woohoo!. Sadly I couldn't watch it. It seems the only way to get games is pay per view, and we don't even have the right cable package for that.

posted @ 10:34 AM -

indignity

I have just found myself separating the stuck together pages of a book. Why does this bother me? It's a programming textbook.

posted @ 12:22 PM -

China awakes

Once upon a time, China led the world in science and technology, only to stifle its own creativity and let the once-backwards Europeans overtake it. Recently they have making great strides in putting this right, and this week they sent a man into space. There are more missions planned, but so far what useful things have we learned from this? The Great Wall is not in fact visible from space.

posted @ 12:11 PM -

some of my friends are cool

I noticed last year that while I was off having my fun in far corners of the world, many of my friends were in London actually starting to be successful. It was striking over the summer how many more of the people I knew were in worthwhile jobs, as compared to the number who were working out what to do with themselves a year earlier. I guess this is one of the better things about growing up.

As far as I'm concerned everybody has just been upstaged by Esther though:

Well, the point of this email is, for those of you that I haven't told already: I've accepted a job as an epidemiologist on a Malaria control programme working for the NGO Merlin in Tajikistan

That makes her the first person in a while who I've really envied.

posted @ 12:07 PM -

the sun also rises

Some progress has been made today. I have a roof now, and the roofers helped me clear the debris out of the study, so by the end of the day it may even be useable again (have to let it dry and then do some cleaning). I have reason to believe that the fees issue has been sorted out, though it would be nice if I could get through to a human being on the phone to confirm this. I know what document is missing from my CWRU file, so while it's an unnecessary hassle at least I now have the means to sort it out.

More importantly Melinda came round, and was just the generally calming presence I needed, and my mum's on her way to Cleveland. I'll be spending most of my free time for the coming week with family, because my dad and my brother are joining us tomorrow, and my cousin will be here for the weekend. I don't know what we'll be doing yet, except that I probably will have to ignore everyone and work normal hours during the weekdays, and that we're bound to get some U2 idolatry in over the weekend.

posted @ 7:12 PM -

arse-elbow differentiation reconsidered

When I started at Case, I was initially very impressed with the efficiency of the bureaucracy here. People who had been here for longer laughed at me for this, and now I am compelled to take it all back.

As well as dealing with water damage, I have two other very irritating problems to deal with:

I was billed recently for a semester's fees by the university. I thought nothing of it, seeing as I am on a fellowship for the year, so my fees are covered. However, it turns out that the system still had me down as owing the university the fees (which I probably don't need to specify are orders of magnitude more money than I can afford), so I looked into it yesterday. Here is the apparent problem:

there are two accounts in the main student data base with the last name of Goldenberg. There are two different student ID numbers and the first name, although similar, differs by one letter ( Elden vs. Eldan). The Memo of Assistance [document that tells them to get off my back because my fees are covered by my fellowship] is posted to the second account that has no registration, therefore the credit can not be posted.

Or in other words, I have a doppelgänger who is taking my stipend and grant.

As if this wasn't enough, I got the following email today:

Our records indicate that your admission status is still conditional. In order to have the condition removed, you must supply the following documentation to the Graduate Studies office as soon as possible:

Please arrange to have the necessary documentation sent to this office and notify us when the arrangements have been made. If you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us.

I haven't cut this. Spot the crucial missing information.

posted @ 2:09 PM -

the morning after

Four times this morning I woke up feeling reasonably OK, then saw the plaster marks on my carpet and remembered how they got there. Each time I still managed to get myself out of bed and do one useful thing (emptying buckets is a priority as one overflowed last night) before giving up and rolling myself in duvet again. Eventually I got up properly, but only with the help of an extremely strong bacon smell from someone else's breakfast making me hungry.

I have a lot of cleaning and tidying to do, and then I must get back to finishing the programming assignment that I should have finished last Friday, and was going to finish last night, had I not been interrupted by my study becoming uninhabitable. I also have some intensely irritating admin messes (not of my own making) to sort out, which I will describe shortly. Meanwhile I have an evil headache and my back aches like that of an old man. Both psychosomatic, I'm sure, but that doesn't make them any less real.

posted @ 1:43 PM -

that joke isn't funny any more

The trouble with not believing in a supreme being is that there's no-one around to answer one's prayers.

Until today, whatever irritation I was feeling about my lack of roof was at least slightly tempered by finding the whole situation at least mildly amusing. This evening I got home, and first noticed a puddle in the basement (my bike lives in the basement so I normally enter and leave the house that way). Then I went upstairs and found this:



In between screaming my fucking guts out and fighting the temptation to punch walls, lest the damp wood simply collapse, I moved the following items:

• several files full of notes, not all of which are even my own, much of which are saturated.
• 12 minidiscs, many of which may now be unplayable due to plaster being attached to them.
• a minidisc walkman. It's due for replacement, but not until I have more money.
• 2 CDs, both of which should be OK but the packaging is certainly ruined.
• a printer, which seems not to have been rained into. Here's hoping.
• a lovely new $400 monitor that is rather damp.
• an external hard drive which contains roughly 600 albums of music, much of which I do own the originals of, but the originals are in London and collectively rather heavy. It electrocuted me when I picked it up (in spite of the plug apparently being switched off—I learned my lesson and physically unplugged everything after that), which can't be a good sign.
• a pair of speakers.
• a Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera.

Somehow I am keeping a lid on my temper. Two things are going through my head. Firstly, that I've been observing my own smugness over the past few weeks expecting something to go wrong, and there are plenty of worse things it could have been. Secondly, that I could have taken much better photos if only I had a wide angle lens. This may make me a tool, but such distractions keep me sane at times like this.

posted @ 9:04 PM -

'virtual girlfriend inspired internet attack'

Sometimes it is nice to be reminded that however low I sink, there will always be someone worse:

Caffrey said that although Jessica was his girlfriend at the time, and he had known her for about a year, the relationship had been carried out solely over the Internet--the two had never met in person.

From CNet.

posted @ 1:53 PM -

praying for no rain

I got all excited when the roofers arrived so quickly a couple of weeks back, but it turns out I had too much faith. They quickly removed all the old tiles (which clearly were still achieving something) and then disappeared. The roof of my study is still a blue tarp, and there is rain in the forecast. This is getting ridiculous.

I suppose I could pretend I'm just observing Succoth.

posted @ 10:46 AM -

you know you've been running around too fast for too long when

You're doing tax accounts for 2001 (the fact that I forgot to do them at the appropriate time is a bad enough sign, and I'm going to have to pay a fine for that... doh), and you're wondering why you don't have any invoices from a specific job in your your 2001/2002 file, so you do some digging around in archived emails... and discover that the job in question was in 2000 but you're mixing years up in your head.

posted @ 5:24 PM -

you know you're having a bad programming day when

you go out for a coffee, come back and just mindlessly press F5 to compile and run the program again, without having changed any code. Because, y'know, that bug might have fixed itself in the last half hour.

Still, at least I'm not yet reduced to celebrating the writing of a single paragraph.

posted @ 3:45 PM -

a London thing

Scott linked to someone's photo page the other day, and as well as reminding me that I really ought to get more of mine online (which I always say but never have time to do), one of them really struck me as capturing what I enjoyed so much about London this year.

Cleveland actually has some pretty cool buildings, but there's nothing anywhere near as evocative as the better views across the Thames.

posted @ 2:49 PM -

whatever the size of your election

It's no surprise really that California should produce worrying election results, when according to some reports there are less voters than candidates there. It could be worse though: at least they weren't given the Robin Cook poll.

links courtesy of Need To Know

posted @ 11:34 AM -