On the Behaviour of Electronic Devices

There is a universal constant... Well, universal as my life goes... that says "No matter how long you procrastinate, a malfunctioning computer will get worse until such time as you make arrangements to replace it. At this point, the malfunctions cease."

And so it goes that my Dell laptop, having done all kinds of crazy things a few weeks ago, has been behaving very well. It's still slowing down dramatically and being generally cantankerous as only a PC a few years old can be, but it's not blanking its screen, showing me scrolling green bars, resetting, or anything along those lines. It's 'back to normal'.

I'm still getting it replaced, though.

So... Long absence from Blogging. Frankly, I haven't had much time for it and, when I've had time, I just haven't been in the mood. There hasn't been a great deal to say apart from the run-of-the-mill work crap, and a few not-so-run-of-the-mill happenings that I can't really write about without getting too specific. Let's just say it has been decided by the higher-ups that a change in culture is required for the office.

I've had some bloody odd dreams these last couple of nights. One was almost a return to my intermittently-recurring dreams of toy shops stacked with TransFormers. This one, however, was almost bare of everything - picture Woolworths in its last few days - but I found, as I browsed, a few carded G1 Bumblebees right at the back of the shop. Upon closer inspection, however, it turned out that they were not exactly G1 Bumblebee... The head could be switched between the cartoon face (of the TakaraTomy TF Collection reissue) and the original toy face, Movie battlemask-style. The gimmick worked by somehow having the original toy face stored folded away in the helmet, which was made slightly larger (as in sticking out further from the chromed plate it was stuck to) than the real thing. It was a neat gimmick, so I picked one up for my boss, who's still on the Bumblebee-collecting jag she picked up after the first live action movie two years ago. Shame it was a dream.

The next weird dream seemed to be a combination of work and Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. I had discovered a plot to assassinate the Pope by some unknown means. Meanwhile, my employers were doing some work on behalf of the Catholic Church. I was scheduled to have a meeting with their local representative one evening, along with two of my colleagues but, due to some strange, unforseen London Transport failure, the meeting was postponed, and I invited my colleagues to stay at my flat overnight, so we could get to the meeting first thing the next morning.

I should mention, at this point, that when I say "my flat", I don't actually mean the one I'm living in... Oh, no... This dream placed me in an enormous, sprawling central London bachelor pad, high above the city streets.

So I set about finding places for my colleagues to sleep in the many rooms of my luxury flat, when suddenly another person arrived at my door, and was let in by one of my guests.

It was the representative of the Catholic Church who we were due to meet in the morning! One of my colleagues had called her, told her of my plan, and invited her over as well.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't acutely aware that, since I knew of the Pope-murdering-conspiracy, They would be sending an assassin my way... and if my finely-honed dream instincts hadn't identified this new arrival as that very assassin!

So while my colleagues set about making her welcome (in my flat! Humph!), I set about blocking myself in my room to avoid being killed in the night.

I woke up before it got interesting...

Popped off to see Night at the Museum 2 last night, and have to say I was impressed - it built upon the original rather than recycling it. I hadn't recognised Amy Adams from the trailer, but she did an excellent job as the jolly, bantering Amelia Earhart and, bizarrely, Ricky Gervais actually presented a likable performance as the curator of the Natural History museum in New York. Hank Azaria's Karloff-inspired performance as an evil waxwork Egyptian king was reliably funny throughout the film, effortlessly stealing the show.

My cabinets have moved in with me now and, following a mishap that broke the glass in one door, all have been secured to the wall. Now all I need to do is start fillin' 'em up and finish transferring boxes from the house.

Over this weekend, I shall be popping back to the house on Saturday for just this purpose... and to take my folks to see Star Trek and then eat out as a 'Thank You'. Then, on Sunday, I'm meeting up with my old mate Paul and heading off to see Terminator: Salvation. What fun.

Toys from the TransFormers live action movie sequel are appearing in shops everywhere... I have already availed myself of the new Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Soundwave and Starscream. Broadly speaking, I'm impressed. The first Movie Prime was good... but this one is incredible, only let down by the twin sword gimmicks that limit his elbow movement. Bumblebee is only subtly altered, but mostly for the better. Sideswipe - while the wrong type of car and the wrong colours - is bloody impressive, and the new Starscream is a bit of a mixed back. Soundwave..? Kinda blah, to be honest.

