Have you tired turning it off and on again?
I'm in the midst of finally turning my attic space from a spare room with office set-up to a proper workspace with sleeping facilities. Over the decade since I moved in, success unclutterings of downstairs and the bedroom have left the attic laden with lots of boxes, a sagging bit of ceiling panel and the shelves I found in a skip 15 years ago. Next weekend is a long one, so I'm planning to refit the difficult end of the room (the bit with the sagging panel), but I'll still need my PC. So this morning has been spent shoving sofas around downstairs and setting up the PC in the corner on the new desk.
All went well till the final stage. I successfully moved sofas without finding extra kills under them. I got the PC downstairs and didn't drop the heavy monitor. I disconnected the wifi bits as the temporary workspace is about 2m from the network router box and I've a CAT5 that will reach. I connected everything up...and got 'local connection only' on the network connection. A call to a 25p/min helpline produced the following answer: switch the router off and back on again. And it works!
The IT crowd were right.
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Posted @
12:17 PM
on
Sunday, May 18, 2008
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Wiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!
I'm writing this via the Wiimote, the Chap having enabled the interweb channel so we can get the BBC iPlayer through the TV. This means I can read my google reader via my TV - woo!
Labels: geekery
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Posted @
11:16 PM
on
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
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What hoe!
In a burst of Spring-ish enthusiasm, I bought a hoe today and have already cleared the path of unwanted plants as far as Kuan Yin. I also planted a scabious in the long narrow border and am planning to restart my gardening notes so I stop repeating mistakes.
Whilst clearing the patio, I also found one of Sébastian's kills which had been left. Lovely. So, Sébastian's new kill count is:
- Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice -3739
Voles - 11 - Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8 - Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3
I'm actually very glad to be getting presents again. He's been being fussy about food, drinking more water than he used to and losing weight, so I naturally worried. Despite him being overweight by any definition. Two weeks on vet-prescribed "sensitive" cat food and he's back to normal, and the weight is slinking back on. A couple of kills is rather reassuring.
Labels: gardens, seba's kill count
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Posted @
2:34 PM
on
Sunday, April 20, 2008
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Crank up the cocktail shaker!
The story I proofed the other morning has now been announced: Doctor Who: Short Trips - Transmissions. I've a short piece in it (well, duh, it's a collection of short stories after all) featuring my favourite companion combo of Tegan and Turlough. Technically, I've not returned the contract yet, but I think it's probably not going to be jinxed at this late stage. I mean, it's been approved by the high heid yins now and typeset and stuff.
It's set in Imperial Russia in 1905, starting in Vladivostok. I know: it's such a departure from writing a story about a haunted Russian treasure, or a war in the far East at the turn of the twentieth century. At least this time there's no Russian bloke called Sasha in i...oh. Anyway, I'm starting to see why historical authors end up wedded to a period. After the initial germ of the idea, I immediately knew where to go to find the necessary historical research. I was a bit flummoxed to find the travel section in the local library has been creeping along the shelves, so books on Russia and Siberia weren't quite where I was expecting them. Hopefully I'm not going to end up as the Who equivilant of Jean Plaidy.
I went to see 'The Other Boleyn Girl' a few weeks back with someone who has read all of Jean Plaidy's books. Our opinion, when we stopped laughing hysterically, was that it was worse than Plaidy. The only way I can sum up why not just us but half the audience was cracking up is to mention that it's a film set when Henry VIII's lusts meant he split with Rome, established the Church of England and abolished the monestaries (i.e. the Reformation). And yet they didn't even have a speaking role for Cardinal Wolsey. Now I'll bend the historical truth for the sake of the story (Gudok starts in Vladivostok even though, during the Sino-Russian war, the trans-Siberia railway started in Port Arthur because Vladivostok sounds so wonderfully Russian and Port Arthur doesn't*). However, even I would think twice about cutting out Wolsey entirely in a story about Henry's decision to split with Rome. There was a bloke in red robes who scowled at one point, but that's your lot.
*railway historians may, in fact, find some other inaccuracies in the story. However, I grew up on the railways and rail-geeks do not scare me.
