You know, it’s always the same, I have a big long spell of blogging, and then I don’t do anything for two weeks. Oops. This wasn’t intended, but it seems I did the same last year, after the dizzying heights of the Berlin trip. Oh well.

Even for a British summer, the weather has been truly appaling. There hasn’t a day gone by where it’s not absolutely hoyed down at some point, or been so dull that it’s not even worth sticking your foot out of the door, never mind going around and doing stuff. Ever since I’ve came back from Paris, I have had absolutely nothing to look forward to… I tried to change this by arranging a trip to Countdown for me and Chris, but seeing as he has no holidays left, this has fallen through, leaving me once again, staring to the inky void, where the only light at the end of the tunnel is the reflection from the bottom of a beer glass. Even worse, is that it would have been my last chance to see it under its current guise.

On a lighter, and much happier note, Wayne has finally got back in touch after 18 months of being silent!! Unfortunately, he missed all of the email I’d sent to him in this time, thanks to NTL/Virgin’s policy of only keeping email on their servers for 90 days, but at least he’s still alive! Coatesy, however, is still radio-silent, and it’s looking less likely that he’ll ever get back in touch.

Christ, this is an amusing entry isn’t it? Laugh-a-bloody-minute.

To make things worse, morale at Employment Palace has hit an all time low. Once again, I can’t go into details, mainly because I’ll end up putting my fist through the monitor. This has depressed me more than anything, I think.

On another note, I’m an organ donor. Or rather, I’ve been for months, but I never bothered mentioning it before. I’m only metioning it now, because I’ve just found an old registration form I meant to send off, but never did. On the back of it, it states “Discuss your wishes with those closest to you, so they know your wishes should the time ever come… I’m sorry, I know whatthey mean, but surely that’s the worst way of putting it, ever? What do they mean by “should”? Do they suddently think I’m immortal, or something?

Ahem. On the subject of death, another reason I’ve not been updating much is the “dying” of Beastbits, my main machine… You may remember a few months ago, the 250Gb drive I had, started clicking, going all weird and just not working in general? Well, I replaced it with a 500Gb drive. And that’s on the way out too. It began with The Click of Death.

Eventually, strange things started happening The drive would disappear from Windows completely, and today, during the reboot, in the BIOS detection it wouldn’t reappear. Nasty. I decided the drive was duff. My curiousity got the better of me, and after a physical power-off, it reappeared.

Now, something was up, and I decided to back everything up to an external HDD. During ther copying process, it halted with a CRC error. Not good. Files were on the bad sectors! Oooooo!

I happened to note the name mentally of the corrupt file. Thankfully, it was just an outdated SQL dump I’ve done from my website, and wasn’t of much use anyway. The rest of the backup passed without a hitch. Everything else copied. For a bit of mirth, I decided to copy the original file I’d had a problem with. It copied first time. To me, this began to sound like something more “logical” than physical.

Soooo, I powered up “Darik’s Boot And Nuke”. I had used this in the past to “fix” the bad sectors on the earlier faulty drive I mentioned. Anyway. I started it on this drive, and it failed. It quit with an error saying that the drive may have bad sectors. Duh.

Fair enough, this wasn’t playing ball, so I grabbed the diagnostic software from the Samsung website. I wasn’t expecting miracles. Still, I ran it, and there they were, the bad sectors…

Fair enough, at least they were official.

I wasted at least 3 hours of my finite time on this planet allowing the disk check to finish. It prompted me to perform a disk erase. Meh. All backed up. It can’t do any harm. After all, these sectors were goosed, so another few hours later, the entire hard drive was erased, and I ran another diagnostic check Now, thanks to that photo, I had the exact location the bad blocks. Imagine my surprise as it skipped over them without a single bit of hesitation.

OK, so unbelievably, the drive was back to its normal self. All of this took place on Monday night, so I formatted the drive while I was at work on Tuesday. I returned home, and copied all of the stuff from the external backup drive onto it. And, tonight (Friday), it has gone back to the original problem of the click of death. Joy!

