Time to invest in a new computer

It took just a little too long to get started. I mean really long. I'm not exaggerating when I say it probably took around 100 attempts. I have to switch it on and keep my finger on the on switch for as long as I can before it switches itself off again. Just a case og judging it and the computer wants to come on as well. man and machine in perfect harmony so to speak. So I think I'll be burning all my personal files as I feel it may not see out the week or even the day if I switch it off again.

Not much left now

Not much left of the hotel now. I was talking to someone at the football today about the place. A lot of memories from that place. More and more houses and flats are being built in the village yet more and more shops are shutting down. The main street now just has a Post Office and a picture framing shop. Even the spot this picture is taken FROM is no longer a shop - it is just a workshop/office. Gone are the newspaper shops, ladies dress shop, mini-market, butchers, antique shop, chinese carry-out shop and others that I can no longer remember. Gone are the tennis courts (3) but they may be making a comeback. Gone are the two putting greens. Gone is the police station. Gone is the railway station. Now there is just a shelter - it is no linger a "manned" station. Gone is the tennis pavillion. It would have been gone many years before before it actually did go as I accidentally nearly set fire to it. I lit a fire behind it but part of the pavillion caught fire. Gone is the boat building yard. a massive area of the seaside village - to be replaced by blocks of flats. Gone is the pier and its associated railway station/yard.

Printer cables

I found this bundle of printer cables in a cardboard box under my bed. I don't have that many printers so why do I need all these fecking cables.

scandisk

If there's one sight I hate seeing then it's this one (click for bigger pic)

Theatre of Dreams

28 years of my life I've been going to this dump of a ground. It's seen a slight lick of paint (probably for the first time in 28 years).
Click on the picture for a larger version. No point in showing the other pictures as they are either blurred or show nothing. The remainder of the ground is open terracing. I was the first person in the "stand" today. When the next person arrived he asked "have you been sitting there since last season" because I've been in hibernation since then as well as I sit (or usually stand) and the same position, week after week, season after season. Today we beat a team from the league above us 2-1 in a pre-season friendly. Although it can hardly be classed as a friendly when we had two players sent off and they had one sent off. Last week we also had a player sent off in a pre-season friendly.

24 bags of crisps

As the 18 bags of crisps didn't las long the last time I went for 24 this time. First bag was opened at 9:06pm......we shall see when I finish. I actuallt just went in for two 6 pint cartons of milk and ended up spemding £11.16

Cycle journey 4 (final)

The final picture is looking through the underpass to the start of the cycle lane.

I have already posted a picture looking from the other side. This is the best piece of cycling on my whole journey home. It is the smoothest of paths. I even try to cycle "no hands" but I can only manage a couple of yards and that's without pedalling. I once managed to cycle round the island of Millport completely no hands. I was stoipped by the police but I think that was because I was eating a bag of chips while cycling and I didn't like the pickled onion I was eating so I threw it behind me.....only for it to hit the police car windscreen. That takes me back to my rebellios youth. i could only have been about 14 at the time.

Cycle journey 3

This is looking at the underpass with the railway above. This is the third gate I come to. This time I couldn't be arsed lifting my bike over so I moved the rusty gate to the side.

Cycle journey 2

Click on the picture for the larger version

After throwing my bike over another fence I then cycle along this stretch of rough road (which is actually back in the direction I have just came from)

Cycle journey 1

Click on the picture for the larger version

Above is a rough road. I throw my bike over the gate and cycle (slowly down this road). This is the view looking up towards the main road. Now if I was looking down the way I would then turn left and I'd see this view........next post above

Test picture

Click on the picture for a bigger version

So I can upload a large picture and bloggerdoof will make it a reasonable size. And all this time I've been making them smaller myself. What a dumbass.

I think this was a bible thumping place at one time. Now it's bulldozed to make way for housing. Whattawaste.

