Theoretical Coffee

Two years in this house today.

We’ve had Emmy one year today.

Onni’s been gone one year today.

I miss you, Onni. :(

Being stuck on a laptop is a right pain.

Computer still hasn’t arrived, graphics card is still out of stock. I sent them a shirty email and will see how it all is on Monday, if it’s still not in stock I might phone and complain.

Walked the dogs… Eight miles in two days, probably double that for Emmy because she does so much running in circles. Picked two sandwich bags of blackberries and one of elderberries, so I might be able to make something of those later. Either jam or a crumble.

Not having a computer is so boring.

Watched Shutter Island on BoxOffice the other day, good film, bit of a mindfuck but still well worth watching. Twice. Watched half of Pulp Fiction with Chinese subs, good film, couldn’t get the second half to stream properly but I’ve seen it before. Gonna watch Avatar later, or maybe Up, Watchmen is lying around somewhere too.

I’ve read so many books in the last week, at least 10. I should update my libarything profile with them now that I think about it. The only thing is, most of them are the first in sets, and most of them are aimed at children aged around ten, so I can’t convince myself that buying the next in the sets is a good idea. Faerie Wars was ok, I liked the idea that demons and aliens were the same thing. Midnight for Charlie Bone was was obviously working off Harry Potter vibe and I’d buy the next book if there weren’t eight of them. I read The Windsinger this morning and am now halfway through The Slaves of the Mastery, which is alright I suppose, but the first book only lasted me a couple of hours. Then once I’ve read all those 3 I’ve got THE DIVIDE, whatever that is, and then the next Dwarves book which I never finished, and then the rest of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I also read some books about a family of rag dolls who are living people and I found a copy of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh in a box set of “classic kids books”, so maybe I’ll go through that again. There’s a few Diana Wynne Jones lying around but I really can’t be bothered with them.

Hmm, I have the book after The Dragonbone Chair somewhere, should find that.

By the time I’m done with that lot, the three books I ordered off Amazon should have arrived! (Neil Gaimen – Stardust, Paul Gallico – Some book about cats and Robert Stroud – Digest on the Diseases of Birds) The bird one is coming all the way from the US though so that might take longer. Tempted to pick up The Painted Tent and a book about mushrooms. Maybe one about bees and one about gardening too. And maybe the rest of the Artemis Fowl series, in hardcover so they look nice on the shelves. (I have.. Four, but I’ve lost the first in the set so I can’t read them!)

Sigh. This is driving me nuts. Send help. :(

Henrietta laid a GIANT egg yesterday, it’s double the size of her normal egg. Hermia laid one the other day with a bit of a blip on the bottom and no shine on the shell. I’ll take a picture when I can find the camera, but it doesn’t even fit in the egg box, put it in an egg cup and it just perches on the top. But they’re laying 1 egg a day, 7 eggs a week each. They’re not supposed to, all the chicken books said they’d lay six at most and to expect less, but no, they’ve kept it up, even with the terrible weather.

Ordered the computer, with an expensive (modular!) power supply, because everyone freaked out when I added the £12 one to my basket. They said it would murder my pets and curse my unborn children. :( It should be good when it arrives anyway, graphics card comes into stock some time next week, and I’m not too bothered about waiting. I’ve read like, four books and I’ve taken up drawing, but it will be nice to be able to check my emails again.

Got my eye on an A8N-SLI, which looks like it should fit my ram and cpu and everything to get the old comp back to life. Then I fix it up to the telly and use it as a glorified DVD player! Mum seems quite keen on that idea. Got Windows 7 from here, which didn’t ask for any student confirmation or anything, and opted for the Media option instead of download, because I got fed up of burning discs for XP. The way things are going it should all arrive at about the same time!

Only thing I’m worried about is installing the motherboard. Dropping it or shorting it out or whatever, the most complicated thing I’ve done before was installing a very awkward CPU cooler, But I’ll deal with that when I come to it I suppose. Whee.

Doesn’t look like I can get a replacement motherboard all that easily and there’s gotta be a reason it failed in the first place.

So for now, this is the plan.

Probably with a slightly more meaty power supply and Windows 7 from Software4Students (hopefully). It’s still about ohh… £500 more than we can afford, but whatever. Hopefully it’ll last me another five years+

Might reuse the case from my old computer. It’s an Antec Sonata II with the duct removed and the LEDS that can light up the entire room switched off. There’s another Antec case, possibly a Sonata I, lying around somewhere too. Might be under my bed.

Anyone else got any suggestions?

My computer is dead.

Fans all spin up but it doesn’t beep and nothing ever appears on the screen.

It’s not the HDs, it’s not the ram, it didn’t make a difference when I changed the CPU back to the single-core and I can’t check with a different graphics card because I do not own one.

