Month: October 2002

On the road out of the town where I grew up, there was an old ramshackle warehouse that looked fantastic. Every time I drove past I thought ‘I must buy some black and white film.’ Of course, the day I pitched up with a loaded camera was the day after it had been knocked down.

Happily, Abandoned Places has vastly better shots of such stuff than I’d have taken myself.

A weekend of wandering around Glasgow, arriving at galleries just as they close and posing for ‘Gosh, we’re interested in this pamphet’ pictures.

Top day, actually. Gong highly recommended.

My mate Damien (the other half of the currently-moribund but oh-so-badly-missed It Likes You – returning soon, promise) has been shortlisted for the video prize connected with this: Full Length 19: Morcheeba. Head on down the ICA on Sunday and look for a vaguely Polish chap. Oh, and raise your glasses in the general direction of Glasgow, where I’ll be. Grr.

Brazilian election broadcasts. Reality TV for real. I’m particularly fond of the last para.

I had a phone call the other night. “You know vacuum dessicators? I reckon that trying to dry socks in one would be a waste of time. What do you think?”

Hmm. Interesting.

In brief, I concurred. You?

So, my flatmate Martin has been on holiday, in Florence and his old family haunt Prague. When I picked him up from the station last night, he looked to be in much better spirits than when he left, which is, I’m told, rather the point of a holiday.

Like most holiday returnees, his bags bulged. Unlike most, his bags bulged with Czech packet soups. Curious.

Glasgow Central station. Sign one:

‘West Cornwall Pasty Company.’

Thought One: Isn’t ‘West Cornwall’ a synonym for ‘North Atlantic’?

Sign two, in large metal letters above a franchise:

‘Tastty!’

Thought two: Hell, I’d be annoyed by that.

I winced. I’d just been asked what I knew about installing apps on Windows. Undeterred by my reply, my colleague continued, waving some printouts at me.

“Oh, I see,” I muttered, “So your MSIEXEC.EXE thingy is furballed. Is it cross-linked with… er… RUNDLL32 dot … something?”

“Yes!’ She exclaimed, excitedly, “That’s exactly what Dell support told me! I have to reinstall something…”

“Reinstall the install shield installer install?” I offered.

“That’s it! You know the problem!”

“No. I’m making this up. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

She looked crushed. “But…” she began.

“This is exactly why I can’t be arsed with Windows. Sorry, but I’ve never managed to solve this sort of thing, and I gave up trying years ago. It sounds like they’re suggesting the right sort of approach, but since I’ve no idea what…” I consult the print-outs “…squibblefumblurg dot coffig does, nor where it should go, nor indeed where it might come from, I really don’t know what I can do to help.”

Sorry, Helen. I’m not trying to be smug, I just genuinely don’t know. I can cut video, build dynamic websites, do half-decent typography and composite photographs. I can rip and splice audio, collate hundreds of news feeds, publish my diary, and network with anything else. I can compile database servers, search a hundred thousand files for the word ‘crocodile,’ and burn DVDs. I can do all of that without knowing a damn thing about troubleshooting Windows.