Floating down to Camelot

I got a new phone this week, prompted by the fact that my old phone's battery was struggling to survive half a day. I would like to say that I approached my purchasing decision with intelligence and sophistication, carefully reading up on all the specifications and making Lists, before dazzling the phone shop staff with my clear and incisive articulation of my conclusions. Well, I still could say that, but it would be a lie. What I actually did was go into the shop and say, "I want a phone that will cost me about the same as I'm paying now, works the same as my current phone and fits into this nifty little pocket in my handbag." The chap brought me two options. One didn't fit into the little pocket. One did, and as an added bonus, was a nice shiny pale gold. "I'll have it," I said.

And so I have a new phone. You are probably interested in all the technological specifications, so here are its key features.

1. It is very fond of skating, or maybe downhill skiing. I could put my old phone on the couch beside me, and it would usually stay where it was put. My new one slowly, inexorably skates towards me, gradually gaining speed until it hits me on my toe. (I always sit with my legs curled beneath me, which is why my toe is beside me on the couch.) I can press down the couch cushion and ensure that it absolutely, inarguably flat, and what happens? Yes, another ski run, terminating on my toe, even as the remote controls that were next to it are still sitting there unmoving. "Right!" I can say to it, as I slightly press down the far side of the couch cushion, so that if the phone decides to go skating, it will skate away from me, to nestle safely in the slight indentation between the un-sat-on cushions. And what happens? Yes, once again, it skates towards me, defying gravity, and hits me on the toe.

2. Actually, writing up point 1 makes me wonder if it has some sort of magnetic attraction towards me. I did wonder why the phone shop man spent quite so long setting up my phone. I thought he was just registering things and transferring data, but maybe he was also establishing some sort of new-fangled homing magic, so the phone would always find its owner. Or its owner's toe, at least. I can see that this would be quite useful.

3. My old phone had rounded edges, so when I put it down on a hard surface, I could easily pick it up. My new phone is thinner and less grippable, and when it's on the glass surface of the coffee table, it strongly resists any attempt to pick it up. I often end up having to slide it off the edge, and trying to catch it before it decides to do an Eddie the Eagle impression and land on my toe. Sometimes random buttons get pressed as I do this. As is the habit of random buttons pressed by accident (or cats), this will probably result in an awesome feature opening up, one which I will never again discover by design, as long as my phone and I both shall live.

4. It's shiny!

My Kindle keeps freezing up. If I try to reset it, it gets half way through the process, then freezes again. Plugging it into the computer for a while and then trying again has worked a few times, but within a few hours, it freezes again. Annoyingly, it's just over a year old, so out of warranty. Looking online, it seems as if buying a new one is the only real option when Kindles fail, though Amazon might give me a discount for this. I'll have to contact them tonight and see what they say. Pellinor, meanwhile, has lost his new Kindle after just a month, either on the ferry or in a tapas bar, so it's not been a very good few days for Kindles in our house.

In completely unrelated news, I noticed today that the "Healthy Choice" version of Co-op's own brand natural yogurt is higher per 100g in calories, fat, saturated fat and sugar than the regular, non-healthy version. The pot is the same size, too. How can this be?

I've got today off work, due to working tomorrow, so decided to go for my first island Big Walk since Walk the Wight, and my first walk of any description since hurting my back. It was gorgeous weather, scenery-wise, although a little hot for my taste. I didn't take a camera, since if I carry it in my rucksack, it's too much of a hassle to use, and if I carry it round my neck, it hurts my back over long distances, but I did rather regret it, since everywhere looked so blue and sparkling and lovely. Purbeck was clearly visible, and the sea below the cliffs of West Wight were completely transparent, and a beautiful blue-green.

There were flowers everywhere, far more than I can remember, and loads of butterflies. Restharrow, yarrow, ragwort and knapweed (and many others) for the first few miles, with various brown butterflies, and a few painted ladies (?) thrown in to the mix. On the chalk downs just east of Freshwater, there were chalkhill blues rising up with every step, though fewer than last year, and I didn't see any adonis blues this time, or the lovely furry caterpillars I remember from September two years ago. Harebells, absolutely thousands of gentians, most of them not quite in flower, eyebright... and lots of others I can't remember. Carpets of pink heather in the occasional places where island geology gets Interesting. I must go back in a week or two and see if all the gentians are in flower.

