I’ve had a rather rough week all told. First of all the ridiculous heat, then the huge problems upgrading my computer at work, then the lunatics who decided to move their party out into the carpark last night. You’ve got to love it when you’re woken from a very pleasant dream about Rose McGowan (not that kind of dream, get your mind out of the gutter!) at 1:00am by people shouting, laughing, smashing bottles and screaming just outside your bedroom window. Happily they decided to call it a night around 3:00, and I was able to get back to sleep, Ms McGowan however was nowhere to be seen. Oh well.
Anyway, computer problems.
Ever since I inadvertantly dragged the windows directory into the wrong place on the hard drive – and then panicked and reinstalled Windows 98 over the top – my work computer has been acting fairly erratically. Rather than erase everything and do a complete re-install (not smart since most of our sites are backed up on my machine) we decided to get a new hard drive, set that up as the master and install Windows on it, while keeping the old one as a slave. Good idea no?
No, not really. The installation process (which took the better part of two and half days) went something like this…
- Take off case and install new hard drive.
- Spend a good two hours trying to get the correct master/slave settings.
- Spend several more hours trying to match the office’s many copies of Windows 98 to the office’s many Windows 98 registration codes.
- Find a CD and code that will work together. Spend about two hours installing Windows 98.
- Spend a further half day re-installing all my software and configuring Windows.
- Realise I’ve installed Windows 98 First Edition when I need Second Edition to recognise the new 80 gig hard drive as an 80 gig hard drive instead of a 2 gig hard drive.
- Spend an hour searching through office for Second Edition CDs.
- Spend two hours trying to match Second Edition CDs to second edition registration codes.
- Find a CD and code that will work together. Spend an hour trying to get the installation to upgrade without crashing. Fail miserably.
- Despair.
- Convince Dale to buy a copy of Windows XP.
- Spend an hour trying to convince the Windows XP CD to recognise the correct hard drive. Eventually force it’s hand by taking out the wrong one.
- Spend two hours installing Windows XP. Spend a further two hours reinstalling all my software and settings. Again.
- Realise I don’t have enough memory to run Windows XP properly. Canabalize chips from other computers until I have enough.
- Go home.
So yeah, not the most productive week.
I’ve had a pretty productive weekend though. I’m not going to go into details just yet, but expect some big changes to Wyrmworld. And maybe to the Wyrmlog too if I can muster the energy 🙂
About the only other thing I’ve got to mention is that I did my patriotic duty today *g* and voted in the Triple J Hottest 100. For reasons best known to themselves the powers that be down at the J’s have decided that this year each person can only vote for ten songs, which was a bit of a problem for me personally since there were at least 131 songs listed that I would have voted for. But I eventually whittled the list down to the following ten tracks – my official ten favourite songs of 2003 (in no particular order)…
Biftek – Read To Me
Downsyde – El Questro
Eels – Dirty Girl
Electric Six – Gay Bar
Nofx – Franco Un-American
Screamfeeder – Ice Patrol
The Herd – 77%
The New Pornographers – All For Swinging You Around
The New Pornographers – The Laws Have Changed
The Waifs – Lighthouse
There were four other songs that almost made the cut, specifically…
Hilltop Hoods – The Nosebleed Section
Michael Franti/Spearhead – Bomb The World
Magic Dirt – Watch Out Boys
Spencer Tracy – Ocean
And I suppose I might as well list the rest of the 131 songs. You know, just for the sake of completeness 🙂 (the best of these are bolded).
1200 Techniques – Eye Of The Storm
A.R.E. Weapons – Hey World
Amiel – Love Song
Andromeda – Something White And Sigmund
Architecture In Helsinki – The Owls Go
Audioslave – Show Me How To Live
Beastie Boys – In A World Gone Mad
Ben Folds – There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You
Billy Bragg – The Price Of Oil
Bob Evans – Friday Come Five
Bob Evans – Turn
Chemical Brothers – The Golden Path
Chumbawamba – Jacob’s Ladder (Not In My Name)
Cody Chesnutt – The World Is Coming To My Party
Coldplay – Clocks
Curve – Want More, Need Less
Dallas Crane – Ladybird
Dallas Crane – No Through Road
Dan Kelly – Counter Meal Kim
Dan Kelly/The Alpha Males – Summer Wino
Dandy Warhols – I Am A Scientist
Dandy Warhols – We Used To Be Friends
Dandy Warhols – You Were The Last High
David Bridie – Hotel Radio
Dirty Lucy – Nothing Is Free
DJ Format – Ill Culinary Behaviour
Dropkick Murphys – The Outcast
Dsico – Smells Like Electro
Eels – Saturday Morning
Electric Six – Danger! High Voltage
Epicure – Armies Against Me
Freeland – We Want Your Soul
Frenzal Rhomb – Hippy Song
Frenzal Rhomb – Russell Crowe’s Band
Full Fathom Five – Built You A Gun
Futureshock – Pride’s Paranoia
Genshen – Nothing Quite Like This
Givegoods – We’re Here About The Budda’s
Gorgeous – Air Balloon
Gorgeous – Do Do Do Song
Grandaddy – Now It’s On
Hedrock Valley Beats – How Do You Feel?