Crisps

At 6:27pm tonight I bought 18 x 25g bags of crisps. It's now 1:28am and there are only two packets left. There just isn't the same amount of crisps as there used to be when I was a kid.
Time for some spaghetti bolognaise.

What's that gobshite doing on TV?

I'm bored with the crap that's on TV just now - so I thought I'd watch myself instead. And I just had to wave at the CCTV camera like an 18 year old. I was watching it earlier and because my hair had grown a bit I REALLY noticed the bald bits when I was walking underneath the camera (whose idea was it to have it up there looking down?) - so I had to shave it all off again. I'll need to get rid of the moss on my face now.

The object up against the wall (with the hideous wallpaper) is a table. Strange logic behind the buying of that table. I had bought another similar (but smaller table) earlier for about £120 then I noticed this larger one for about £60 (or less). Because it was cheaper I decided to buy it as well even though I didn't need it.

Shell

Shell - if I ever find you I am going to rip your fucking tits off.

This was on the stairway leading up to my flat. It's been there a few months now but I only just decided to take a picture of it. I was worried the person in the bottom flat came out while I was taking a picture of it. Or worse, came out when I was taking a picture of my wheelie bin.

21st Birthday presents

I mentioned below about a tv I got for my 21st birthday - well, here's the picture of it.

















19 years ago it would have been worth something but nowadays you can buy them with dvd players attached and teletext as cheap as chips. As you can see from the picture, England are on their way to their first (of five) humpings in the Ashes series against Australia.

I also got a razor :

It's getting easier to add pictures now to my blog. I got this pennant for sponsoring a match once. Doh - that's why it says "Match Sponsor". The first I knew I'd sponsored the match was when I read it in the matchday programme. I think I'd been drunk a few weeks previously and agreed to it. Then they were chasing after me for money.

Duster

My mother gave me this duster. She visited my flat one day and saw the state of it and had to give me this. Quite a handy wee thing. The place is still a mess though........but, like British Rail (an old advert) "I'm getting there".

Rap music

I don't dislike ALL rap music - but I'm getting pissed off the amount of times they will take a sample from a good song and then blurt their shit over the top of it. Or they will play the same bit over and over again from a really good song without completing the song - instead we have to listen to their inane drivel. Ot you will have some famous rapper blurting out crap........and at the back of the stage you will have some female singer doing the real singing but un-noticed.

The joys of being an old fart........they just don't make music like they used to.

Rabbit food

I'm sick and tired of buying "rabbit food" from the supermarket, for instance, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber etc and then forgetting to eat it. The two or three weeks later I have to throw it all out. Why can't lettuce come in tins?

Spider

There's a freakin' huge spider in my bathroom just now. Much bigger than the one I have already posted on this blog.

New computer

When I get round to buying it I'll then be faced with a new set of problems of getting it safe again....firewall, anti-virus. Then there's all the programs I'll need to re-install. I'll have to find them on this computer and try and figure out what all the various installation programs are. Nightmare.

Hay fever

I'm suffering from hay fever again.

Cricket

Imagine wanting it to rain so as you can geta draw out of the game. It's just not cricket I tell you.

Confusing

I've used a splitter cable so that now both my main computer and my laptop both use the same set of speakers. It can get confusing at times. For instance, just there, I removed my camera which is on a cradle attached by USB to my laptop. At the same time I was typing here on the main PC. The laptop beeped to warn me of the camera being removed and I thought I'd done something wrong while typing here.

Similarly, when I'm burning a CD. Because of the ancientness of this computer it still takes around 40 minutes to burn one and strangely I can only burn 642MB on a 700MB disc. I'll start the process and then start working on my laptop. I'll make a mistake on my laptop, it'll beep and I'll automatically think there is a problem with the cd burning process as I'm tha used to the PC using the speakers.

What a complete load of drivel. No wonder I never have a girlfriend. Who in their right mind would put up with me. Maybe Luba (see post below).

Another text

Another mysterious text that could be misinterpreted.

