Heretic Pride

Late posting this blog, nothing terribly much to report.

I've decided to escalate my recent cold to flu status, as it has been sorely afflicting me for the past few days. Flu bug Bob, has outstayed his welcome, joyless nasal precipitation, general facial crustiness on waking, opportunities to practise blowing my nose as a novel wind instrument, a sort of snottery flugelhorn, with fine burbling undertones. My IQ has dropped enormously, and energy levels have gone through the floor. Of course I am not one to feel sorry for myself, or moan on, well I am, but folk just make their excuses and leave.

I've just taken it easy this weekend, not doing terribly much. The weather has been fine and crisp, which for this time of year, is my favourite kind of weather. It is great to get out with the dog, and walk over frosty ground, avoiding the usual slippery muddiness. Even though I've not been out much, feeling the sun come in the windows, has a wonderful effect.

Watched Shoot Em Up last night, which I had got for my wife as a Valentine's present, I think Clive Owen was part of the appeal for her, but we do have a mutual weakness for mindless entertainment. In those terms, it is an absolutely fantastic film. A non stop romp from beginning to end, a live action Bugs Bunny film, with cartoon violence and logic.

Also been struggling again with backing up to one of my hard drives. Problems with backups stalling part way through, and just never finishing. After a lot of fiddling about it seems to be going okay. I think that you just end up getting into a vicious circle with these things, getting impatient, layering problem upon problem, which is something these complex systems really hate. Once things start going wrong the odds seem to be against getting them back on track again if you just start madly tinkering with things.

Anyway not entirely sure that I have got the the bottom of things, but the hard drive is indeed working again, I suspect that a dodgy cable had something to do with it. Keen to get to the bottom of whether the drive is reliable or not, while it is still under warranty, but these technical things are like one of those old style sets of fairy lights, where all the bulbs are in series, and just one dud bulb means the whole thing doesn't work until you have identified and replaced it. Who knows what little bit of technical doo hickery was to blame.

I do wonder at just how complicated all these things are becoming. Maybe we will all be having home IT consultants in future, the way we have plumbers now, popping round to do a bit of tech support for folk. I've got the job here, but I'm interested anyway and have the time and knowledge to do it. I'm not sure it would really be worth most people's time to get that involved in the tech support if all they want is a running system, but as soon as you get at all technical in what you are doing, you will bump up against a not inconsequential number of technical problems.

We probably also need people to come and set up our televisions too, I must confess to being totally lost of all the various options.

Also of note, daughter number two, the noisy one, who I love dearly, has been away elsewhere on a sleepover, so it has been possible to take a breath without her jumping in with something. Which has made the weekend a great deal more relaxing than it might have been. When you are down to your last brain cell, this is much appreciated.

Finally, the latest Mountain Goats album will be out next week, looking forward to it.