Journal Entries
Monday 20 March 2000 - a question for anyone who can help!
Posted Mar 27, 2000
Does anyone know how to make Outlook Express start functioning again once it's ground to a halt with no explanation? All I get when I try to launch my Email program at the moment is a message saying "Illegal Function Error" or something similar, whereupon the program shuts down. It's very frustrating not having Email...
The browser works OK, but the mail is not being read.
Weather superlatively lovely - Autumn is a great time of year.
Illness besets me at the moment - sinuses are blocked again. This combined with the Email problem is making me feel very isolated.
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Latest reply: Mar 27, 2000
Sunday 19 March 2000
Posted Mar 20, 2000
Today is another overcast, humid and oppressive day. It is hard even to think when the weather is so determined to sap every Newton of strength from your body. I wake up every morning dripping with sweat, in a bed so wet I get the feeling I've been dreaming of going to the toilet in my sleep.
Life otherwise is good, though. I had an idea recently about getting the ‘Guide community more involved. I thought about doing a compounded version of a simple song to sing along to - the example in my mind was Status Quo's ‘Rockin' all over the world' - and getting a lot of ‘Guide members to add their voices to it, one by one, and seeing what came out. I'm not even sure how I could make that work, but I am sure that it would be possible, and it would be interesting as anything to see what people thought they could add!
Ideas for articles are bubbling away in my mind, but in this sapping humidity I am having trouble getting them started. The links list is progressing, though. I would appreciate any ideas on concepts that need a few linked sites - I don't have an awful lot of sites where you can actually make bookings for things or pay for things, and I don't have nearly enough on important things like philosophy, reviews of works or places in theatre, dance, music, pictures, art, science sites or basic things like telephone directories, maps, public transport timetables or postal services. I do have plenty of meta-indexes and links sites, encyclopaediae, dictionaries and directories, but these aren't the internet equivalent of primary sources.
The humidity is also sapping a lot of energy from my system. I've been having much trouble with hypos lately. Three of the last five mornings have been beset by the difficulty of actually twisting open the lolly jar or cordial bottle, which in the state of hypoglycaemia I have been undergoing at the time seems to have been completely beyond me. When I do get the lolly jar open, I have been uncoordinated enough that I have thrown lollies all over the bedroom floor, which is a hell of a problem to clean up. I keep walking into things, sitting on my television and scattering pieces of paper everywhere. I even soaked my prized copy of ‘The tao of Pooh and the te of piglet' in sweat, and caused the front cover to deteriorate due to a combination of sweat soaking and bending that, had I been sober, I would have regretted the thought of enough that I wouldn't have done. I'll probably have to buy another one, now.
My brother has invited me out tonight to finish off the alcohol supplies in his house before he goes back to Sydney to join his wife and son. I am afflicted by such lassitude that doing this, rather than making the effort to go out and get wasted, seems a good thing to me.
For all this, though, life really is OK at the moment. I sometimes wonder whether I am simply too laid back for my own good, but the mere fact that I can think this demonstrates that I am not yet laid back enough, or possibly not in the right plane.
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Latest reply: Mar 20, 2000
Thursday 9 March 2000
Posted Mar 9, 2000
I like a lot of the people I meet, online and in real time. It's always good to find out something about other people - and their relationships to others around you.
Today had been a long, slow, rainy day. I couldn't ride to Woden because it was raining this morning, and in any case I wasn't really in good condition to do so: the season premiere of the X-files was on last night, and that segued into other programs that I also enjoyed watching, and before I knew it it was after midnight and very dark. I didn't manage to get up until eight o'clock this morning, and have been playing catch-up ever since.
All that happened in the morning to reverse the timbre of the day established by the miserable overcast and associated rain was a call from Telstra, asking about whether I knew of the services they could offer me. When I pointed out that the services I actually want - an internet connection which actually stays connected, for example - were not what they offered, they were not keen to continue the conversation. Strange that. Then I went to bed, to sleep off the unexpected late night.
Then, in a complete reversal of recent form, the weather cleared, and it is now beautiful outside - a clear, glowing late-summer's eve, perfect for reflection and thoughts of loved ones far away and close at hand.
My television is in my bedroom at the moment, which is great for watching from bed, but not so great for eating in front of - which I have to do on the floor. I should really move it back, but my housemates are not enthusiastic about this idea, because having the television where it is keeps them from watching too much of it...
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Latest reply: Mar 9, 2000
Wednesday 8 March 2000
Posted Mar 8, 2000
It has been unseasonably cool of late - it was raining (London rain) for most of yesterday, and today it looks as though it should be raining, but hasn't gotten around to it yet.
The coolness of the weather has meant that sweat cools even more than usual. When you're like me, and sweat all the time, this means that you feel a bit like an ice block in the wind as you ride down the bike path to Woden. Wet things don't dry, either...
Professional development is in the wind, and more jobs are coming up which might be able to make some financially rewarding use of my skills. My fitness assessment was good: I've improved my fitness all round by about ten percent, and am substantially more aerobically fit than I was last time I did an assessment.
The new editing tools - the bits we've seen of them - are working well, and articles can be dealt with much faster than previously, it seems. We WILL get that queue down, I'm certain...! It doesn't help that writing on the 'Guide in general seems to be improving out of sight - much less to reject that way. I'll have to get that research link list going some time fairly soon...
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Latest reply: Mar 8, 2000
Monday 6 March 2000
Posted Mar 5, 2000
Monday morning. It's as bad when you're unemployed as at any other time. Plus everyone who is employed expects you to do things - I'm not sure why that is.
The Hot-Dogging Mountain-Biking hero was confined to barracks yesterday, due to his impending fitness assessment at the gym, which will happen this morning. No coffee for four hours before the assessment means that I really ought to be asleep, but there's so much else to do and no better time to connect! I want a real internet connection, rather than a plug-in to my phone line. I'm sure my conversations on the phone aren't so frequently cut off like this...
The weather held off: sunny and not unreasonably warm for the whole day - washing was therefore successfully dealt with. It's dark now.
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Latest reply: Mar 5, 2000
Hypoman
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