 

Shithole This was  a reference to the state of the flat I live in being rather untidy. I think I had mentioned I was going to take some pictuires of it as an incentive to get it a bit tidier. Back entrance This is the back entrance to this person's house which was being done up. Maybe it's just my filthy mind that read something more into this text.

My tv is about to die

My wee portable in the bedroom is about to die. It's had a good life. I first met him (or her) on my 21st birthday. He (or she) has served me well these last 19 years but I think the end is near. The good thing is I can then get a decent portable for the bedroom. God, (he (or she) is not even gone yet and I'm talking about a replacement. I also got a razor on my 21st birthday which I'm still using. Weird thing is - the hair clippers I use to trim my beard and rarely ever use on my head now. And the razor I NEVER use on my face but use to shave my head bald. No doubt this post will give me an excuse to photograph both items.

I wonder if Luba (see post below) would still want to meet me if she knew how I lived.

I half cleaned the kitchen yesterday. That floor was a flipping disgrace. I'm sure there were things growing on it. Still, the major part is now a bit cleaner.

Luba

Is this not desperate? I mean - how bad must it be for someone to resort to this? I feel sorry for you Luba, I really do.

The new school

A wee bit below is a post with a school on fire. Well here are three pictures of the monstrosity that took its place.

I've just remembered - this bit above was actually an extension to the original new building.

Going, going.....but not yet gone

Another picture of the hotel being knocked down. If you want to know why it is such a crappy looking picture it is because it is being taken from inside the office/workshop and the windows are absolutely manky. It will probably be down to the ground by the time I get back on Wednesday.

A poet

This is a photo of a text that was sent to me while I was at work. I won't say why it was sent and I've cropped out who actually sent it. But I don't think Robbie Williams has anything to fear when it comes to songwriting. I don't normally photograph text messages but there was no way I was not going to keep a copy of it. There is another text but I'm not sure if I should post it. I don't even understand what it means myself.

The wee red book

You know the new football season is about to start when the week red book appears in the newspaper shop. It's a lot bigger now than it used to be. I've got versions of this book going back to the 1950's. The original version was only 2�" x 4�" (70mm x 107mm) but now it's up to 3�" x 5�". t's now 264 pages (and was 144 pages)

Spider

This is the spider hiding in the toilet at the workshop/office where I work a couple of days a week. The wall is absolutely manky.

This is a photograph of a poster I made for the workshop/office toilet. It is actually a quite small spider but I zoomed in on it using the "macro focus" on my camera.

My defrag problem

I think I may have discovered why my defrag failed. I think the power may have been off in my flat for a couple of hours. Just noticed the time on my bedside alarm clock is two hours different from my computer clock which suggests the power was off for two hours. Or does it? I'm not too sure. Too tired to try and figure it out. My alarm rests to 12:00pm when the power goes out. So that's what probably buggered things up.

The cheap pot noodle

I have one of these as a "scooby-snack" when I'm at work. 35p from Morrisons.

It's amazing how something as disgusting looking as this


can turn in to a delicious meal just by adding boiling water


he says sarcastically.

Almost finished


Finally - all gone


a view from an angle


a tower of pot noodles

Cycle path

Elsewhere I posted a picture of a cycle path that ends in the middle of nowhere. Well, tonight, when cycling home I thought I'd cut across a field at roughly where this cycle path is on the main road. After jumping over three large gates I finally made it to the cycle path. It means I don't have to use the main road as much......especially in winter and the dark night. But the best thing of all is - because this cycle path is next to a yachting marina it is floodlit. There are no lights on the main road. Yippee.

Defragmenting

Started to defragment my computer at 11am today. 40 minutes later and it hasn't got beyond 10% yet. That's usually the first hurdle. So I'm guessing this is going to be a long one. I'm betting on 36 hours. From memory I think the last one was around 32 hours. I tell a lie. I did another defrag shortly after that mammoth one and it only took 8 hours or so. And that last 5% takes forever.

