The G4’s DVD-RW drives reads both ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ DVDs. It is therefore completely ambidisktrous.

Just backed up 2.747 GIGABYTES of brand-new data.

(Almost of all of this was music entering my iTunes folder)

done so far

• sweep, tidy, rearrange bedroom
• sweep, tidy, mop kitchen
• put stuff in loft
• sweep, tidy, clean bathroom
• sweep, tidy, mop lounge
• do report on Thursday’s seminar for CC

still to do

• tidy mac area
• finish putting mixed-artist CDs into iTunes, then put these CDs into the loft (halfway!)
• back up all this lovely new data
• write Xmas cards
• email my poor designs for town-hall booklet to a real designer for his advice
• email same designer re design for letterhead &/or logo for FT stuff
• install laptop from scratch (it only had MacOS8· on it and I need 8·)
• EAT

FUCK ME RAGGED, I’m going to be knackered!

Feeling rather smug. On top of cleaning the whole flat and shifting a lot of stuff into the loft, I think I’ve achieved a reasonable success. I have found a way to get Mac OS9·2 (the last real revision of the traditional Macintosh operating system before OSX slithered out of Cupertino) onto my 2300c powerbook. I can’t install it directly from the install CD (my CD drive isn’t bootable) but I found I could install it over OS8·1.

This killed RAMDoubler but there’s always good old Apple-brand Virtual Memory.

And now filesharing works over TCP/IP so the 2300c can be seen from the G4. Thanks to my mac guru for showing me the way to get the 2300c seeing the G4. Dead simple (bangs head on keyboard!)

Still feeling smug. OS9·2 on a mac built for OS7. The equivalent of Win2000 running on a PC built for Win3·1. Suck that, Mr Gates!

… that life is going to get weird and appear even weirder to those around me.

Today was a bit Taysidish.

1. Firstly I hear that our head office have stuffed up and not told our repro house to forward some files to the printer. So the book that was due to arrive today will be printed in a miraculous 3 days to arrive on Friday.
2. Then our marketing person is going to work closer with production – so one of my production colleagues has to vacate the desk she uses when she is at the St Andrews office so the marketing person can move there. My production colleague isn’t working at St Andrews today so I get the fun of moving her stuff elsewhere and moving the marketing person’s computer onto the vacated desk. This move goes without hassle and the marketing person will move her files and other stuff herself.
3. Now what to do with my production colleague. I have two such colleagues. 4days a week, one works in Edinburgh (or at her home) while the other works at St Andrews. However on Tuesdays they both work at St Andrews. So I have to move the remote proofer and set that room up as a workspace for my ‘budged’ colleague. The remote proofer room is full of crap so I tidy most of it into neat piles, shift what I can into storage locations (of which we have VERY little) and email around to others to get rid of the crap they’ve left in this room.

I think that’s it until the next bout of musical offices!

I spewed on the way to the pub toilet.

Went drinking with Ewan. Started in the Cellar Bar with a kamikaze, then 2 whiskies and a southern-comfort-and-lemonade, followed by a free Smirfnoff Norsk (blueberry-flavoured vodka. Then to the Victoria Cafe but it was too crowded to get served, so to 1 Golf Place where we had a southern-comfort-and-lemonade each. Then via Tescos (to buy sugar) to the Whey Pat where I had a long southern comfort. Then back to the Cellar bar where Ewan bought Goldschlagers all round. By this time my stomach was complaining but I still tried (under some peer pressure) to down-in-one the green chartreuse he bought me. I got half of it down and then realised it was coming back. I headed for the toilet and got within 3 metres before liquid came back up.

I rinsed my mouth at the toilet hand-basins, then went to the bar to get a towel to clean the floor. Cleaning the floor got me some plaudits from the assembled drinkers.

But still, I SPEWED ON THE CARPET OF MY LOCAL PUB.

It doesn’t matter that I had over 9 units of alcohol in one evening (when normally I have 4 a month): I SPEWED ON THE CARPET OF MY LOCAL PUB.

