Category: General blogging

Technical issues

Indoors PC has started throwing up “CPU fan error” messages on boot, and an hour ago suddenly powered off, not reset. I’ve had the side of the case off and the fan’s looked like it’s going, so this is either a transient fan problem or something more serious.

I’m hoping it can be resolved by leaving the side off the case and keeping a close eye on the fan. If that’s all it is, I can jury-rig a repair with an old case-fan and some cable-ties. If it’s more than that, I’m in trouble because the parts are outdated enough that it’ll require a subtantially fresh build on failure.

Sci, you were a massive dofus.

TLDR: Fun times with teenage 3rd-person rambling.

One of things I’ve been taking on this week is sifting and transcribing the huge pile of old notes I have kicking about. A foot-tall pile of scraps and scrawled-on envelopes.
Most of them are going to be compiled into more succinct lists of ideas, information and so forth. Then the original mess can be tidily burnt, and I can process anything useful out of the notes.

I’ve just finished transcribing this gem though which will be avoiding the burn pile for the time being. It’s a handy reminder of how far I’ve come, even if it does make excruciating reading.

The bit that bugs me the most is that as I started transcribing it I figured it was something I’d written early in high-school, maybe around 13-14 years of age. But no, I hit the point where it talks about being 17 in past-tense. I was 18 years old and wrote like this? How was I never tested for dyslexia?
Maybe that’s for the best anyway considering how I wore my existing faults as a badge of pride then.

Anyway here it is, original spelling and obsession with commas preserved.

Continue reading “Sci, you were a massive dofus.”

A horrible thing

I watched a cat die today

I’ve wanted to find the time to write something proper here again, but haven’t found the time. But now I have to because I need to get this off my chest.

Today we nearly ran over a cat.
We swerved, but the car in front didn’t and neither did the car behind. This happened right as we were passing our house.
There was a flash of black and white as we swerved around it and we both saw it moving it’s leg in the air. Mum shreiked “Oh god, it’s still alive” and started panicing about not wanting to stop and deal with it, but that we were about to park and and and.. so I said I would and had to shout to stop her going on about it because it was just making it worse.

We parked and walked back toward the house. It seemed to be gone, but had actually been taken to the pavement by someone, possibly the person in the car behind.
I wish it had already been dead, but as mum tried to sneak into the house I couldn’t in case someone thought we’d done it and were trying to run away.
I could hear it yowling, and I still can. Short strained cries full of pain and fear. The group around it were trying to take care of it, trying to call someone but no one had the RSPCA’s number.
I called 118118 and got put through to a message saying their call center is closed on Sundays. So I ran up the road to the boarding cattery, but that too was closed.

By the time I got back he was gone. I think it was a he. He looked like he must have been a well looked after tom, but with no collar. Glossy soft fur, still warm. A little red of blood and a swollen tounge in his mouth, and a gap between his open eye and it’s lid. It took me a bit to realise his head wasn’t even the right shape anymore.
That’s why I don’t know if he was a he even. His body shape couldn’t really be trusted anymore. But from a distance he was still a beutful sleeping little kittycat.

I’ve been working solidly these past 7 hours trying not to think about it, but I can’t anymore and it keeps punching me in the mind. I can’t stop crying, or hearing his yowling. It keeps echoing and I can’t stop from sobbing every time it does.

In a weeks time someone will put up missing posters and I’ll have to call them.
I can’t stop thinking if there was something else I could have done, or if I should have tried to put him out of his misery.

Jesse’s Diets – Day 1

Some details on my current poor financial state and the interesting weeks diet ahead.

This week I shall mostly be eating the unknown.

Due to my prolonged period of poor finances, this week took an extra bad turn in the form of exceeding my overdraft by a tenner as my card repayment came out. And this will accumulate in the form of a £25 Payment review fee and £15 for exceeding overdraft fine for three days (at £5 a day), as well as the usual overdraft usage fees and interest payable on the overdraft.

The upshot is that I can’t buy food this week.

But I was supposed to be in that same situation last week wasn’t I? Yes, and if I hadn’t I wouldn’t now be staring at an extra £40 hole in my accounts. And when you only get £50 a week, that’s rather a lot.

(If you’re curious why I’m not simply paying myself more it’s because the business coffers, while a lot healthier than they were, still have a long way to go before I can pay myself anything out of them. The only steady “income” I currently take from the business is £25 a month to one of the credit cards minimum payments. I live day to day entirely on my tax credit payments, while all the money I make is immediately reinvested into the business to try and build it further and faster. Hopefully with a view of getting that comfortable income from it before I become ineligible for said tax credits.)

Now, I should have nearly a fiver in my penny jars, and if things get desperate I can borrow something from the business kitty. Also my dad has kindly offered to loan me the money to repay the credit cards (which were originally only gotten because I was told I wasn’t eligible for a business loan) which I’ll only have to repay to him with the equivalent lost interest, which will remove some pressure. But that will still take months to arrange.

I hate accepting charity. It’s a mark of personal failure in survival terms. And this comes as close as I ever have to that. Psychologically I don’t have much to loose now. It’s relieving in a sickening sort of way.

So my survival task this week is not only to complete more business projects, but do so while living on a budget of about £4.92 and whatever I have in my cupboards. And it will be a challenge. Adapting recipes I can do, coming up with recipes from scratch I can do too. Cobbling together from what’s on hand for some reason I’m not so good at. But adversity breeds creativity, right? Hopefully more interesting than soup+pasta.

Friday 9th

Tonight’s dinner was a baked potato with a healthy dollop of butter and caramelised onions. It worked together pretty well. Simple but tasty. My granddads old advice about cooking the onions slowly worked very well.

I also bottled up the Elderflower Champagne I started brewing last week by this recipe. It’s bucket-brew week had developed it a healthy crust that came away with the use of only two wooden spoons. All bottled in Grolsh-style bottles I scavenged from a home-brew clear-out some years back.

They’re all stored away inside the old cast-iron stove now, where it’s cool and dark. And where any pressure related bottle explosions will be neatly contained. It smelt nice though, and what little I tasted from the spills tasted all right. Not like cats piss at all.

Tomorrow I’ll have to attack the ornamental plum tree in the alleyway. The fruit may be small, but it’s very tastey. The low-hanging fruit’s all gone, so I’ll cut a snag in some PVC pipe and use it to snare them. Hopefully they’ll run down the centre of the pipe and into a bag on the end.

I have a fair amount of old frozen veg in the freezer, some dried pasta and rice, and a few odd tinned things. I’ll be able to eat, I just don’t want to make endless things that are nutritious but flavourless mush.