Labels: doctor who, history, pimpage
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Posted @
11:14 PM
on
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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Kuan Yin in the snow 2008
I woke with the hail hitting the bedroom window. Weather rarely hits the glass, so the noise meant the wind was from the North. The thunder meant I didn't go back to sleep fully, and then the chap suggested I look out the window. It was early, but the snow was falling like fat feathers and the road was covered. I was excited but by the time I realised I had to get up to take photographs, the snow was slowing and the sun was starting to appear. And my camera batteries were nearly dead. I hauled on boots and got this shot, and one of the painted buddha, off before the camera shut itself down.
I do have more, taken with my new phone, but by the time the camera was recharged and I was back outside the snow had gone. At 8am this morning, though, kids in the St Thomas Pleasure Gardens were making their first ever snowmen.
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Posted @
11:10 PM
on
Sunday, April 06, 2008
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Martha Jones, M.D.
Yes, making Doctor Who Sims and then trying to get them onto their perfect career path is an epic waste of time. I know that. So my Captain Jack is an adventurer, my Fitz is a musician, my Sam Jones is a political lobbyist and my Martha just became a doctor (having previously been fined for inappropriate behaviour with a patient - probably all that snogging the Doctor business).
I know I should be doing other things but I already cycled five miles, did some laundry and tidied the garden this morning*...and I need to get Anji onto the business woman career path...
*ETA: oh, and proof read a short story before it goes up to the BBC high heid yins for approval.
Meanwhile: Sébastian's new kill count:
- Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice -3637
Voles - 11 - Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8 - Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3
Labels: doctor who, geekery, seba's kill count, time-wasting
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Posted @
12:56 PM
on
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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Scissors, paper, rock
I may be facing a unique dilemma: how do you pick between two good hairdressers. Not how do you find a good stylist: every woman knows that is done through demanding to know who cuts a friend's hair and then switching to them. And switching hairdressers is normally easy: you go to the new one, the one you've poached from a friend, and forget the previous one existed. I'm in the different position of having to chose between two equally good - but different - hairdressers at the same salon.
I've been with K for a while, having loved their work on a friend. A few weeks ago I had to have a cut and K was on holiday. With massive amounts of trepidation, I accepted the salon's suggestion of J. When you have a thickcut fringe bang on your eyebrows, a new stylist is terrifying: they're going to put scissors right next to your eyes. And a new stylist also means explaining your current cut instead of saying "about an inch off". K and J are very different personalities. K is that most blissful of things: a silent stylist. J is camper than John Barrowman. K knows my cut and dries it messy or neat depending on my need. J changed the style a bit but did a lovely job of drying it so it was pure Manga cartoon. I sort of want to continue with J but I also want to stay with K. I need my hair cutting this week, and Tuesday is the only free day. But both J and K work on Tuesdays so I have to choose between them....argh!
Meanwhile: Sébastian's new kill count:
- Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice -3536
Voles - 11 - Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8 - Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3
Labels: fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion, seba's kill count
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Posted @
5:02 PM
on
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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Is that from 'Accessorize'?
The chap and I dashed along Holborn last week in order to pick up the ring (or "the bling", or "the thing", depending how freaked I was at any given moment) during our lunch break. After two visits to Hatton Garden, including one with appointments at a very nice attic studio recommended by someone at work and at the place we eventually went with, I had overcome my shyness around expensive jewelery. So we ordered this art deco ring from The London Victorian Ring Company, fitted with a square cut ruby that I chose myself. It's shiny! In some kind of automatic learned action from my mother, when I got back home I immediately cleaned out a dish to sit on the window sill and hold it whilst I'm doing the washing up.
Continuing the red theme, progress has started on the outfit. I know, there's a year to go and minor details like a venue should really be a priority, but Kel will be handmaking this suit for me. In a ruby red, natch, but without that hat.
I'm still a bit 'eep' about things, and convinced that too much online chatter will jinx things, but when something has happened I guess it is safe to blog about it...
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Posted @
8:06 PM
on
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
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Sébastian's new kill count:
- Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice -3435
Voles - 11 - Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8 - Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3
I am stupidly busy, but I have (probably) sold a short story and got around to tagging all my photos from Berlin. I will get around to writing it up, at some point, but it already seems an age ago.
Labels: seba's kill count, what I did on my holidays
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Posted @
9:49 PM
on
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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