Sleep, or lack of it

So tonight I'm having trouble sleeping. I actually almost made it to sleep; moved, and suddenly my nose started to bother me. Then my brain woke up and that's been the problem ever since.

For some reason I had managed to put the multipart list of many things that need doing out of my head while I was on holiday, but with the restarting of the rest of the world, all the things that need doing are frolicking around my head like gamboling lambs, keeping me from sleeping*.

And my nose is still itchy.

I also have been suffering the Trial of Hackintosh. See, while I long ago accepted that I've become an AppleDrone, and that I have little hope of ever escaping from a desire for Apple's equipment, my aged OS X running Hackintosh; the thing which got me into this cursed place in the first place; has become unwell. It required a new DVD-Writer. Fine. Not a problem. Considered options. Bought. Ready to replace... except. Except in a moment of foolish desire (wanting the iTunes on the entertainment machine to directly sync with my iPhone) I decided to to finally upgrade iTunes. Here I must berate Apple. It doesn't appear to do any kind of check to say 'can I run on this system'. Presumably this is because it assumes that you'll go round installing their updates. Unfortunately, 10.4.9, which is what is on there won't run the current version of iTunes.

Of course I discovered this by installing iTunes and finding it won't run. Interestingly, it doesn't give any error messages, it just singularly fails to load. And now I can't find an older version to install. Thanks Apple (and I know I deserve no support for having a Hackintosh, but I did buy a shiny shiny laptop from you too, and I sport an iPhone).

Anyhow, this has lead to a flurry of poking with sticks, and the new year beginning as so many years of my life, with a computer scattered in bits across the (in this case, the lounge) floor. I've managed to find a 10.4.10 install that will sort-of-work, unfortunately the nVidia card in the machine isn't very happy with the 10.4.10 install. More work is, unfortunately needed.

Anyhow, I think it's time for me to try sleeping once again.

Incidentally, anyone know why Kathryn's laptop keeps beeping? I've run disk-checky software on it which says that the one year old hard disk in it is, potentially, failing very slightly in an obscure very minor way. But having run a really extremely thorough scan of the disk it doesn't actually seem to generate any faults, so I'm not sure when it's generating this fault; nor can I tell if that really is the cause of the beeping as it doesn't appear to generate any obvious error messages.

* Including, but not exclusively: Have I made the right decision on the washing machine, the DAF and it's hopefully impending sale, the MZ and why it's decided to stop, the Civil Claim I want to start against the people who ruined my Morris Minor, the Civil Claim I'm waiting to have against me from John Lilly of Dragon Electric Vehicles, the potential new job, my 52 week programme which I've not finished, Canada**.
** Not *all* of Canada. I'm obviously not really concerned about Canada in general, just about moving there and all of the complexity entailed in that.

Can I class this as a success?

So, having spent all of yesterday working through different OS X installs for the Hackintosh:

10.4.10 - Works, but needs nVidia drivers
10.5.1 - Installs almost completely, then crashes, then kernel panics on reboot
10.5.6 iPC - Crashes before installer
10.5.6 iDeneb - Crashes before installer

I decided to try a different tack and went hunting for old versions of iTunes which are actually on Apple's site*. Having removed the new version of iTunes, and dumped 8.0 back on there; and also removed the dead DVD-+-RW the machine is now happy again**. I've also disconnected one of the case fans, since it appeared to be overkill, extracted some of the layer of dust from the processor fan, and grumbed that perhaps the Sempron/Abit NV8 - both of which are 6 years old - are starting to be a bit limiting. I, for reasons that escape me, thought it was an Athlon 64 in there. It's not, it's a Sempron 2800+.

Still, I can't afford to replace it at the moment - and even if I could, I'm not sure if I want to just before going to Canada - am largely of the opinion that I'd be better off packaging the HDDs properly, and heading off to Canada with just the disk :)

Anyhow, I need to take a wander into town to collect some bits and bobs, and perhaps take a look at the 'zed, and also seal some floor tiles :)


* Apologies to Apple.
** For values of 'happy' related to being a 6 year old hackintosh being forced into use most days.

Plan: Monday

Kill time until about midday (with breaks to rewash the floor / coat floor if it's dry), eat lunch, head to: Post orifice, Maplin, Doctors, My Doctors, Potentially plumbing place.

Oops: Kathryn's mom gave me an Amazon voucher for Xmas. I bought, uh, 6 books (yay for second hand). Forgot that I'd ordered a book before Xmas (Chimera, Will Shetterly), and, uh, another book to go with it (Midnight Girl, Will Shetterly)....

Arse.

8 Books.

We need more shelves. Again.

Am trying to locate will power to fix MZ. Am also wondering what happened to "we'll ring you in the morning" from the dry cleaners*


* Eddie slept on the lounge rug (our decision) and we think there was a drooling incident. It needed cleaning anyway, so we're not bothered. But the local dry-cleaners weren't really sure how much it'd cost until they saw it and promised to ring today.

Test of WP Linkage

So I've finally decided (having just rewashed the same floor tile for the fourth time) that it's time to link my Wordpress Journal from my oh so vanity domain to the LJ Journal. Save me doing everything twice.

Let's see if it works.

Most unexpected comment of Xmas/New Year

Talking to my sister she said that I rang during the beginning of Dr Who (we iPlayer everything thanks to the failure of me to connect the arial) - and she said: "I did wonder what you were thinking. It's Doctor Who"!

Ah, the Doctor :)