The cold damp has taking up permanent residence

Right at the back of my spine. I got some things done today (laundry, vacuuming, cooking dinner) but no where near as much as I wanted to. Pain got to the point I wanted to vomit. I really wish Wing and Alan would actually see it, instead of seeing the after effects. Maybe if they actually saw it...

Oh well, not going to hold my breath. I might look good in blue, but I wouldn't look good cadaver blue.

Most excellent

Have just about finished updating all software (with notable exception of the graphics drivers that won't update for some odd reason), tweaked the system settings and have it running the way I want... for now. Waiting for Windows 8 update to 8.1, which will allow users to completely skip the metro screen. Yes, there are programs and utilities that jump to the desktop from metro, but 8.1 will give you option of not even pit stopping there first.

All set up

Got the last of the known Win7/Win8 compatibility problems resolved. More like irksome quirks than true compatibility problems. (ie having to select to run things as Administrator in Win8, which I didn't have to do in Win7). I know Microsoft thinks they're making things 'dummy proof', but all it does is annoy those of us who know what to and not to do.

Still can't update the graphics drivers to the 'official' Sony driver. Had to use AMD Beta version. Hey, it works just fine.

Next thing, I have to recalibrate the screen. It's too 'bluish'.

Well, that was a waste of time

Sony Support did replace the dodgy/faulty harddrive, and I re-imaged it to Windows 7. Was tempted to keep it there, but I kept getting that intermittent futz error that no one could figure out what was causing it. It was more a necessity, as the computer was Windows 8 ready, but Windows 8 hadn't been released. There was something with it that wasn't quite compatible with Windows 7, hence the error I would intermittently get.

So, after updating all software, uninstalling certain items I knew would need to be reinstalled, I made a Windows 7 full system image, girded my loins, and went through the Windows 8 upgrade.

Long tedious with reboots, updating, reinstalling, tweaking, all is set up and working (Yes, Jennifer, I was able fix the issues I was having this morning). Now, just waiting to hear back from certain software makers about new license numbers, as my machine ID changed because of the hardware change.

I seriously hope I never have to do this again, for a long long time.

Daily Chore with side of funny

One of the first chores I do in the morning is clean out the 'sandboxes'. What's funny about it is being supervised by Ziggy. She looks the sandbox, looks at me, looks back at the sandbox, looks at me, snorts and walks off. All I can think of is "Hey! I worked HARD to get that sandbox set up like that!"

No, not mentioned because I want pity

There was a weekly subject for a photo group, titled "I am.."

For me, I posted a photo of my 'breakfast' this morning. Some pain medication, and a class of water with the caption "I am.. in constant/chronic pain. Some days are worse than others. But I refuse to give into it."

This isn't said to garner pity, or sympathy. If anything, it's to let people know, if I'm not walking quite as fast, it has nothing to do with being lazy. If I'm not talking, just nodding to you to show I'm paying attention, it's because I don't want my voice to betray that the pain is trying to limit me.

I refuse to give in, but do have limitations.. that I ignore, then pay for at a later time.

Well, it's back and running

Sony Vaio has returned. I broke out the system image, and Win7 re-image was successful. With that, though, I have the "foo" error that seems to have no apparent reason (hardware, software, bios all check out fine) again. Concensus is/was that it's an error related to the fact this machine is made for Windows 8.

I have my documentation for the windows 8 upgrade.. yet again. Oy. Do I want to put up with the intermittent Win32k.sys error, or take the chance on installing Windows 8 again.

Technically, it wasn't the storm that woke me up at 3am

It was two cats who were spooked by the weather and demanded a snuggle, meeping and meowing, head snogging, pawing, trying to hide under the blankets.

Normally, I just sleep through stormy weather. I guess the winds were more intense than usual, and it made them skittish.

OH well, I can always get a nap in later... (pauses for incredulous laughter here) Yeah, right.

Never piss off an educated Pagan

I have a very dear friend, who has fallen on hard times. Her job vanished, and even after looking for a new one, things still aren't going well for her. She has one but it's a case of too late to keep her above water.

Now, this isn't being said to garner pity, or asking for a hand out, hand up, but to rant.

How DARE a self righteous relative of hers make fun of her. How dare he use re- written by his preacher passages in the bible meant to insult President Obama as his excuse for such piss poor behavior. I'm betting this asshole dislocates his own shoulder patting himself on the back as to how wonderful he is, totally forgetting that "But for the grace of God go I." when it comes to someone in dire straights.

What did (the historical) Jesus say about taking care of family?

