Excellent, the diary page has ‘wrapped’ around, you need to use the ‘previous 10 entries’ link at the bottom to see the other entries (and there won’t be 10, but I couldn’t be bothered to get the code to work out how many there were, so it always says 10. Someone mention Concern for Order and Quality?)

1. Why do I use … so much?

2. Meant to say, the best thing about work of course, is that the team I’m part of is excellent, definately the best bunch of folk I’ve worked with, and there’s some stiff competition from my ex-British Steel workmates.

So, there you are, wondering what to buy me for Christmas, and wow, you’ve just won the lottery so you have loads of spare cash, how handy.

Buy Me This Please 🙂

until Lord of the Rings. Wwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Grete’s not well, got some kind of cold thing again, and she always really suffers when she catches anything like that.

I can’t believe it’s a year, nearly a whole fucking year since I visited the house last. And I read back over the diary entries, and nothing has changed, I’m still hiding, still getting down about it, still pretending it’ll go away, still not sorting it out.

So, we try again

Some things in life are constants,

1. I still have a house I neither want nor can sell.
2. Cars are still too expensive to make sense
3. This house still causes us hassle, and the fact that the back gate was broken by a friend doesn’t help

Some things in life are variables,

• Work varies. Currently it’s about 60% ok and 40% nightmare.
• Money varies, sometimes we’re doing ok, other times like this month, we’re really short
• My mood varies, sometimes I think I’m depressed and should seek medical help, other times I think I’m depressed and should just cope with it and get on and deal with it. Which isn’t fair on Grete, but then life isn’t fair.

Nearly a year since we visited the Other House. I guess keeping our heads buried isn’t really achieving much, but it sure does make life a hell of a lot easier to cope with.

Saw Harry Potter, it was ok, my thoughts here, and Grete’s here. If anyone can invent stuff, I need something wireless which attaches to my head, works out my current condition, and then updates the condition monitor automagically without me needing to do it myself.

It’s amazingly therapeutic writing in a diary, I really wish I could generate the enthusiasm to do it more often – to those who mail me and remind me to do it – keep it up.

Gemmell Mania goes from strength to strength, I’m proud to say that if you stick David Gemmell into the Google Search box, Gemmell Mania is the first link to come back. That cheered me up. Anyone reading this who likes heroic fantasy fiction and hasn’t read any David Gemmell, for shame on you, go buy some right now (and use the links from this page ‘cos we get a little commission then 😉

I really wish I could work out how to keep friends, I appear to allow mine to slip through a net, 30 and fewer friends than fingers, I don’t think that’s right.

It’s odd, knowing people you know will read this, but deciding not to care, odd indeed.

Nearly Christmas, not sure if that’s a good thing. However, it’s also nearly time for Lord of the Rings in the cinema, and that is a Good Thing[tm]. Saw a trailer for it in front of Harry Potter, and it looks astounding. The trailer was good on the PC, but on a cinema screen it was breathtaking. Boy am I excited.

Got Grete a new PC, 1.9GHz P4, nice box. Means I get to play with her old PII 400MHz box, which is now running debian, and has replaced the old P100 that was our mail/news server. It has also finally replaced the P140 that was the printer/shared disk server (and had the tape drive in it). Quite please with how it’s working now, and it can handle a hell of a lot more news/mail than the older boxes.

Once again, ages since the last update. But, here I am.

Still have a house I don’t want – are you sure you don’t want to purchase it? 3 bedroom terrace, Stockton-on-Tees?

Got my tax return in and done in the end, and in time for them to work out how much I owe, rather than having to do it myself.

Their on-line system leaves a lot to be desired, only covers 1/10th of the forms and you have to work your tax out yourself. Hmm, might start scouting around for some tax-aware home-finance software at some point.

Got a new car, probably didn’t mention it previously, 2 litre Mondeo. Nicer than the previous cars, seems ok. Too expensive, but then all cars are.

Work alternates from being terrible to terrific in the space of 30 minutes, which is interesting. We’re moving desks at the moment, so Monday may be hectic.

Rented Shaft and Pitch Black on DVD, both of them quite entertaining, although Pitch Black was probably more enjoyable overall.

Lord of the Rings – the trailer looks amazing! I have very high hopes. I mailed National Amusements in the UK (they run our local cinema), asking if they had plans for Lord of the Rings, and got a very nice reply telling me that if I wanted tickets for the Harry Potter movie, I should simply purchase them at the right time. Oh well 😉