In a thread on Glens’ forum, I mentioned my problems, and although Crag has a very valid point, it’s still a 100% failure rate. And, I can’t even send it back either, because the only way it will detect bad sectors is obviously after the disk has been in use for a few days after an erase, which means there has to be data on it. And, seeing as I know the sort of ahem… “data” I keep on it, I’d rather not let it out of my sight!

Technorati Tags: bad sectors, broken, countdown, Death, Depressed, faulty, hard drive, organ donor, samsung, work

I do two things when I’m in a depressed mood. Walk, and blog. So, it’s unsurprising that this is my 4th post in two days, and it probably won’t shock you to realise that I’ve completed an 8.5 mile walk (well, if you want to be arsey, it was 8.41 because I measured it with Google Maps.

As menitoned before, Daddykins has been out at the pub all afternoon, so I didn’t fancy waiting around for him to come in slurring all over the place. OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, as he never really gets THAT drunk, I just hate to see him drunk full-stop. And yes, I understand that makes me sound like a hypocrite. Tough.

So, I headed off out of the door, with the intention of not returning until he was at home, and in bed. I took my normal route of King Oswy Drive, right up to the Clavering roundabout and back down the coast road. I took a detour to take in the delights of the King Oswy shops, and also to pick up a bottle of Cherry Coke.

At this point, I tried to phone Chris. he said he was coming round tonight, so just in case he turned up unannounced, I tried to get in touch with him to tell him I was out. In facft, I decided to walk down near his house, just in case he was in, and not answering his phone (as usual).

Chris is one of those people who rarely takes interest in his mobile, so no answer is a normality. I tried a number of times, and didn’t get through at all. I also tried to get through to Daddykins on his mobile to see if he was in yet, as I’d forgotten to hang my washing out.

After about 16 attempts to get though to his mobile, he phoned me. I answer, and whatever Daddykins said was drowned out by someone screaming “JAMIE”. Oh, joy. So he was still out. I terminated the call. He’d already answered all my questions.

So, I decide to ring Chris on his house phone, and his dad said he was asleep. Oh, great. So, I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to talk to, nothing. There was no point going home, so I just kept on walking, and ended up on the Marina. Did I mention I took my camera? Clearly not.

This is the only one I’ve bothered to upload to flickr yet, as a lot of them require rotating…

I shall post more photos on my flickr later, but now I have half a case of Grolsch to knock back…

Technorati Tags: boat, Depressed, evening, hartlepool, marina, photo, walk

Following on from the disaster yesterday, it turns out I’m having major problems with the hard drive in Beastbits. AGAIN. the powersupply and/or the HDD itself is in fact, absolute spunk, and often the drive will reset with the famous CLUNK noise of a broken hard drive.

Daddykins is also still out, which will mean he’ll come back in an absolute state of inebriety, which is something I really can’t be arsed to put up with today.

Technorati Tags: crash, daddykins, drunk, error, hard drive

HELLO!

I have not been around for a few days. I apologise for that. I wish I could explain the reasons, but having to relive any second of the last two weeks or so would mean that I would have to inject my sensitive brain with memories, which to be honest, are better forgetting. You may notice that I do NOT discuss my proper personal life in here. This trend will continue, yet I can’t help feeling utterly depressed over the past fortnights’ antics.

Moving on swiftly, I shall begin to explain the good things which have happened.

Firstly, I’ve not been able to sleep. This means that, on the 18th, a cold and frosty Monday Morning, I decided to watch the sun come up. I left the house at 6:30, and began to walk towards the headland. For those of you who don’t know Hartlepool, part of it is on a penninsular, which means there is a lot of water surrounding it. This also means that no matter what time of year it is, you get some awesome sunrises. Unfortunately, I’d never, ever witnessed, or photographed a sunrise. Not without houses getting in the way.

Due to the fact my mind was working a mile-a-minute (due to the things that had happened a few days before), I was awake at 5AM. I adorned appropriate clothing, and awaited for an appropriate time to leave, and photograph the scenery.