Update : after 47 minutes it changed to 11% and at 54 minutes it is still 11%. So by my calculation it should only take just over 7 hours. If only it were as simple as that. I wish there was something to indicate approximate time left. I'm still betting on 36 hours.

Second update : after 1 hour and 8 minutes it is 12%......getting up towards 9½ hours now if it was based on this. Thankfully I'm going to work now and won't be updating every % increase.

Think I'll need to start buying computer magazines as I prepare to buy a new computer.

Third update : I know I should have gone to work by now. At 12:54pm it reached 13% but it keeps going back to the start....although it quickly returns to where it was. Worrying when you notice it for the first time. Maybe the 36 hours prediction was too short.

Fourth and final update : Well, I get home from work about 9pm and the first thing I see is the monitor is showing the desktop - when it should be showing defrag either continuing or at most the defrag finished screen. Bugger me - it has failed. Need to try again tomorrow morning. Bugger.

This was just across the road from me. I remember sitting at my bedroom window as the drama unfolded outside....then started to worry as the flames got more intense. They've since built a new modern looking school in its place. What an absolute waste.

Evening Times

I'm pissed off the Evening Times waits until 5pm before updating its site now. Used to be 2pm and sometimes I could linger about my flat until 2pm just to see the sports update before going to work. Not any more. Only another 5 minutes to wait. What am I going to do for 5 minutes. Well, I could have a........but that would still leave 4½ minutes. Oh good, just typing that has hasted one minute. 3½" minutes now. The tension is undearable. See ya later - I'm off.

Mobile phone working again

Well my mobile is working again and I'm getting all these texts from a mad person thinking I have fallen out with them because I never replied to any. Well, I haven't fallen out with you......even after you called me a fat bald freak (I knew it wasn't meant in a bad way - at least I hope it wasn't meant in a bad way). All it took was switching the phone off and then back on again. I never switch the phone off - I just bung it on re-charge when the battery is going low.
So I'm in a slightly happier mood than my usual miserable self. I even managed a bit of work yesterday and I might even do some today. But I've still to make a decision on all these monitors. A wise person would just throw them all out.

Monitor wasn't burst after all

Just got my new flat screen monitor working and it looks as though it is the computer that is faulty and not the monitor. Well, as I couldn't test any other monitors on it how was I supposed to know. So I've now got an extra 19" CRT monitor. I may replace one of my 17" monitors with it and just have the 17" one sitting about doing nothing. I already have five 15" monitors sitting about the flat gathering dust and one 13" monitor. Why can't I just throw them out? I've also got a scanner that only works on Windows 95......and none of my computers have Windows 95.

Hay fever

Suffering from hay fever just now. Sneezing like mad and rubbbing my eyes till there's nothing left of them

TFT Monitor

Well, I've finally been forced to join the modern world and get a flat screen monitor.
BENQ FP937s 19" is the one I went for - because it had just been reviewed in PC World and was cheap. I hope I don't have any bother getting it to work on my computer. No other monitor has worked on it yet but I assume with the correct disk I should get this new one to work. I'd be better off getting a new computer. All my computers run on Windows 98SE and that's just too old.

Loud music
I had to laugh in the supermarket tonight. They had put the music on far too loud by mistake. It was only when they noticed old grannies disco dancing they thought to turn it down.

The end of the road

This is where the cycle path comes to an end. If I did manage to get my bike over this gate (dunno if it's locked or not) I'd then have to walk with my bike some distance to get me back on the main road. maybe someday they will upgrade it and I can start to use the cycle path home instead of risking my life on the road. You see, whenever I get on my bike, I seem to become invisible to car drivers.

A tideir flat?

Why is it I can spend most of the day tidying up my flat and it hardly looks any tidier. It would help if I actually threw some things out instead of keeping them.

Like this for instance

I have no idea what these cables are for. I bought a huge bundle of cables off Ebay and threw most of them away as they were no use......but I kept these. Nine months later and I still haven't used them yet.

