Service Reward
Posted: Fri 30 January, 2015 Filed under: Commuting, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Finances Leave a comment »As I said last week, the Slab passed its MOT with flying colours. So I decided to give it a treat – as well as the service it was due for, I sorted out a couple of things that’ve been annoying, and all is good.
Since I got it – and obviously before that too – one of the information displays has been pretty dodgy. It’s an old-type thing with a dot-matrix screen, and there were obviously some borked connections, so it never displayed the entire screen at all. Depending on any number of random factors, it could be 75% working or 25%. It didn’t affect the functionality of the car, but it got annoying on occasion.
Anyway, with having had to spend Not Much (actually, nigh-on Sod All) for the MOT, I asked about getting a replacement (or in this case, reconditioned) display module. I’d thought about it before, but didn’t bother at the time.
The service was done yesterday, along with the new display module, and replacement of various fluids that were OK-ish, but got flagged up as “could do with being replaced”. (Brake fluid and the like)
The display now is ace – indeed, it’s taking me some time to get used to it being as bright and clear as it is. The service had a couple of small bits that also needed doing, but it’s been worthwhile, and still Not Much for a car as comparatively old as the Slab.
Of course, with new bits and now it’s all sorted and taxed for the next year, something major is sure to go wrong with it in the coming month or so. That’s just the way these things go…
New Year, Same Shite
Posted: Thu 1 January, 2015 Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, D4D™ Leave a comment »Well blimey, here we are in 2015. The thirteenth year for D4D™, which is quite a surprise.
There’s a lot of stuff going on, some new bits, new projects (and some continuations of existing projects) but there’ll also be a lot more of the same old shite here as well.
Happy New Year, and all that regular rot.
Writing Tools
Posted: Mon 22 December, 2014 Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts, Write More, Writing 3 Comments »Many many years back – before D4D even started – I used to have a couple of palmtop computers. I started off with the Atari Portfolio, then ended up with Psion devices, a 3a and then a Revo. I used to love these things – they made things easy, and gave me a lot of time/ability for writing. Of them all, the Revo was the best for also having a decent keyboard.
These things were tiny – far smaller than today’s tablet devices – but had enough power to do general organisational stuff, and plenty of writing along the way.
In 2015, I want to do more in the way of writing, and I’ve been looking for something similar to the Psions of old – the main requirements being small size, and a decent keyboard. One thing I hate on tablets is the “on-screen keyboard”, which is nigh-on impossible to touch-type on. There’s no real feedback, and it’s hard to type clearly/cleanly/correctly on the poxy things. When one is wanting a device primarily for writing/typing, that’s hardly ideal.
There’s a couple of smaller tablets that also have decent keyboards – but then, if I’m looking at that I might as well get just a small/compact laptop. Mind you, a laptop (even a small one) is still larger than I was looking for.
Ideally I’d like something the size of the old Revo(ish) with a decent keyboard, and better connectivity. Doesn’t seem like much to ask for, does it? Particularly when you consider that such a device was in existence more than a decade ago. But it just doesn’t seem to available. The best alternative seems to be something like the Typo2 keyboard for my phone – except that then negates the case/battery-pack I’ve already got, and also buggers up some of the other phone functionality. Which makes it a bit more pointless.
I feel the same about “smartwatches” like Apple’s iWatch and so on. Sure, there’s a lot of things that are cool on them, but when I think of what Casio used to do with digital watches back in the 90s – watches with calculators, databanks, thermometers, barometers, heart-rate monitors and so on – then the smartwatches are actually pretty dumb.
It’s just annoying – it seems that for all our technological advances, in some ways the devices we have now are less useful than those from a decade ago.
Christmas Cheer
Posted: Sat 20 December, 2014 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Festering Season, Media, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »
As always in the run-up to the Festering Season, the BBC is currently promoting the Eastenders Christmas Day special.
I don’t watch soaps, haven’t in years, and I really don’t get the appeal of them in general. But even in that sector, I truly don’t understand why so many people keep on watching Eastenders. It’s such an unremittingly depressing programme, one where nothing has a truly positive outcome. Even happy occasions – births, marriages etc. – have to have a downside, a negative touch. (Who’s the father? Who’s had an affair? What other explosion of emotion will happen?)
Christmas is, as always, the worst of all. There’s apparently going to be someone effectively going through the throes of a breakdown, so on Christmas Day there’ll be millions of people watching this whole thing of someone’s life collapsing around them.
Maybe it’s about making people feel better about their own lives – that no matter how bad they get, the people on Eastenders are suffering worse. I don’t know. But it’s a mindset that I simply can’t get my head around.
Decorative – the Exception
Posted: Thu 18 December, 2014 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season Leave a comment »Of course, following on from my post yesterday morning about Christmas house decorations being more tolerable this year, I came across this twinkling monstrosity during my evening walk in the village.
I’d take it all back, but actually this one – from what I’ve seen – is more the exception than the rule this year…