I didn’t intend for this to be another one of those “Oh, bollocks, Jamie’s needlessly took his camera out of the house”, but seeing as I’ve started this section, I might as well finish.

Er, anyway. I left the house, and walked towards the Headland. Needless to say, I took my camera. After all, that’s my catchphrase, and if I didn’t say it, it would make this part of the blog redundant. Anyway, it was still dark by the time I approached the Warren Road junction…

As can be seen by the colour of the cloud, there was a bit of fog in the area. I hoped this wouldn’t destroy my photo chances. What was clear, however, that it was very cold, and that I was entirely on my own. I took the rather daring route of “Old Cemetary Road” . This is the road that leads up to Steetley, and is almost entirely deserted, except for abandoned buildings and a handful of council houses, one of which Wayne lived in, who you may remember I mentioned a few times, but I no longer have any contact with.

Anyway, this road also leads, via footpaths to Marine Drive, which is the seafront. Next stop from here is Norway, unless you stick to the roads, in that case, your next step is the Headland…

I finally managed to see the sun come up, for the first time in my entire life.

What you can’t see in the photo, however, is me, almost in tears.

I think it hit home. The shitness of 2008 so far, the fact I had nobody to turn to, the fact that I was listening to Nik Kershaw on my MP3 player (!)… it all added up.

I ended up taking this…

Best viewed large, click the image, leave this rambling blog if you must.

After that, nothing happened for the next few days. I ended up at work, which is as bad as it normally was. I ended up having to look forward to something. And I did, for you see, the new Sainsbury’s opened on Friday 22nd February!

SO, as their catchphrase suggests, I “treid something new today”, but getting there was an absolute nightmare. Now, I decided to go there for its grand opening at 9AM, but before that, I required money. You may remember that the new store is on the far corner of a new estate, at the top of a hill. The cash point is at the exact opposite corner of the estate, at the bottom of the hill. Now the shortest distance between two points, as I’m sure you are aware, is a straight line, so surely, cutting through this new estate would be the easiest thing to do… I was wrong.

I didn’t realise, this estate is a complete maze of small cul-de-sacs and faceless houses, each of them like the next, And, considering this was the first time I’d been on this estate, I ended up wandering around aimlessly, and I ended up pretty much back where I started, at the bottom of the hill. Bugger.

Eventually, I got there, 20 minutes after it opened. They were still serving celebratory glasses of orange juice. There were photographers there, and lots of men in suits laughing between themselves, and patting themselves on the back.

I bought a tenners’ worth of stuff, It was actually very expensive.

The following day saw a trip to Newcastle. There was no apparent reason for it. I just rang up Chris, who was also off at the same time as me (a rare occurence these days… sigh), so we went to Newcastle for the day.

The first stop (after getting some refreshments) was a record shop. No, not any normal record shop, but one of those “good” ones, filled with vinyl from celing to floor, with lots of strange crates lying about, filled with singles, and at very reasonable prices too… £1 each or 12 for £5. Now, I’ve always preferred the humble 7″ single to the 12″ LP, so it goes without saying that I ended up purchasing 12 of them. I’m sure most of you know my musical tastes, so I’ll quickly gloss over which ones I’d bought. However, I will mention that I finally got a copy of the original version of Star Trekkin’.

With my vinyl addiction satisfied, we continued to walk about the place for a bit. Obviously, one of the reasons we went on this journey was so I could get some photos.

And, there are plenty of things to photgraph in Newcastle. This one is my particular favourite…

Not because of its subject matter, but because what it is. It’s one of the pubs which features in the 1986 series of Auf Weidersehen Pet, in particular the episode “Marjorie Doesn’t Live Here Any More”. In fact, looking at that episode again is quite eye opening. You can see quite clearly the amount of regeneration that’s taken place in the 22 years since that episode was recorded.

