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2001-12-13 Entry: "Meanderings"

For the past couple of days I've been half asleep at my desk. I'm guessing lack of sleep is the main problem - getting caught up in whatever novel I happen to be reading and then finishing it about midnight to one a.m. wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have to crawl out of bed at six thirty every morning. Okay, technically I don't have to get up for another hour, but to work the hours I do and get a reasonable evening requires it.

It also doesn't help that the house is so damned cold at the moment. Of course, the house is never all that warm - the heating is set for 20 degrees or so, and is only on for eight to ten hours a day, which should be enough to heat the house - unfortunately, my room is at the end of the central heating system, so it's the last radiator to heat up, by which time the living room (where the thermostat is) is up to the correct temperature and the stupid thing switches off again. This tends to mean I'm cold (wearing t-shirts year round probably doesn't help matters!).

The tiredness has left me a little foggy as far as concentration is concerned, so I've been avoiding doing serious work as much as possible (the deadline's still a long way off anyway, I can afford to be slack). It does however mean that I can't actually think of anything to write about here, so I'm rambling slightly.

My sick grandparent had to have a second operation due to a blockage - she seems to be alright again, but they had to take some bag out, so we've got to hope she's on the mend quite quickly... presumably I'll get another chance to visit at the weekend.

Also this weekend I've got to track down some CD-Rs that my writer actually likes - the pack of 100 I purchased seem to be causing it no end of trouble. They're rated "Multispeed 1x-16x" so I should be able to write at any speed I like. The writer however only actually likes me if I pick 4x - It should go higher, but always fails. At 4x and 2x, these disks are being reported as "does not support this speed" which is slightly suspicious, and at 1x not only does it take forever, but it tends to crash about two thirds of the way through. Going through ten disks in various experiments, I've given up and will hunt for better disks Saturday.

Mutant X still hasn't managed to tell an original story. Last night's was relatively predictable, with a couple trying to do what's right for their mutant son. Of more amusement was Stargate SG-1 before it. I missed the first couple of minutes, but it was basically an Armageddon rip-off. Giant asteroid about to collide with earth and our team have to go up and plant a bomb. Things obviously do not go as planned, and the sequence where the try to disarm the bomb was great - "When we get back to Earth, remind me to tell them that this is a very badly designed bomb" - as they find that the five wires (of which four need to be cut) are all yellow. At least they found a solution that was consistent with the physics subscribed to in the show - hyperspacing the rock through the Earth wouldn't have been possible in Star Trek...

And, after much confusion, it looks like Robert Downey Jr. has finally left Ally McBeal - and it looks like they had plenty of time to plan this; I'm not sure how that happened.