Timothy 5:8

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

So, relative of my friend, suck it up, because according to your OWN holy writings, you have denied your own faith, and are worse than an unbeliever.

Did some macro photography over the weekend

Bee in a Large Mallee Fruit blossom (and an ant, too!)




Beetle between two Mallee Fruits



Bee on a Kangaroo Paw blossom

Dammit

Went to bed too early last night, and end up awake before 4am.  Tried to go back to sleep, but no joy.  There will be a nap today, no ifs, ands or butts.

Starting to wilt here

Been up since 4:30ish am, because Wing felt it was necessary to tell me he wasn 't feeling well. And I'm the type of person, once I'm awake, I'm awake. On rare occasions I can get back to sleep, but that wasn't to happen today.

Got up, fed the two male Purr Kids (Ziggy wasn't interested in eating yet) Didn't do too much as I didn't want to disturb Wing. I swear, if a gnat burps, the noise of that would wake him up.

Waited for the mail to arrive. Photo5 box still hasn't arrived, so I decided to read up on the Canon Photo5 site to see what the brief was about. Flour, texture and contrast. Ok, then pillaged my own kitchen to find what I would need to set that up and do it.

Three 20 minute sets, 2 clean ups and three set ups, checking images, and then being satisfied with some images. Now, just have to figure out which crop/size I want.

Re-ordered coffee yesterday, and they arrived today. Not too shabby, but the deliveryman giave me the creeps. Car parked in the drive way, and he walks up and yells "ANYONE HOME?" To which I answer "Yes, be right with you."

Normal so far, yes? I open the door, and he looks me up and down a few times, asks my name, which I provided, then he stepped a bit closer looking down then up but this time his eyes didn't reach my face.

Hey, I'm no prize, but I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. I backed up and made sure the box of coffee was between him and myself. Wing, in the bedroom, coughed and this guys eyes darted over my left shoulder. I said "My husband is home, not feeling too well today." He handed me the thingamabob to scribble my signature and left with alacrity. I actually felt relieved.

Now, I'm starting to feel that early morning rising, compounded with going to bed rather late last night. Will try to make it until at least 9pm, then it's jammie time!

Guys wanting it both ways

Boyfriend, girlfriend.  Guy doesn't want children, gal does. Seemingly oblivious that sex can result in pregnancy, he doesn't want or like to use condoms. He knows she doesn't take birth control.

She gets pregnant. He doesn't want it, she does. Unbeknown to her, he gives her RU-486, causing a miscarriage. Although he has been arrested and charged, I feel the charges are incorrect. (Can't 'murder' an embryo, but we will leave that for another time.) He should have been charged with dispensing medications without a medical license, reckless endangerment, or whatever charges can be filed for illegally drugging someone.

But what got me was the comments.

"She should have kept her legs closed."
"She knew he didn't want children, so it's 100% her responsibility if she gets pregnant"
"Unless it was rape, she takes full responsibility for the pregnancy."

What th hell?  How about this:

"He should have kept his fly zipped."
"Sex results in pregnancy. Don't want that, kept it tucked, or put a cap on it."
"His right to what is done with that sperm ends when it leaves his body, and enters her vaginal vault."
"Took two to create a pregnancy, both parties are responsible."

I raised both my sons this way. I also told them should they do other than the above four statements, it wouldn't be the law they would have to be afraid of... it would be me.

But you get a flurry of men who still want to rule women. Men who don't want women to have the right to choose what to do about unplanned pregnancy, force her to carry to term. Then you get men who want to force women to abort (or drug her to miscarry) because he decided sex shouldn't result in pregnancy.  There are examples of men killing their pregnant girlfriends, and while in prison, calling it a "child support adjustment". No joke.

When are these knuckle dragging Neanderthals going to be made extinct?  When the HELL are these double standards going to %#$@%# stop!

I've never been one to just throw up my hands and quit

But I was >.< this close to giving up on Adobe Photoshop CS6E because of how glacially slow Bridge was. Bridge in CS5 was fast, but in CS6, snails could out run it.

So, ok, what's the different between CS6 and CS5 Bridge?  For months, I couldn't find a damned thing. Set up was the same,  same settings for thumbnails, disk caching, etc all the same. 

I did find I could use the faster CS5 bridge with CS6, if I was willing to do without a few of the tools, including the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw.  I actually did do this for a few days, but certain ACR tools were integral in photo processing. 

While I was setting up a new script with a nifty utility called Y-Launch, a great freeware program made by  to run  C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop CS6 64bit and C:\Adobe\Adobe CS5 64 bit Bridge I discovered that although there is 64bit version of Bridge for CS6, there is no 64bit version of Bridge for CS5.