We're going out to dinner in half an hour or so - or whenever Pellinor gets off the ferry, this being something subject to change, since the Bestival is bringing tens of thousands of people to the island. (They're already emptied Sainsbury's of canned lager and cider this afternoon.) This is our three-weeks-too-late celebration of our wedding anniversary, the correct date clashing with Cowes Week.

My desktop computer has been given up as beyond repair. I've got its sad remains back so I can get data off, and now we need to decide what new one to order. Annoyingly, my laptop is also playing up, frequently denying all knowledge of being connected to a source of power, and draining the battery to empty despite being plugged in. Battery life is ticking down alarmingly as I write this, so I'd better stop.

Well, I survived. It was even more hard work and busy than last year, despite having Pellinor around a lot more (due to his no longer playing Knight Commander) and despite me managing to get to bed a few hours earlier each night. A lot of things worked better than last year, I think, and my "things I want to do different next year" list will be a lot shorter than it was last year, but it was shattering for ( the following reasons )

The final straw came yesterday when I knew I had to leave at c. 9.25 to catch the 9.53 local train, which would give me 50 minutes hanging around at Sheffield before catching the 11.23 train to Southampton. I had a seat reservation on this train, and my ticket was invalid on any other train. However, a couple of things came up just as I was leaving, and I ended up having to run part of the way, only for the level crossing barrier to come down as I reached it, separating me from the platform as my train came in. I collapsed sobbing and pretty much had a meltdown on the verge, too exhausted from running to even stand.

Pellinor raced out in the van to pick me up (pretty much literally), and arranged a lift to get me to Sheffield. Just before leaving, the lady who was about to drive me there said, "You've got your tickets?" and I double checked... only to discover that I was actually booked on the 1.23 train from Sheffield. So, yes, I managed to well nigh kill myself by missing a train I wasn't even aiming for. At least laughing at my stupidity gave me a second wind, and allowed me to go back to the bar and play dodgy market trader by flogging off leftover food to anyone prepared to give me a reasonable offer.

By the way, thanks for all the computer help. It was good to get reassurance en route, although I have to admit that once I was there, my cat-feeder could have phoned to tell me that the house had burned down, and I'd have said, "yes, yes, okay, fine... now where's the lid to the soup kettle, and I need 95 mugs NOW!" I'm too tired and zombiefied to bother trying to get it fixed today - or indeed to do anything useful with it, even if I had it all working properly - so I'll probably wait until Pellinor gets home.

Oh, and my bad back more or less stood up to things, at least until my epic but fruitless running adventure yesterday. It hurts quite a bit today - alternating between pain and pins and needles - but I'm sure it'll be fine soon.

Quite a lot of websites that I visit every day are ones that I've never bothered to bookmark, since they're listed in the drop-down list that appears when I click the down arrow on the address bar. In the past, I've always clicked on the arrow, selected the site, and the site has immediately loaded. However, a few weeks ago, things changed on my desktop computer. Now I have to click on the arrow, select the site, and then click on a little sideways arrow that's appeared, captioned "go to the address in the location bar." Not very arduous, I have to admit, but I am not at all used to this extra step, meaning that nine times out of ten I click on the address, and sit there for ages doing nothing, expecting the site to start loading automatically. I'll get used to it soon, you might say, except that it still works the old way on my work computer and on the laptop, which is where I do most of my browsing.

So the question is: is there something I can do to change it back? I've looked at every option I can find on Firefox, and have tried Googling a solution, but no joy yet. Yes, it's only a tiny little inconvenience, and I'll doubtless get used to it eventually, but I'd rather it go away.