I've also managed to bag Universe Darkwind - a repaint of Silverbolt that manages to far surpass the original - and Animated Blurr. Both are pretty darned good... but that shopping spree has cost me well over a hundred quid in a month that I wasn't paid my bonus. Ouch.

Oh well... Supposedly I get a double-bonus this month.

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Bold

Bit of a mixed week. My Friday magazine went quite smoothly up until it turned out that most of the feature copy wasn't in... That's the only reason we were in the office till just after 9pm. Other than that, the magazine went more smoothly that most of the others. I'm not sure if the manager is finally understanding what he needs to do and when, but the flatplan certainly wouldn't have been in the sensible state it was in were it not for one of his staff, who helped me sort everything into the relevant sections.

Not really looking forward to tomorrow - I'm about half a week behind on my Wednesday magazine. Thankfully my boss has offered to take on my next Monday magazine so I can focus on the next Friday magazine once I've got the current one out of the door.

Saturday was a bit of a lazy day... Lots of internet, a bit of laundry, some napping and some TV/movie later on. Did an excellent job of making myself cry watching Big Fish. I'd already seen it in the cinema, but it's lost none of its poignancy the second time round.

Today was far more active, by comparison. Yesterday's washing up, a bit of tidying, putting away the laundry, then off to see Star Trek at IMAX... I've deliberately not read about it, fearing that too many spoilers might... well... spoil it for me. That and, frankly, the prospect of a time-travelling Future Spock offering Leonard Nimoy a cameo didn't really impress me much.

Had I known it was not only directed by JJ Abrams, but written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (the writing team behind TransFormers), I might have been more excited.

It was a very bold step to basically write off almost 40 years of Trek and start at the beginning, changing a few significant points but, to be honest, I'd been getting steadily more bored with Star Trek movies... There just wasn't anywhere to take the series. First Contact was probably the last of the good ones, simply because the Borg represented such an important threat in the Trek universe. It wasn't a brilliant movie, feeling more like an extended and very dark episode of the TV series.

Casting was nigh on perfect... Kirk wasn't quite the Kirk we remember, but the others were very well written and played. Many nods to the TV series, and plenty of uses of catchphrases we know and love. My only real gripe - and it's a small one - is that Chekov wasn't quite right. It was as if they'd cast the only person they found who could do a brilliant impression of Walter Koenig's Chekov.

Do I smell a sequel?

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Possible Service Interruptions

There's a distinct possibility that my computer may be dying.

I know, I know, I've been complaining about its speed (or the lack thereof) and general glitchiness for ages, but recently it's taken to crashing. Or it had... I don't trust it to keep going much longer.

It started with a blanking of the screen, and progressed rapidly to blanking the screen, showing a pair of scrolling green bars on the lefthand side of the screen and then restarting - not even into Safe Mode.

To be honest, it's been well behaved since then... but I'm backing things up regardless.

Which led me to another set of problems: My DVD writer is very particular about the discs it uses. I am convinced I've written to DVD-R and DVD+R, as well as DVD+RW... but when I bought a pack of 50 own-brand DVD-Rs from Staples some time ago, I didn't reckon on my computer refusing to acknowledge there was a disc in the drive, let alone a writable disc.

So I took them back, and exchanged for a pack of Verbatim discs... to much the same effect.

At this point, particularly in the light of the sales assistant asking if I was sure I wanted DVD-R rather than DVD+R, I decided to look up the specs of my drive... and, sure enough, it's not equipped to deal with DVD-R. Theoretically, DVD+R is sound... but the pack of DVD+Rs I got in the second exchange also fail to work - there's a 'problem writing to the disc' right at the start.

Today, I picked up a pack of 5 DVD+RWs, out of spite, and they work fine... But now I have 50 writable DVDs that I can't use, and can't face going back to Staples again...

On the subject of today, I popped over to Harrow to stock up on underwear - somehow I seem to have far less now I'm at the flat. Because I'm a moron, I didn't check what size I need before I left the flat, so I had to guess... and I got the wrong size. Still, slightly too large is better than slightly too small.

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