Oh, what a party!

With the celebration of my new bath room as pretext, I invited friends over yesterday. Some decided a safe distance would be Långban, Marstrand, Lisbon, or Cape Town, but rest assured, they will eventually be partied as well, resistance is futile.

For those that came, there was the usual miscellany of experimental food (Danish chicken sandwiches, Norwegian prince cake) and newly discovered fruit juices, teas and even a spot of Néscafe (I'm not a coffee drinker, OK?), yet I found stuff in the fridge this morning that I had forgotten to put on the table, but I hope nobody had to leave hungry. As usual, there was a certain coming and going so we didn't run out of chairs even at maximum occupancy when everybody decided to cram into the kitchen to paste various glops onto bread and munch away by the table. (My home-made shrimp margarine was a hit—it was gone long before I'd had a chance to taste it&hellip) A certain tension was discovered between those who wanted to discuss wireless networks and those who were more occupied with the upcoming Hobby Fair.

And I gots presents, from the scientifically excavated gun cartridges to colour matched towels.

As the day went on, only the most hardcore revellers remained, carefully going through my bookshelf and my stack of unbuilt models. (“What? I'm quite sure the Airfix Wellington was much larger when I was a kid!”)

My friends are bums.

In the end only the Only-begotten Son remained for some quality time and I tried to rack my brain for what I remembered of Maclaurin expansion—calculus is a bit hazy for me 25 years later… Eventually he returned to his studies and I could have a quick electronic exchange with Honeybuns, who hadn't been able to attend.

And then, to bed.

Veckans ord: övervikt

Häromdagen satt jag med ett kuvert jag inte trodde jag skulle behöva och vek förstrött ihop det i lager på lager. Så visade det sig att jag visst skulle använda det och fick veckla ut det igen. Det var svårt att få in papperet i kuvertet som blivit alldeles övervikt.

Word of the week: nose whee

The book I'm currently reading makes reference to a nose whee, certainly that is the exhilarating feeling I get stepping out on the apron and feeling the smell of jet fuel.

The mauve bathroom is no more

Quite apart from the colour scheme, my bathroom has been in urgent need of renovation. In fact I have been rather concerned with the possibility of water damages. So now I had saved up enough money to afford the work and sent out queries on Bello. About half a dozen contractors responded and I asked them in to make cost estimates. These ranged from 25 kSEK to over a 100. Bello lets the customers give quality assessments of the contractors, so I could with good conscience drop the lowest bidders, as they seemed to perform at lowest quality as well. The highest bidder also had top marks for all criteria, but I just couldn't afford them, so the guy in the middle it was.

They did a decent enough job, though they left cement dust over absolutely everywhere. I'll be dusting it off the furniture from here to Christmas I fear. My downstairs neighbours were also rather upset when the contractors managed to smash through their ceiling, but they sorted things out without me having to take further part in the proceedings.

A bit to my surprise I found I have no pictures of the bathroom from before the renovation started, but here are a few shots from during the process itself.

Tools, tiles and grout all over the hallway.	The walls torn out, the floor drain relocated.	Junk to be taken away.
Nice new shower doors.	Blinding white porcelain.	Ivar FTW in the bathroom too.

Douglas Adams meme

“He would put on the record of bagpipe music.”

Put a Douglas Adams quote in your blog.

With determined steps towards the chasm

I have not been very productive at work lately. This is how it has gone:
It has been a fairly hot summer at times and the fans in my laptop got to sound squeakier and squeakier—worn out presumably. I got a repair ticket prepared at the company that does our hardware service and thought I'd drop off the laptop as I went on holidays. The last two weeks before this date the laptop in addition became very very slow, showing a beachball per keypress on average. Well, presumably this would be fixed during service.

So, I went on hols and dropped off the laptop at service. I also specifically requested they'd do a backup of the contents (separately priced option).

When I came back from holidays, the laptop had not been fixed. Call and remind them. A couple of days later I got a call that it was done. I went and picked it up. Yes, the fans were now smooth and silent. However, it was still very slow. Call service guys: “Thanks for the fans, but the laptop is running very slowly, didn't you notice that when you tested it?” “No, we just tested the fans.” “You could hardly have turned it on without noticing…” “You probably just need to reinstall the system.”

Hmm, that would be a major operation. Well, but why might it be running so slowly to begin with? Poke around console logs and error messages. Hmm, here's a weird message being emitted every ten seconds, but what does it mean? Google for relevant bits and find discussion on blogs: “The disk has been overheated, get a new one.” Oh, I can still read from the disk, but apparently it's going to get worse. OK, so I need a new disk. I'd better call the service guys again: “Hi, it seems I need to replace the hard disk, lucky that you have a fresh backup for me!” “Uhmm, eh, actually, no, we don't.” “What? But I asked for a backup and you said you keep them around for two to three weeks.” “Uh, eh, well, no, we wiped it, uh, yesterday. Probably we were running out of disk space.”

Effing brill! OK, now what? I'll have to do a backup of my own. Procure disk. Yeah, this has an earlier backup of mine on it, but I'll have to throw it away to fit in the new backup. (Simplification of the real reasons, but the result is the same.) Done. Now, to start the backup. *grind* *grind* *grind* Eventually it is clear that at this rate of performance it will take approximately two weeks to back up my hard disk, unless it breaks down finally first. Well, what to do? Grin and bear it. I wonder how the service guys managed to make a backup in less than a day. Yet another call gives only vague and clearly unworkable answers.

A consequence of the backup is that I can't lock up the laptop in the safe for the night, as the two-week estimate is based on uninterrupted transfer. Well, what to do? So this goes on for a week and a half, and then when I get in one morning I meet a grinning colleague: “Guess whose laptop got stolen in the burglary last night?” Of course… And while the burglars had been as cock-snookingly polite as to leave the external hard disk on the table, the interrupted backup had been corrupted and was unreadable.

*sigh* Now what? “Maybe you can take the little white one?” OK. Hmm, it seems hung somehow. “Yeah, it's a bit dodgy, you have to do a remote install on it to get it running.” Install. Install. Incompatibility. Re-install. When I finally am on the way to get things up and running, the dreaded lurgy strikes and I'm bedridden. Now I'm on my second week of coughing, missing deadlines left and right.

Life, don't talk to me about Life!

Veckans ord: Krigslida

Förr behövde man bara hålla sig undan för stridspittarna och deras lumparhistorier, men med kvinnornas intåg i Försvarsmakten kan man nu också hitta en och annan Krigslida i terrängen.

Machtübernahme von hinter die Regalen

Martin R anar konspirationer i vassen:
– Samhällets mest rasrena härskarstam är bibliotekarierna.
Jag:
– De är ju dock i allmänhet alltför otränade för att klara att ta makten med våld, men den dagen de går ihop med gymnazisterna får vi se upp.
– En dag kommer all deras storhet att bara vara gamla papper som tas om hand av de veka och degenererade arkivarierna.
– Fast om de påbörjar en avelskampanj med seminarier?