Oh, curses. I've now remembered one of the reasons why I've not played any solo computer games for a few years: my computer makes such a hideous noise when it's thinking hard that I can't hear any of the in-game dialogue, and can't bear even to be in the same room as it for any length of time. I lasted barely five minutes of the game I just began. I could play the entire game on the additional monitor in Pellinor's room, I suppose, but that only works when he's out, and I don't want to start a game that I can only play at certain limited times. Alternatively, I could wear headphones, but I really don't like them, and only wear them when I really have to. Grr! I wonder if something can be done to make my computer more quiet, or if I need to consider getting a new one. It's always been a bit wierd, this one. It doesn't respond at all well to being moved, for one thing, and at last year's Wightfrag, every single day it refused to load Windows until it had been passed ritually around the room from hand to hand.

I can't see pictures on my Friends page. Or, rather, I can see pictures just fine, as long as they're linked from some external source. If people post a picture direct to their LJ, I not only can't see the picture, I also don't even get any indication at all that a picture is absent. This caused quite a lot of bafflement before I worked out what the problem was, since I got completely empty posts, or quite notes culminating in "and then I saw this..." and then just ending. Often, it was only other people's comments that showed me that I was missing the whole point of the post.

I don't know if it's a related issue, but I can't post pictures directly to my own LJ, either. If I try, I get the message "you must be logged in to do this," or something along those lines, even though I am logged in.

I use Firefox, properly updated with all latest versions. I also can't view pictures when using Firefox on the laptop, but when I dig out an ancient copy of Internet Explorer and view my Friends page through that, all the pictures are present and correct.

Is there some obvious setting that I need to change?

I don't normally post about things that make me sad, so just to get them all out of the way in one go:

- As those who read his journal know, Pellinor got made redundant shortly before Christmas. They're giving him a large enough lump of money that we're not going to in any financial difficulties - not for a good long while, anyway - and I know that many other people have lost their jobs in far worse situations, but it's still a worry.

- My computer is on its last legs, and has been refusing to boot up properly for the last few weeks. Every time I switch it off, I wonder if it will be for the last time. Pellinor has been taking it apart and fiddling in its innards, which usually allows it to limp through one more day, but I've had rather a lot less computer time these last few weeks than normal - one explanation for the fact that I've been far worse than normal at updating and commenting. We do have a laptop as back-up, but for some reason, things I read on the laptop never seem quite real, and I've never got the hang of writing on it at all.

- This whole business about LJ possibly vanishing is worrying me. Even though I don't post as often as I used to, I'd be absolutely lost without it.

- I normally avoid writing about fandom things on this journal, but the final episode of Stargate Atlantis is airing on Friday. I know full well that the show is flawed, so please don't tell me how you never liked it, but, for whatever reason – partly because of those flaws and gaps and lost opportunities - it sparked my imagination and made me write more prolifically and more enthusiastically than I've ever done before (going on for 700,000 words in around 18 months.) And now it's going. I still have stories to tell, and I'm not ready to give it up, but I'm watching the fandom fade away before my eyes, and it makes me sad.

I always feel a very surprisingly strong feeling of outrage when I can't find something out of the internet. It's not as if I believe that "it's all on the internet now," to use the argument of head teachers who are closing school libraries across the land, and there are many, many occasions when I would turn to a book, rather than the net. However, when I want to look up a quick fact, apparently I expect the internet to have the answer. Librarians are forever hearing users wail "it isn't on the internet!" only to find said fact within a few seconds, utilising their super librarian powers. So when a fact does elude me, I feel this enormous sense of outrage, as if the very universe itself has betrayed me.

ETA: Ooh! 15 minutes ago, I could view my Friends page, but now it's been blocked by my work filter, so when I get home, I might have some great clues as to exactly what words it doesn't like. I still reckon it's something totally random, like parsnip or marmoset.

My computer is making an ungodly noise, so I've hastily backed up all unposted stories just in case, and have run away to Pellinor's computer. This is annoying. I'd hoped to do an hour's writing before work, and then perhaps the final tweaking and posting of another story just after work, but now I can't. Pellinor's immensely enormous CRT monitor sits too close to the front of the desk, and flickers slightly (in my eyes, anyway - Pellinor doesn't see it) and it makes me feel ill if I use it for more than a few minutes at a time. He also has a silly computer chair. Hopefully he can fix my computer this evening with a bit of judicious prodding.