Lights, camera, action

This is my living room door of my flat. There are flashing disco lights surrounding it just now. Also in the picture is a camera pointing towards my settee. I have in the past lay on the settee and watched myself lying on the settee on the TV. Exciting life I lead.

I really should throw things out

This can of lager was bought two days before my 17th birthday. 29th May 1982. Scotland had just been beaten by England at Hampden and when I saw this in the "carry-out" shop after the game I juts had to buy it.

The untidy flat 2

Second picture - On top of the wardrobe Beneath the green Safeway baskets is old neswpapers sports pages going back years. I keep the sports pages of The Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald, The Ayrshire Post, The Irvine Herald and The Largs & Millport Weekly News. I've been keeping some of them since 1991 so as you can imagine it is quite a bundle to keep in my tiny flat. Next to this is my tumble drier. Next are some football magazine and then more newspapers archive in A3 Landscape Lever arch files. On top of these are a couple of computer monitors and a tiny tv/radio.

The untidy flat 1

Ans so begins a series of untidy flat pictures. This first one is in response to Bananaman's comment asking if I really never did throw anything out. Well, apart from the football magazine in the case, on top is a dot matirx printer, a fax machine and an A3 printer. None of which I use. The fax machine does have the phone part connected - I don't know why because just out of the picture is a small phone I do use when in the bedroom. The small phone cost �1 on Ebay plus �2.25 to post it. The fax machine - there is a fax machine in the living room but the fax friend thing was fried by either lightining or the power going on and off. So if anyone wants to send me a fax they need to phone me first so I can plug the fax machine in. So the fax machine has never been used as a fax machine - just a phone. The massive roll of bubble wrap. Why do I keep that? I'm not going to send anything to anyone. Maybe I'll use in in some weirs sexual perverted game.....but that would mean kidnapping some unsuspecting woman and dragging her back to the flat. Not funny I know.

Milk carton full of rubbish

I manage to crush most of my rubbish into a 6 pint milk carton so there is no spillage in the wheelie bin - so I get annoyed when other people use my bin and just throw their rubbish in and stinks the bin out. The metal tins are cleaned out and crushed up. I was wishing the council would have recycling bins for them but they assure me the metal is seperated out at their rubbish tips.

My untidy flat

I've been taking photos of various parts of my flat. It ios an absolute disgrace just now. I intend posting the pictures on her in the hope it will shame me into tidying the plae up.

Craigie Rock

Craigiw Rock in Fairlie. I was just cycling by this tonight and hurriedly took a photo (I did stop). To the left of it and out of view was the old church manse - now bought by someone and used as a normal house. As a 15 and 16 year old we used to pitch our tent at the top and get legless on cider. Of all the places to park a tent. It was great for throwing things at passing cars.

.....and from the side

and now a view from the side

Toothbrushes 1

A view of my old toothbrushes from above

Tiny kitchen

This is the tiny kitchen where i make my coffe when I'm at work. In case you're wondering what the mess on the wall is, well, there was a larger water heater there before but it was removed and replaced by the smaller one. One of the concrete building blocks seems to have a face in it. Maybe not a picture of Jesus - but a face nonetheless.

Recycling envelopes

I do my bit for the environment. I re-use envelopes. Punch holes in them and keep them together with metal clips. I have dozens of these.

I've taken a picture of this before - on my mobile phone/camera but this is a better version. The hotel across the road from my office is being demolished. There was once three pubs/hotels in the village now there's only one. One of them wa actually quite a large hotel - obviously too large for the village.

Coffee

I think this cup could do with a clean.

My mother brought this down to the office/workshop tonight for me. 40 years old and my mum is still bringing me meals now and then. I took a picture of it (obviously) and I had the large size version of it on full screen on my laptop while I was typing an e-mail on my other computer. I happened to glance across and went to pick up a spoon to take a bite of it. That was a disappointment I tell you to find it wasn't real.

Clocks are big, Machines are heavy

Only one hour 44 minutes to go and then it's home, sweet home.