Kirrus’ Blog

Note: Another rambling, mostly un-edited dump of my thoughts.

After my dump yesterday I’ve had a full lovely day of not doing much in the slightest, I’m feeling a bit better today, you’ll be glad to hear. I’m not exactly running round grinning, but at least I’m no-longer close to tears. Memories buried, ready to re-emerge next year, maybe earlier if I ever work out how to find someone to whom I can talk to and whom can help. (Comments and suggestions welcomed.)

My state yesterday wasn’t exactly helped by the fact that I was tired, partially caused by being woken a couple of times in the middle of the night to fix servers going ary. Luckily, however, my last alert last night was at around 4 am - I slept through till 11 this morning. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job; in the past 6 months I’ve learnt more about the linux CLI than the 2 years before. (I’ve been using Linux for 2 and a half years now.) But, there are some downsides, one of those being on-call every once in a while. (If a server goes wrong in the middle of the night, someone has to fix it. And, unfortionatly, they don’t all fail at predictable, helpful, times.) Christmas on-call is uniquely bad, just because it’s, well, Christmas. I’ve been quite lucky, in that I was able to call my collegue this morning and hand it off to him - normally the new guy works christmas day.

Anyway, I think that’s quite enough rambling for one night. I’m heading to bed now, where I’ll probably sit reading for a while. I hope to go wandering looking for photos tomorrow, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get round to reviewing my recent reads (as promised) If I’m really lucky, I might start work on a wordpress theme for my blog. Or not, as the case is more likely to be

Note: What follows is a mind-dump. I will ramble

Anyone who ever gets to know me, normally learns that my parent’s are divorced, and the divorce is what I attribute my current social ineptitude for. If my parents had never divorced, I’d never have started using first books, and then computers,  as an escape from the real world. Without that, I’d not be where I am today, probably not even be the person I am today, even down to being a Christian.

Christmas is not a good time of the year for me. This year, once again, I’ve returned to the house in which I spent the latter years of my childhood. This place has a lot of memories lurking around the corner, a lot of which I can seemingly no-longer access.

Each Christmas, the rule was we spend Christmas day with one parent, and new year with another, alternating year on year. For the first year, I’ve broken that rule for reasons too boring to list. This year, I’ve stayed with my mum for Christmas, whilst my brother has headed up north with dad. This has given me time to think, never a good thing for me. It’s ended up that I’ve finished 2 books in 4 days, and I started a third book this evening (Wednesday, Christmas eve). I’m now at page 150, of a book which has 568.

Sitting here typing, I’m feeling dreadful, truly awful, and putting my finger on the cause is not easy. Of late I’ve had little energy to do much but work, slowly reading a book here and there, and I’ve yet to fully start a project I was planning before I was made redundant. For some reason, when I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer and do anything that does not provide total escapism.  (This includes buying Christmas gifts.) Am I getting lonely? The final result of being a loner, afraid of going anywhere which involves complex, unfamiliar human interaction or that involves meeting and talking with more than 15-30 people whom I don’t know?

Am I getting depressed, a weird state of mind turning into a energy-sapping beast?

If ever, someone says that “divorce does not harm children”, point them at this blog please. Better yet, let me meet them, face to face.

As I sit here on the verge of breaking down in tears, excuse me if I leave this now and try to grab some sleep. I hope it won’t be too hard to come to.

Ideas from other websites

(if it’s your website, please let me know, i’ll attribute it)

Yep, date ideas.  from other websites. Could do with a handy javascript selector - weather: sunny, wet, cold, commitment level: fun, dating, serious, love

# Check with your local museum for days when admission is free. Even if you pay, it’s still a relative bargain for an all day date.

# Enjoy free live music, share a cup of coffee, and browse new titles at your local bookstore.

# Go to the mall, not to shop but to people watch! Sit on a bench together and chat about the people you see. Try to figure out who they are and what they are shopping for.

# Volunteer for a cause you both believe in. Work at their events and attend for free - they get help and you get a free night out.

