstons Old Peculier
- Climbing in the lake district
- Theakstons Old Peculier
- More Indian Food
- Theakstons Old Peculier
- Check h2g2 from time to time
- Sleep
- Vegitate
- Find some more Theakstons Old Peculier
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Jul 18, 2003
Computers and why I hate them!
Posted Jul 2, 2003
**** WARNING - (VERY)GEEKISH RANT ****
Here we go...
Yesterday morning I was quite happily typing away and all of a sudden my PC died...
Completely and utterly dead... the computer was no more... it was a late computer...
(you get the message )
After several attempts at a re-boot, a couple of kicks and a lot of swearing I finally came to the conclusion that something serious was wrong...
So, first move... take out the cards, one at a time to see if that makes a difference.
Nothing!
Take out the hard drive and install that in another machine... works fine so the hard drive aint kaputt!
Call our IT consultant, drag him away from whatever seedy internet site he'd been looking at (knowing him it was probably www.microsoft.com ).
Together we completely disassemble the computer... kick the guy in the next office off his machine and try out every single component, one at a time, in his machine...
The final result was that the only thing wrong with my system was the motherboard had gone to meet its maker...
So, no problem, buy another motherboard and away we go...
WRONG...
The only motherboard in this entire city (believe me I know, I visited every single shop in a 10 mile radius this morning) compatible with my CPU didn't have enough PCI slots!
So, the only alternative is to buy a CPU as well...
Oh, and of course if you buy a new motherboard and CPU, the RAM you're currently using might as well be thrown in the dustbin as well! 
Ok then, so I tell the boss I'm going to spend around £300 of her money and she hasn't a choice in the matter!
I go out and buy the pieces and start fitting them...
Only then do I discover that the Power Supply Unit I've got isn't compatible with the new motherboard! 
Back to the shop for a new motherboard... finally decide if I'm going to do all this work I might as well install a new hard drive and be done with it!
Fit the new Power Supply, fit the hard drive as a slave and decide to worry about formating it later as I've quite enough to do trying to get the rest of teh computer working.
Spend 2 hours putting the whole thing back together again, turn it on... 
Great, beeps and lights, a picture on the screen and it starts to boot... Then grinds to a halt telling me there's a bios problem...
Spend the next hour going through the BIOS to figure out what's wrong there... can't find anything, but everytime I quit the BIOS the computer seizes up and the only way to restart it is physically pull the plug on the thing...
Eventually give up, take it back to the shop I got the motherboard from and scream for help...
2 hours later, I go back into the shop and the engineer's finally found out what was wrong - the CPU he sold me six hours previously is defective... (so Intel's just as bad as Microsoft then!!!)
He's changed the CPU, and nice guy he is, he's formatted the new disk and installed my OS on it for me...
Unfortunately, I can now no longer get anything off the old hard drive... so I'm now sat with a 'working' computer with just windows on it and a six foot high pile of software boxes, slowly reinstalling everything!
I really think I should go back to using pencil and paper 
Discuss this Journal entry [12]
Latest reply: Jul 2, 2003
How the heck would they actually find out if I died...
Posted Jun 23, 2003
A suitably morbid title for a journal entry...
What it's really a cover for is a winge...
I've just looked at a thermometer in my office and it's now reading 41°C... that's hotter than normal body temperature, so if I keeled over right now at my computer terminal my body temperature would actually go up, everyone would presume I was fast asleep (which is a normal occupational hazard for me 
) and it wouldn't be until I started to fall apart at the edges that someone would notice I'd gone.
All of which is just a very perverted and convoluted way of saying....
IT'S TOO BL***Y HOT IN HERE
Discuss this Journal entry [170]
Latest reply: Jun 23, 2003
Boring journal entry... nothing to see here... Move along the bus please...
Posted May 7, 2003
Sorry to all those lurkers... nothing interesting here... just a link to a potential(ly strange) guide entry I think I'll write - so I don't forget it.
http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/drv-depalf.html
Now... on you go... get out of here and go do something more interesting instead 
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: May 7, 2003
Whisky
Researcher U180644
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."