*LIGHTBULB*

Kept Y-Launch open, and checked the Program Files (86) directory and sure enough, there was CS5 bridge for 32bit, and one for CS6 also. Hmmm, CS5 fast, 32 bit. CS6 slow.. and it's launching the 64bit version.  Let's see how fast it is if I launch the 32bit version of Adobe CS6 Bridge.

Holy f**king shit.  Once again, thumbnails loading fast, no more stalling at "Building Criteria", and no more of the program behaving as if every time I open a specific folder, that it's a brand new import.  Had I known that Photoshop CS5 Bridge was 32bit only... 

So now in Y-Launch, I have a script file that executes the following commands:

"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Photoshop.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Bridge CS6\Bridge.exe"

Simon, I owe you a beer! A cup of tea, or coffee.. something.

Ah, the ubiquitous 9-3

Good news, my Vaio has been booked to be picked up by a courier tomorrow. YAY!

"Will someone be there sometime between 9 and 3?"

What is so difficult about planning a couriers schedule?  Look at the route, distance, directions, plan shortest from point to point.

A: Mr Smith, 8am
B: Mr Jones 8:20am
C: Mrs Cooper 8:45

Have some wiggle room, yes but this 6 hour window?  Can you imagine if you told your boss "Yeah, I'll be in... sometime between 9 and 3."

What's the hardship saying "Courier will be there near or at 9:45. Will someone be home?"  *sigh* At least it will get the new hard drive. Then it's just fussing with restoring the Windows 7 system image merry-go-round again. Easy peasy.

He is just soooo right

I have the worst luck when it comes to electronics/computers.

Right in the middle of the attempt (I guess the word attempt give it away) to restore the Windows 7 64bit Pro image to the Sony Vaio, something didn't work. Had popup error "320", said reboot (I did) and then got BootMng Error, Press CTRL+ALT+Del to restart system.
BootMng Error, Press CTRL+ALT+Del to restart system.
BootMng Error, Press CTRL+ALT+Del to restart system.

Seeing as it worked before, I called Sony Support.  Cliff Notes version, machine still under warranty, booked in for repairs,  hard drive replacement. Then when it comes back I restore the system image, and go through the joys of Windows 8 Upgrade again.

And I had such high hopes

Dashed upon the rocks of "Must be user error".

Quick recap: bought a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows 7 on it, but Windows 8 ready. Could purchase upgrade for $14.99.

First time, around, using the Sony Vaio update utility, I had problem after problem after problem (copy/paste not working, Windows Explorer crashing, video/graphics drivers issues, then the black blank screen) so I restored the Windows 7 system image I had.

A few months roll by, and after yet again getting intermittent BSODs during Windows 7 start ups, of which no specific reason could be found, I decided to update to Windows 8 again.

Once again, rolled out the Sony Viao update utility, updated to Windows 8. Knew about the graphics driver issue, the fix for the copy paste issue, and what to do about the black screen.

Ok, well and good. Let's go back to the Sony site and get the most up to date drivers. Therein lies the problem. Once again, when I tried to update the video drivers, I keep getting "You don't have the right hardware for this update". So, I head on over to the AMD site. Yes, they have the newer drivers, but it specifically says NOT COMPATIBLE WITH SONY LAPTOPS.

I emailed Sony. I had thought I was actually getting somewhere with them. How so silly of me. Want to know what their final response was? An hours long version of "Have you tried turning it off then back on?" Yes, their brilliant decision was to restore Windows 7 (again) and update to Windows 8 (again) using the Sony Viao update utility (again)

Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same exact thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Clue up: First attempt to update fails, could very well be user or software problem. 2nd attempt, there's something wrong with the hardware.

I'm betting she hiding it then throwing it away

Wing  just came back from visiting his mother. It seems that even with her being escorted to breakfast, lunch and dinner, having 2 snacks served, and being given the dietary supplements, she has managed to lose even more weight.

All tests have shown there's nothing wrong, no obstructions, digestion working properly etc. There is no medical reason for her to be losing the weight. There's only one reason she's losing weight. She's only pretending to eat.  I told Wing I'm betting she's not eating her meals, that she's stashing them on her person (pockets or between her arms and body), and when she gets back to her room, she is just flushing it down the toilet, or throwing it in the wards' large communal trash bin.  I showed him how easy it would be to do it. 

Well, if she hates being there now, she is really going to loathe it, as her weight loss is interfering with her medical treatment.  She will probably be put under constant watch during meal times, and not allowed to leave until she finishes what she is served.