Sunday 1 October 2000

Pic of the day: Finally, it is here: An elevator for The Sims! I downloaded it from someone tentatively known as Farbie, and it works like a charm. Easy to install, easy to use.

Sim heating

I woke up late. Usually I am up at about the same time whether or not I go to work. (In all honesty, that's still pretty late for a working man, typically 7:30.) Today it was nearly 11. I blinked, and found myself tightly embracing my fluffy duvet. (I'm using the French word here because far as I know, the English only use blankets.) I knew I had told myself "I must remember this dream" but that's the only thing I remember. The dream is gone. Wonder what it was all about.

I got up. The Chaos Node was still pleasantly warm, despite no heating during the night. The triple-isolated windows and thick walls retain the heat for a long time, and allow for moderate heating costs even in winter. (Which it definitely is not yet.) There had been a couple of chilly days, but yesterday was sunny, and that's all you need. And even on the chilly days, I could heat the living room by playing The Sims. It really gives my little machine a run.

***

Briefly speaking of my little machine, let me repeat the warning: Think twice before buying a Toshiba! I've heard a lot about how good quality these are, but in retrospect I remember that I have only heard this from their own ads. With an advertising budget like that, it's no wonder they have to use shoddy parts. Luckily, I got my Toshiba Satellite laptop fairly cheap last summer. It would not have been worth their ordinary price. Let me briefly recap:

The parallel port may work well enough with my printer, but it was a nightmare with my parallel port connected zipdrive, which I used to transfer stuff from one machine to another. When the zip drive was connected, the machine would hang on boot, or at least when I tried to access the zip drive. The hang would continue for minutes, sometimes indefinitely until I rebooted.

Speaking of reboot, often when the machine hangs it is impossible to make a soft reboot with Ctrl-Alt-Del. Pressing the reboot hole with a matchstick or some such is the only way. And no, you can not turn it off with the on-off switch. I suppose you could take out the batteries, but I'm not sure what the effects of that would be. Since it still locks up randomly on average about once a day, I may eventually find out when the reboot switch wears out from extended use.

I solved the Zip problem because I was already in the market for a new 250MB Zip drive, so I bought the USB version of it. (It is backward compatible with the previous generation of Zip drives, 100MB, same dimension.) This works well enough - but Toshibas version of the USB bus only supports one USB peripheral at a time, thus defeating the entire philosophy of the Universal Serial Bus concept.

Shortly after I sent the old computer to Germany, the Toshiba suddenly stopped playing audio CDs, thus setting in motions the events that led to me buying a new stereo. But at least the laptop itself was on sale. I recommend that you do not buy a Toshiba under any other circumstances than on sale, and at a hefty discount. It is without comparison the most shoddy PC I've had since I got my first AT-compatible in the 80es. (Which, incidentally, still runs.) But at least I do have a laptop, and that is cool. Well, no, actually it is hot, at least when I play modern games on it. But in the winter half of the year, that's a good thing.

***

Yes, people! We have entered the winter half of the year! October, November, December, January, February, March - that's six months. While the snow is hopefully still a long way off, the magical line is crossed. Descent into darkness. Long nights, short days. Deepening frost, and eventually the snow will cover everything once again, transforming the world into stark black and white. It's time to look over the winter clothes. It's time to buy christmas presents ...

Just kidding! I'm unabashedly male, and therefore I will buy the presents on the day before christmas, as is good and proper.

OK, I was about to write something here about giving underwear as Christmas gifts; but on second thoughts, I know it can be hard enough for young readers to keep their thoughts pure and bright at all times. So, no underwear today.

Hmm, is it getting a bit chilly in the room? I guess it's time to fire up The Sims again ... just for a few minutes ... more ...