Recounting the week, after the World's End
I keep falling into the trap of only writing when I have “something to say” worth sharing. The problem is the “worth sharing” bitbecause it's based on what I think others might want to readnot what I might want to write. I am of course over-thinking the entire thing, which is half the reason I have not written anything for several daysand now I've written an entire paragraph about nothing at all. That requires some kind of useless talent, doesn't it? or at least a talent in being useless?This week was something of a stress filled roller coaster.
I had a project at work dumped on me from a height. A complicated project that I had not worked on for a couple of years. I can't write too much about it, but lets say it involves a system used by hundreds of people all over the world for a very prestigious clienta client you would certainly know the name of. Think about itthe rollout of an upgrade to the system came down to one guy (me) working from the junk room at home, and crossing his fingers and toes that he didn't f*ck anything up. Throughout the entire slog I was supposed to be working on another project entirely.
It hasn't helped that I have been sick for the last monthculminating in a visit to the doctor on Thursday afternoon. What started as a chest infection got turned up to 11by a cold, and is now clinging on as a viral upper respiratory tract infection (the doctor has some kid of “trachy” name for itI forget). After asking twenty leading questions, the doctor pretty much told me there was nothing he could doI would just have to sit it outthat the cough could hang on for perhaps another month. Wonderful. I can't really complain, because I know all about the healthcare horror stories toldby those I know in the US. I was able to call the doctors at lunchtime, was seen by mid-afternoon,and didn't pay anything to anybody.
Alongside everything, I spent most evenings this week playing the “stay up late to avoid the arrival of tomorrow” card. Once the kids are in bed, the washing up is done, the kitchen cleared, and the washing machine and dryer running flat out, I get the chance to do what I wantwhich usually means either hitting the internet for the first time all day, or messing around with old computers or emulators. This week's distractions were Amiga Forever, and a MSDOS USB stick.
Amiga Forever turns a Windows PC into a perfect recreation of an Amiga from the late 1980s. One entire evening became a trip down memory laneinstalling software I have not seen for 30 years. I have an old Amiga that I was given a few years ago, and contemplated buying the various cables and components to bring it back to lifebut in the end the emulator was the far easier, and more cost effective proposition. At some point I will get some games installed on it, and show the kids where it all startedLemmings, Populous, Dungeon Master, SWIV, and countless other games that absorbed huge swathes of my early teen years.
The next evening was spent making a USB stick that turns any laptop into a 1992 vintage MS DOS workstation, with Microsoft Word, Lotus 123, and Wordperfect installed. You might wonder why, and so would I really. It's one of those things that's possible, but not really that useful. If I was on a train, and wanted the computer to boot up in 1 second, and launch a word processor to write some notes in another second, it would be the perfect solution. I showed our eldest daughter “how computers used to look and work”she took interest for perhaps ten seconds before returning to building her latest Sims house.
The week wasn't entirely absorbed in such geekery.
Last night friends visited bearing pizza and wine, and we watched “The World's End” togetherthe movie with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost attempting a pub-crawl with old friends in the town they grew up in. I haven't laughed so much in ages. Actually, given the chest infection, every time I started laughing, I ended up coughing my lungs up, which wasn't greatbut it was still a very, very good movie. The soundtrack in particular was a time portal of sortspulling us all back to the late 90s, and remembering a time before relationships, families, and responsibility. Like I saidwonderful movie.