The boiler woes continue: I was due to receive an estimate on Saturday morning. It will now apparently reach me tomorrow morning. (OK, nothing has got worse but the chasing up pisses me off.)

I’ve had to grovel at my dad to buy mum’s birthday present cos I can&’t afford it this month and it needs booked now.

It also appears that my CD player has died – it doesn’t recognise home-birn or commercial CDs. Add that to the moribund amplifier and I have a musical financial lacuna too!

More stupidity at work: some things have arrived prematurely from suppliers. Also I’ve discovered that three more books have been printed incorrectly.

• Two are fairly trivial: either the repro-house supplied to the printers a very old version of an advert for the inside-front covers or the printer ignored the new version and printed the oldest one.
• One is more serious: this book used to be called Higher Biology Course Notes. However, it fitted better in our Revision Notes range and so we had a lovely new cover designed, and a new title page made up. Somewhere in the chain from repro-house to printer, the new title page was ignored and the old one printed. So the cover says Revision Notes and the title page says Course Notes.

Finally, the designer of most of our recent covers has pointed out that his basic files haven’t been properly handled in cover designs that were produced by a different designer. Whether this is due to lack of briefing by the major designer, mistakes by the minor designer or a stuff-up somewhere else is yet to be determined. Also, the mishandling is not immediately noticeable: you’d have to compare the affected covers with the unaffected ones to see there was a difference. However, it’s not perfection. it looks sloppy if you see it and so will need changed at the next reprint.

Finally, CC: uurrgghh, too much to do, all at once. No thanks to Fife Council’s asking for responses to 6 pieces of planning documentation all at once!

… I looked on the BBC’s funky map for the 30 constituencies won by the non-main parties. They are:

So around 5% of the UK Parliament is not Labour, Conservative or Liberal-Democrat.

It appears the strain of producing 70 books in three months and the Jack Nicklaus issue have got me. I woke up about every hour last night, the last time being after a dreadful nightmare.

I was Winston Smith, watching the evening’s two-minute hate on the telescreen. An enemy of the people had been discovered and was crawling away from police beating him in the studio. The commentator capped his peroration of hate by kicking the EOTP in his bruised and bleeding backside … it gets worse but I’ll stop there because I don’t want to think about it any more.

Or maybe it’s just because I’m a smelly old fart!

Well my 13-year-old boiler appears to be destined for that great sauna in the sky. The following bits need replaced:

• fan
• circuit board
• pump
• transformer.

Replacement pumps and a fan that could fit in the relevant place are available but the boiler is so old that spare parts for this model are no longer available. Probably over £600 for a new one.

Bugger. So much for getting the Pismo repaired this month.

and apart from a slight feeling of sadness that most of my income is spoken for until I’m over 41 (unless you count the mortgage – in which case I’m stuffed even more) I don’t really mind.

• our warehouse is playing silly buggers
• I’ve had to check proofs until my eyes bleed
• a printer told us they would deliver books on the 16th. They delivered today – the 4th
• my hot-water boiler died – it will probably cost over £600 to resurrect or replace it
• my InDesign course next week has been cancelled
• CC makes it to the national press cos we didn’t award Honorary Citizenship to Jack Nicklaus
• I have shitloads to do for normal CC duties

On the good side, my dad has an interview for a victim-support role tomorrow. He has skills and a lifetime of experience of working with people as a production engineer (half of which is setting up systems to be worked by people and seeing that they are safe and content with their roles).

Wishing him lots of luck.

from the New Hacker’s Dictionary
fat electrons n.:
Old-time hacker David Cargill’s theory on the causation of computer glitches. Your typical electric utility draws its line current out of the big generators with a pair of coil taps located near the top of the dynamo. When the normal tap brushes get dirty, they take them off line to clean them up, and use special auxiliary taps on the bottom of the coil. Now, this is a problem, because when they do that they get not ordinary or `thin’ electrons, but the fat’n’sloppy electrons that are heavier and so settle to the bottom of the generator. These flow down ordinary wires just fine, but when they have to turn a sharp corner (as in an integrated-circuit via), they’re apt to get stuck. This is what causes computer glitches.

I’ve tried booting the Pismo with my mum’s iBook’s power cable and yo-yo. No joy.
I’ve had a friend test both my yo-yos and my power cable. They give out the right voltages and currents.

Pretty conclusive that part of the Pismo’s internals is toast.

It’s almost no consolation that the arcing in the power cable that arrived with the Pismo may have been the culprit. I’ve tried the new and old HDs in an external USB bok attached to the G4 – they still work.

Hopefully next month I will be able to afford to get the Pismo fixed… until then I’m a very sad Myceliumme.

I love this review of LCD soundsystem. What a lot of enjoyable musical silliness!

I’m embarrassed because I just tried to write an email in German and found out how much I’ve forgotten or never knew. Without the gift of a German-English dictionary from , I would have been able to do it. The dictionary even gave examples of letters so I was able to start and end the email correctly!

You just have to check out the news report video clip at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1341052.htm

From ABC News Online Friday, April 8, 2005. 8:08pm (AEST)

Camel costume … passenger flabbergasted after baggage handler tried it on (ABC TV)

Qantas says it has stood down a baggage handler who is believed to be responsible for stealing a camel costume out of a man’s bag at Sydney airport and wearing it on the tarmac.

David Cox was waiting to board his Qantas flight when he saw a baggage handler wearing the costume.

He says he was shocked to realise his luggage had been interfered with.

“It’s the kind of larrikin thing that an Australian would do but given the current situation, particularly with Schapelle Corby, the issues of airport security and privacy and your luggage remaining secure, it’s obviously a poor decision,” Mr Cox said.

“I obviously was flabbergasted, my jaw dropped to the ground,” he added.

Qantas chief executive officer Geoff Dixon says the incident was caught on CCTV and the person will be dismissed if an investigation finds him guilty.

The Transport Workers Union has renewed calls for surveillance cameras to be placed in the areas where baggage is handled at airports.

The union’s Glen Nightingale says an investigation is under way into the incident and he is meeting with workers and Qantas today.

Mr Nightingale says closed-circuit television surveillance would protect both travellers and workers.

“We’re concerned about the security and the lack of security at the airport and we’ve been rallying for the last three or four years for the Federal Government for the appropriate screening, not only of the workers but also of luggage that comes through these areas,” he said.

But Mr Dixon says it is impossible to cover everything in Sydney airport with security cameras and Qantas is not in the business of spying on its staff.

He says the company receives about 35 complaints a month about interference with bags, which he says is a low level given how many people fly with the airline each year.

“We carry 30 million passengers, we have one of the most outstanding operations, security records of any airline in the world,” Mr Dixon said.

“We’re not perfect obviously because the other day showed we’re not perfect, but it did show too that we’re able to get it on camera and able to do something about it within a very short period of time.”

Meanwhile, accused drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s legal team says it is considering how to introduce the incident as evidence in her case.

The Gold Coast businessman who is financing Corby’s defence of drug trafficking charges in Bali, says the incident is further evidence of airline staff interfering with the baggage of passengers.

Ron Bakir says he is shocked at the lack of security for luggage.

“I’m disgusted. But what it does do is to corroborate our story,” he said.

“It corroborates that there is a problem in domestic baggages throughout airports.”

Mr Bakir says it proves that Shapelle Corby is a victim.

“It could happen to anyone.”