Anyway, this was also my first opportunity to see some of the new landmarks up close, namely the Millenium bridge, and The Sage…

I think it’s quite clear where it gets the name “Shiny Condom” from. We actually took a walk up to The Sage, to have a look round, only to find that on that particular day the bloody thing was closed to the public. Bollocks

This is part 1. Part 2 is coming shortly.

Technorati Tags: Depressed, headland, newcastle, sainsburys, sunrise

Well, right now, I feel like either driving a bullet through somebody else’s skull, or driving a bullet directly through mine. You won’t be a million miles off thinking that work has a LOT to do with the way I’m feeling at the minute.

I’d better shut up now about work, I can feel my blood pressure rising, and I want to be able to drink this can of beer without feeling my chest implode…

Speaking about beer, I almost paid way over the odds for my favourite drink. I had just left work after THE DAY OF HELL, and headed straight to the establishment of very fine ales, known as the supermarket.

The stocks were plentiful…

… of course, this is always a good sign. What’s even better is that they’re doing 3 of these for £20, which means that I stacked my trolley high. Well, if you count three a high number, anyway.

I happily trot to the tills with my three happy crates, along with a few other bits and pieces. … well, when I say trot, I mean limp, and when I say happily, I mean with a face so glum it would appear that I’d lost a fiver, and found a TB infected penny.

I begin to load my wares onto the conveyor. Normally, if I get a shedload of booze in, I simply just put one box on, and explain to whoever is serving me that I have three. Just in case they can’t see then in the trolley.

So, while I continue to load the shopping, the woman behind the counter begins to help me pack. Normally, they ask you if you want help with the packing, but my face of thunder must have made her take pity on me. Either that, or it was because I didn’t have that much stuff, and it was quiet, so I assume she didn’t have anything better to do. The last thing to go on, was my one crate. I mention to the trolley dolly, that I have three. As the packing was being done for me, I watch the little till display. It’s lucky I did. She puts in multiple items for my crate. 2… 3… 4… wait, did that just say four?

I ask her… “Did you just put four in there?”
“No, only three”, she replies, as if I was accusing her of robbing me blind.

The price came to something OTT, like £45. OK, I’d bought a few expensive items, such as the beer, washing powder, razor blades, etc. but £45?? Shurely shome mishtake?

Out comes my badly printed receipt. Her printer head was clearly on the way out, as it was barely readable, but yes, it clearly said 4. Well, I was not impressed.

“You’ll have to go to Customer Services, they’ll refund you.”

Great. This was 10:30 at night, and the desk was empty. It was looking unlikely that I’d be getting a refund, though I wasn’t leaving until I got one.

Eventually, someone noticed me standing there like a miserable sack of crabs in a black coat. I explained the situation with about as mush enthusiasm as a slowly deflating bouncy castle. I handed over my receipt, she scanned it. It wouldn’t scan. The print was so bad, the barcode reader couldn’t understand it. At this point, I was looking at spending the night in the camping equipment aisle. Actually, some of those tents and sleeping bags are probably quite comfortable, though I’m not sure how much tannoy-piped 1980s cock-rock I’d be able to take.

Speaking of cock-rock, I’m currently listening to “Burning Bridges” by the legendary Status Quo, which I think is one of the greatest songs of all time. This is, of course, the song which was re-written and re-recorded for Manchester United’s 1994 cup final single “Come On You Reds”, which, as we all know, is truly an abysmal record. That statement is coming from someone who received a copy of “Superman” by Black Lace from eBay yesterday.

Now, I’ll sit back and wait for the flood of venomous comments from tone-deaf and lyrically challenged Man Ure fans, just like I did when I made a post, accusing Carol Vorderman of getting her sums wrong. It quickly made it onto a TV forum. The comment expletive filter got some hammering that night. I think I kept them, some of them were really funny and well written. Turned out *I* was wrong after all. Whoopsy.

That reminds me, I never did apologise to her for making that faux pas. Sorry Carol. Love you lots. XxX.

Oh, and I got my refund.

Technorati Tags: beer, carol vorderman, Depressed, man u, Music, records, status quo, supermarket, work