Grab a trash bag or a plastic tray and sleigh ride down a snowy hill. When you get to the bottom (or fall off your “sled”), roll around with each other in the snow.

Buy a membership or a season pass to an activity you both like (your local Y, nearby theme park, community theater, state parks pass). Use it as often as you like during season for some quality together time you will both enjoy. Once it’s paid for, the rest of your dates are “free.”

Make a couple of pans of brownies. Then drive to various friends’ houses and deliver a small plate of brownies to each friend and visit for a while. When it becomes too late to be visiting people, go home and finish off the brownies.

On a sunny Saturday morning, travel around the countryside and photograph special sites and serene scenery.

Go to a local animal shelter and play with the animals. Maybe you’ll find a new friend together!

Want to perform a unique deed for someone? Go to a self-serve gas station and do all the work for the surprised customers. Make sure to get permission from the gas station attendant first.

Go to a playground that’s not in use and play! Take along a picnic lunch, baseball, bat, Frisbee or outdoor toys (blowing bubbles is fun)? Have a great lunch after playtime.

Find your local comedy club and laugh yourselves silly.

Original ideas by Garreth (this list will grow!)

(hope she doesn’t see these till i’ve tried them it’d spoil the suprise!)

Get a travelcard and go on a journey on the tube! You can just go anywhere and people spot, and chat. Best to do it at a quiet time tho. Comments as to when quiet times are please

Get some plain mugs (woolworths 39p atm, get them quick!) and mug paint from an arts/crafts/stationary shop and paint the mug for each other.

Both of you collect small items over the week, for example rail cards, receipts pieces of paper, buisiness cards (and take photos of your week [disposable camera/maximum 5-10 shots]) tickets, then at the end of the week,  give the items to your partner to look at one by one and talk about your week, including how you felt about your week. Good if you don’t get to see your partner as often as you’d like.

Goto Small local gigs

later on…bigger stuff like big gigs etc

Please comment and leave your own ideas and ideas you have tried!

Of late, I’ve had a little bit of a fried brain, especially after working a full day. I’ve come close to total overload a couple of times, which is a scary experience, especially when you’re in the middle of a supermarket.

A couple of days ago, I also started loosing my grip on reality, a scary experience in any circumstance. I think It might have something to do with needing glasses - the headaches can be debilitating. (So far, reality loss was the only time I’ve used pain killers - I don’t like pills.)

Fun fun. Heading to my family home this weekend. Looking forward to it! Maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually get time to go out looking for something to photograph. That’ll make a change

My new computer’s been running for a couple of days now, and its very nice. CPU’s running cool (26 degrees C, all 4 cores flat out and over-clocked.) Still, the main reason I caved into building it, was so that I could resume playing RTS’s. (The interface is a bit too sluggish on the 360…)

Red Alert 3: Got to the allies campaign… to hear a lot of (mostly) fake British accents. We’ve got a cockney tank, posh British spy (as normal), American commando and French laser-artillery (inference much?!). The standard ‘posh fake British accent’ that hollywood seems to think we Brits all speak provided by ‘Eva’, the lieutenant who gives you your orders. Which reminds me: EA Los Angeles - We don’t say ‘bloody’ that much. Leave off on them next time, please?

Just as well I’m just playing it to blow stuff up, rather than for the (bad) plot and (atrocious) acting. I wish it was made by westwood

Went out after work today to go to a bible study, in Soho, London. To get to the study, I walked through one of the red light districts, my first time anywhere near one. After the lights, obvious moneyed chain stores and almost permanent daylight of the area just outside the tube station, the red light district was a massive contrast.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a taxi driver yesterday evening. He was amazed that I refuse to have sex before I get married, even wanted to take me to a red light district, and not with the purpose of walking through it.