Sigh.

I guess that means I’ve gotta replace the motherboard, I want a new computer already…

No fucking around with uploading and backups and shit. Just OK THX BYE.

Tera and his friends stayed here overnight on.. Thursday I think. It was shiny even if I was a terrible host.

Thinking about getting an Orpington chicken to replace Peep Peep. They’re huge and fluffy and when I went to get the Light Sussex there were two there raising the chicks and I wanted them. (They make good mothers, they go broody quite a bit and THEY’RE MASSIVE) Hopefully we can get hold of one or we’ll wait till Henrietta or Hermia go broody and let them raise a couple of eggs.

This thing here looks fairly interesting. I hope they get the funding to finish it. I remember going on Newgrounds a lot when I was younger, but I haven’t been back in a while. There was some great stuff on there but there was some total crap too. Might donate a couple of $ to it if it’ll let me although I’m not a great fan of Kickstarter.

Been playing a lot of Dwarf Fortress the last week, but my current fort pissed me off so I’m going to play Crawl for a bit instead.

Emmy (I think) killed Baby Peep Peep, no marks on her except for a few lost feathers and her neck wasn’t broken. I think she just worried her until she died.

I’d noticed earlier on that Peep Pee wasn’t going around with the flock, she was just sitting on the compost heap by herself and sleeping. I fed her a little bit of wormer and she didn’t struggle when I picked her up. She wasn’t growing at the same rate as the others or putting on any weight either. (As a comparison, it takes me at least 5 minutes to catch the other two if I want to look at them or anything, and then they scream and struggle and try and flap their wings)

One of the dogs bought her up and left her on the landing for us to find. When Lucy killed the hamster she laid it out neatly in the dogs bed so it could have been her I suppose, but I don’t think so.

The chickens have free roam of the garden at the moment, the big two protect the little two and Emmy can’t really get near them, when they see her they all rush to the compost heap and wait until she goes away. Henrietta and Hermia stand on top of the chicks until it’s safe again.

Emmy did come in with an egg in her mouth yesterday, I extracted it and put it in the egg box, unbroken. I also extracted the unbroken fledgling and set it free in the garden, twice. Third time the chickens killed it I think. Pickle also bought me an unbroken bird, that one went to the RSPCA (Was before Emmy, but I didn’t feel safe setting it free in the garden) She came up to me in the garden with it in her mouth and went “moewph?” and then tried to run away, I thought it was dead but when I caught her she dropped it and it ran off.

It’s been an interesting couple of days.

Tera’s gone on holiday. No eggs yesterday, just one from Henrietta today. I think Emmy might have stolen them yesterday because I found some shell on the stairs… The terrible weather might be depressing them a little too, although it’s been pretty nice the last couple of days.

(I hope it goes shit again and we get more thunderstorms, they’re so fun!)

Chick (Which mum seems to have named “Baby Peep Peep”) still doesn’t seem brilliantly well, but on a better note, they’re roaming the garden and the dogs don’t care! When they see the dogs they rush back to the compost heap but Emmy totally broke down the fence a couple of days ago and there’s been no incidents.

Went outside and staked up all my tomatoes so they can get more light, although they might have nitrogen deficiency because a lot of the leaves are yellowing. They’re only in a tiny pot, I’m hoping the ones in the ground will do better, they’re already starting to flower some of them.

We ate one of the cabbages the other day. Whoa, not something I’d normally eat but it was damn good. I’m planting them again (further apart!) next year. It’s funny, the ones I planted in the ground went WHOOOSH and got huge, but the ones I planted in the growbag are still the same size, if not smaller, than when I put them in. All the Spinach went a bit ropey and into flower, so I pulled it up to make room for tomatoes and the cabbages.

Been playing and messing with the SDK for Alien Swarm, it’s been out a week or so now and it’s pretty awesome, even if the campaign does just feel like a tech demo. There’s some awesome mods coming out for it already. Waiting for Tera to come back off holiday so we can play it, although he has threatened to turn up on the doorstep, that would be fun.

One of the chicks is sick, I think. She’s got crusty eyes and she doesn’t try and run away as much as the other two. If I hold her she doesn’t try and struggle and she’s a little wobbly I put her down. I’m hoping it’s just because she’s been in a big flock, and that with some good food and tlc she’ll perk up. I’ve put some grapefruit extract in their water anyway, it kills off the algae if nothing else.

I’m bored, I think I’ll go work out how much my Steam account is worth.

Hermia missed an egg a couple of days ago, and the new chicks are settling in ok. Having to keep Emmy locked inside to stop her from standing on them though, she just jumps straight over the fence. They look a bit like this. The breed is Light Sussex and they’re probably around 10 weeks old.