Hot Hot Heat – Naked In The City Again
Idlewild – A Modern Way Of Letting Go
Jack Johnson – The Horizon Has Been Defeated
Jack Planck – Fit, Slender And Attractive
Jet – Are You Going To Be My Girl
Jewtown – Jewtown
Junkie XL/Peter Tosh – Don’t Wake Up Policeman
Klonhertz – Three Girl Rhumba
Ladytron – Evil
Layo And Bushwacka – Love Story
Lazy Susan – Sometimes
Le Tigre – Deceptacon
Legends Of Hip Hop – Fifth Element
Liam Lynch – Still Wasted From The Party Last Night
Liam Lynch – United States Of Whatever
Living End – One Said To The Other
Living End – Tabloid Magazine
Magic Dirt – Plastic Loveless Letter
Mark Ronson – I Suck
MC Honky – 3 Turntables & 2 Microphones
Mclusky – There Ain’t No Fool In Ferguson
Michael Andrews/Gary Jules – Mad World
Michael Franti/Spearhead – Everyone Deserves Music
Mint Royale – Show Me
Nick Holder – No More Dating DJ’s
Nina Simone – Sinnerman
Nofx – The Separation Of Church and Skate
Nokturnl – Woomera
Offcutts – Break It (Down James Brown)
Outkast – Hey Ya
Panjabi MC – Jogi
Panjabi MC – Mundian To Bach Ke
Placebo – Running Up That Hill
Radiohead – There There
Rancid – Red Hot Moon
Relaxed Muscle – Billy Jack
Sahara Hotnights – On Top Of Your World
Salmonella Dub – Slide
Screamfeeder – 1 2 3 4 5
Screamfeeder – I Don’t Know What To Do With Myself
Scribe – Not Many
Sir Veto – Underneath A Burning Sun
Sodastream – Blinky
Sonic Animation – (This Is Not) A Love Poem
Spearmint – Left Alone Among The Living
Starky – Girl Talk
The Bumblebeez – Pony Ride
The Casanovas – No Time For Love
The Cat Empire – The Chariot
The Fergusons – Sinner Is Red
The Fiery Furnaces – Don’t Dance Her Down
The Go! Team – Ladyflash
The Guild League – Jet Set…Go!
The Herd – Burn Down The Parliment
The Libertines – What A Waster
The Mountain Goats – See America Right
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
The Postal Service – The District Sleeps Alone
The Raveonettes – Attack Of The Ghost Riders
The Raveonettes – That Great Love Sound
The Shins – Mine’s Not A High Horse
The Spazzys – Lets Get Spazzy
The Strokes – 12:51
The Thrills – Big Sur
The Weekend – 80’s Rockstar
Trash Palace – The Metric System
Turbonegro – F.T.W.
Two Up – Why Do I Try So Hard
Underworld – Dinosaur Adventure 3D
Vassy – Cover You In Kisses
White Stripes – Girl U Have No Faith In Medicine
White Stripes – In The Cold Cold Night
White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
Youth Group – Shadowland
Yunyu – A Prayer
Whew! That’s that over for another year. Oh, and my tip for the winning song? Either “Hey Ya” by Outkast or “Gay Bar” by Electric Six. I’d be very surprised is neither of them ended up in the top 10 anyway.
OK, I’m all typed out now, so I’ll shut up 🙂
Intransigent DNA Influenced Cute Woman of the Week: I happened to see some of a repeat of Undercover Angels yesterday. It’s an apalling show, but ex-Popstar Katie Underwood? Wowee! Actually she bears a slight resemblance to a certain someone else, which may have something to do with it 😉