Was interesting standing outside after the study, handing out ‘tracts, watching the people hurry past. You get a lot of different types of people  using the shortcut through the red light district, as well as people going into it to use it. Money, hard-worker, foreign, prostitutes, friends, family, partners. A real mix. Kind of describes london - a melting pot, but one that is more segargated by cultures than the words ‘multi-culturalism’ suggest, even in our own, existing class boundaries.

Argh! I failed the challenge. Managed to get caught up watching a film last night, and before I knew it, it was past midnight.

Had a good day yesterday though. Apart from someone’s computer refusing to install / run Ubuntu (looked something like memory errors. Should probably do a memtest on it).

I probably will drop my posting now - there’s not much point now that I’ve failed. I can’t belive I failed over half way through. So frustrating

To the Ubuntu-UK Planet folks: This post has nothing to do with Ubuntu! Someone once mentioned that it was nice having photos come up on the planet, so I’ve directed this post there. If you don’t want me to send these posts, mail me. If you don’t get the “Day 15″ thing, read this.

As my brother mentioned, today I headed back to London, ready to go to church tomorrow. I decided to take photos of my journey, in the middle of it.

I got to Victoria, and then I need to make my way across London to Paddington Station. Circle Line (My normal method) was closed, so I travelled across on the Victoria and Bakerloo lines.  By the time I got to victoria, I was feeling realy rough, and almost ready to throw up. I probably have a bug

Here begins the photos:

Regents Park tube station

Apparently, we should “Trust our senses”. Almost feels like a war-time poster (one on the right). Anti-terror gone mad. (Remember those classics, “Your country needs YOU!” and “Loose lips sink ships”?)

Lunch-keeping water.

Water bought at Victoria station, helped me keep my lunch where it belongs, as did:

Yum

Well, its an interesting way to keep your lunch, but it works, thankfully. Now I just hope that this bug is defeated by the end of Monday - ready for work on Tuesday!

I did see one interesting advert. Seems Mr Obama (President Elect of the United States of America) is on adverts on trains in London, UK. Strange!

Still, I was very happy when I saw my employer’s logo - journey almost over!

As usual, click on any image to see it in a higher resolution. If you want me to post any on flikr (in full resolution from the camera) let me know.

Ok, so Kirrus has just left - he was visiting home for a break and to get Christmas pressies lol.

He’s taken with him his Microsoft keyboard which I was using with my laptop and a second monitor, so now I need a new keyboard.

So I’ve looked around, and the best keyboard I could find quickly is made by…you’ve guessed it, none other than our arch nemesis - Microsoft. It’s a Microsoft Natural 4000 in actual fact (to save you having having to google the reviews).

Now I don’t mind buying a Microsoft keyboard if it is the best available, but I’m not so happy that my money is going to them - surely they have plenty already and they don’t seem to be using it to develop excellent operating systems.

So my point to you Ubuntu (Canonical) folks - Please start making (good, obviously) keyboards! I would much rather my money going towards the development of a competitor; into the development of Ubuntu!

And since I have made so many mentions of them, I feel I must balance it up. Every time any of the staff or students at the school I work complain of Viruses, I always suggest they would be better off using Ubuntu, from Canonical and many other individuals. Ubuntu is certainly maturing very nicely. I think it’s nearly ready. If only Ubuntu had an alternative Desktop management configuration system like it’s competitor. That would really make Ubuntu Rock.

Thanks Ubuntu and Cannonical, and all you ‘others’!

Didn’t do too much today. Rolled a couple of things into it. Caught up with my rss feeds, updated my laptop. Switched the theme this blog is running on last night - someone complained that it was hard to read. I did mean to use the K2 framework to build a theme myself, but I’ve just not got round to it.

Sitting down to watch Borne Identity now…

.. Some time later..

Just went and had a look at my Google Reader’s trend data. I’ve read 59 items today, of which 41 was posted today. I’m subscribed to 72 feeds. but by far the noisiest (at 18 items per day) is Planet Ubuntu.

.. even later ..

Upgrading twitter tools appears to have broken stuff. Its too late to fix it now, I’m off to bed.