EDIT: Computer fixed! Twas dust in the graphics card fan (?). And my email is working again, too! I've been unable to access Demon's webmail all day on other computers, and mail was dodgy all weekend, too. It appears I received quite a few LJ comments I was unaware of, since the notification has only just come through two days late.

My computer is dead. Dead, dead, dead. Last night it couldn't find the printer. Pellinor poked it and prodded it, and all was well. But this morning (probably unrelated to the above) it wouldn't even boot up at all. Or, rather, it obliging showed me the desktop, but refused point blank to go any further. Pellinor has poked and prodded it, but has to go off to work now. (I'm using his computer at the moment.) I'm thinking anxiously of all the stuff I've added to my "Stuff I've writ" folder since my last backup. I'm also remembering anxiously that I turned off my virus scanner's daily checks during the weekend, since they messed up the running of Unreal Tournament, and forgot to put them on again.

I am also so very impossibly tired, so any small setback is assuming epic proportions in my head. Last night, the cats had a Drama, after which I couldn't get back to sleep for hours - not helped by a brain that is very much in New Fandom mode, and buzzing all over the place. I so do not want to go away this weekend. I so do not want to have to be bright and bubbly in front of children all week at storytimes. I just want to sleep for a week.

My computer keeps mislaying the Internet. It's not a problem with the ISP, because the other computers in the house can find it happily enough. Restarting the computer makes it find the internet again, but it then loses it again between ten and thirty seconds later. I just had to restart about ten times just to upload four files to my website. Odd.

Also, the old computer in the garage, which I'm currently using, has decided to forget that I ever existed. Mozilla has forgotten my homepage and lost all my bookmarks and history, and all my options and preferences have gone.

Maybe it's the heat...

Styoopid work internet filter. It's only gone and seen fit to block the website for "RAW", a major adult literacy initiative, on the grounds that it's "entertainment." This now joins the long list of websites that I cannot view at work, despite them being vital to my job.

(I can, however, still view LJ. Is this the sort of situation when one is supposed to say "go figure"? I've never been quite sure.)

Also, I received a nice disc full of graphics and pictures that I can insert into my own leaflets and letters to promote the summer reading challange. Trouble is, they're 40 megabytes each, and crash my antediluvian computer on sight. Very useful, then.

Strange how a dream can affect your mood all day. Last night, I dreamed that we had been burgled, and my computer had been stolen, containing a vast amount of irreplaceable stuff. I've felt unsettled all morning, as if someone really had been inside my house, going through my stuff. I know full well it was only a dream, but the emotions still feel real.

I'm also in quite a frenzy to get home and do some back-ups. I'm awful at it. Last year, I accidentally deleted over 8 years' worth of emails in my "kept for posterity" folder, which was the closest thing I had to a diary of those years. It was partly the fault of stupid software that makes it ridiculously easy to delete a whole folder, when you think you're just deleting one letter within it. But, really, it was my own fault for not having any back-ups.

And have I learnt my lesson from this? No...

After nearly seven years, I have changed my desktop wallpaper. For all of that time, I've had a publicity photo of Obi-Wan and Darth Maul posing in mortal combat, all faint silhouettes and muted shades of sunset. I downloaded it in those heady days after the teaser trailer for episode one had come out, and we all still thought the film would be wonderful. I've kept it so long because icons showed up well on it, and it had become part of the scenery. Anything else looked wrong.

But yesterday I changed it, to a George RR Martin wallpaper from this site. I know it's a totally trivial thing, really, but it feels really strange for my computer to look so different. It really does feel as if I've changed the wallpaper in my house. It feels like the end of an era.


Anyway... I'm off to Warwick in a few hours for part two of the Training Course With Excellent Food (oh, and some interesting training sessions, too.) Annoyingly, the course starts too early tomorrow for me to get there in time, so I have to travel up today and spend a night in a normal boring hotel, before moving tomorrow to the super-amazing conference accommodation with internet access in each room, and three course meals at every turn.