En attendant phonecall

The nice men said they would phone sometime today, with news of the possible fate of my desktop. It's midday now. Urk.

Meanwhile, how have I been using my time? Usefully, by working upon the LHP? You suspect not. I am reluctantly compelled to confirm your suspicions.

I have mostly been playing with my laptop, in a way that sort of almost feels like work: I have learned, specifically, to plug in the big keyboard and monitor (though not in Mepis, which doesn't want to recognise the existence of the monitor; there is undoubtedly a process that I don't know, to make it do that; so at the moment I am working in Windows, yuck spit...). This is not a lifechanging discovery, as it only wants to display in a resolution that feels like shouting, or being shouted at.

I want my desktop back, sob whimper...

The professional man would be making do, working on the laptop until. It's odd: put me on a train with no alternative, and I can work four or five hours on the LHP, no worries. Put me in the Lit & Phil and I can do an hour, maybe an hour and a half before the lure of distraction draws me out. Hand it to me here at home, and - well, I've written about a sentence and a half this morning, and those are no good.

I suppose I could take it downstairs, try that sprawling-on-the-sofa thing that people do - but, y'know, Patrick O'Brian waits down there. I'm not convinced. There would at least be no internet (no you! you distracting beasts, you...), and I could work in Linux, but...

Hmmph. *wants desktop back*

Not single spies, but in battalions...

I have spoken to the nice computerman. He has a speculative diagnosis - a circuitboard directly behind the power button, that is unique of course to Dell - and so we have to wait for parts to be flown in from Ireland before he can test it out, and it'll be the back end of next week, and aaargh.

I confess, I don't quite know what to do now. Find a way to work sensibly on the laptop, I suppose. Impulsively buying a new desktop this afternoon would be ... impulsive. And extravagant. And other things equally bad. *nods*

In other news

It's astonishing, truly astonishing how quickly half a litre of good olive oil can be slurped up by an old and unpleasant carpet. No, it is, truly. You'd be astonished. I'd barely begun to clear up the broken glass before it was all gone, leaving only a deadly slick on what should be pure friction.

Vote of thanks to Barry, for revealing this unto us.

Harry Hoad: I have a picture

Through the kindness of his great-niece, I have a photograph of Harry Hoad in uniform. As soon as I can get it scanned and uploaded, I will post it here.