Despite spewing, I am still drunk and very embarrassed.

UPDATE
As soon as I could this morning, I phoned the Cellar Bar and offered to contribute to the cleaning of the carpet. I was thanked but told not to worry about it.

You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you’ll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you’re a technical geek, you’ll be able to afford it, too. If you’re not a technical geek, you’re geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don’t date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You’ll constantly try to out-geek the other.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Maybe I’m still pissed up.

I’m OCRing Fife bus timetables so that I can enter them into the Palm relatively painlessly. Then I’ll put the paper timetables back on the rack at the bus station so that someone else can use them and I am not loaded down with them. (OK they’re not heavy but they do use up space in my bag and make it bulge.)

Even though these are timetables for bus routes I do use or may use (i.e. they’re for routes I use – some bus routes from Glenrothes to Pitteuchar don’t run on Sundays – my normal day for visiting Celia), it seems a whole lot of bother for little gain, just the joy of using the Palm.

I still love the Palm – more than her five daughters could EVER love me. I think the fact that I came up with that last sentence proves I am far more of a sad git than I ever was or will be ecologically sound.

Leaving aside some rather poor personal interactions

[pause to bang head on keyboard and bellow ‘stupid Bruce’] lofawrcyvewa ypoivweapo iyrwveaoiu vrewa9vrewapuwv reap9wrevapuwove woutewoibgvre oib ogewobpivewo9bvg ewovewo9bwveoubo9bew[/pause]

It’s been quite a successful week.

1. A complete pain-in-the-bum reprint has had its content’s proof signed off.
2. Three much less painful reprints have had their contents’ proofs signed off.
3. The proofs of the covers for two of these reprints have been signed off. (The other two reprints’ covers weren’t changing.)
4. I’ve written some documentation which should show my colleagues how to track costs and do other ‘management’ parts of their projects.
5. Despite some blonde moments by people I can’t name, the answers to Past Papers in Higher Physical Education are on the press and are due to be delivered on 8th December.
6. I’ve got a supplier to recognise that it has charged us for doing work that wasn’t necessary and was only done because the supplier said it was. They’ve agreed to refund the £450 this work cost. I wonder how much of this I’ll see. The probable answer is ‘the square root of bugger-all’.
7. I got out of work on Thursday with enough time to comfortably do what I needed before going to yoga.
8. I may have found a way to get some photos for a publication cheaply.
9. I feel relaxed and inspired to do what I need to do.
10. At long last I’ve got off my arse and have made contact with a friend who has been going through some rough times. We’ve arranged to meet up next week. She sounds much better than when we last emailed and she told me of her situation..

What else remains to be done?

• pay some bills (now done)
• arrange drinkies with Ewan (now done: 8pm tomorrow will be kamikaze time!)
• Since my last working day will be in Edinburgh and will finish at 8pm, either find somewhere to stay overnight (unless I can fly home that night)
• Buy my flight home
• finish a Community Council letter to Fife Council
• do some fairtrade stuff
• sort out some Christmas presents (now part done)
• go home to the bosom of my parental home.

growth’ or ‘export-oriented industrialization.’ It [was] explicitly became politicized as the issue was used as a means by Deng Xiaoping to huge public works projects, extensive foreign investments, participation in economy in the world within the next 25 years” (Gilder 372). position. In a recent interview that appeared in the Beijing Review, Feng

Joke of the day
My grandfather worked in a blacksmith shop when he was a boy, and he used to tell me, when I was a little boy myself, how he had toughened himself up so he could stand the rigors of blacksmithing.

One story was how he had developed his arm and shoulder muscles. He said he would stand outside behind the house and, with a 5 pound potato sack in each hand, extend his arms straight out to his sides and hold them there as long as he could.

After awhile he tried 10 pound potato sacks, then 50 pound potato sacks and finally he got to where he could lift a 100 pound potato sack in each hand and hold his arms straight out for more than a full minute!

Next, he started putting potatoes in the sacks.