The Countdown

I'm currently reading the final book in The List, which runs to 1,168 pages in length. Given the density of the text, I've set myself a target of 12 pages per day, and have just passed the 800 day mark, which means I should finish it around the end of next month.

I'm very much looking forward to it all being done - this final book is not exactly great (more on that when it is done), it will be good to finally complete this task, but also I have a huge pile of books waiting to be read and it will be good to feel free to get to them.

Rangers Management Woes 2023

These seem to be coming earlier and earlier each year!

After today's defeat, Rangers find themselves 7 points behind Celtic. That means that if they change their manager now, the new guy has it within his power to win the league - just win all your games, and it's job done. If Rangers lose one more game, that is no longer the case and they'll need someone to do them a favour.

(Of course, the current Rangers team are in no shape to win all their remaining games, but that's another issue - I'm just talking about the mathematics of the situation.)

Since Michael Beale is clearly not the solution they need, and isn't going to make it to the end of the season, that means the time to act is now. But there's a really big problem: if you're going to change manager, you need to find someone better. And in this case that someone must be able to take this group of players through to the January transfer window without dropping any points, and then must be able to get through the rest of the season with, most likely, only nominal rebuilding (because Rangers spent all their money backing Beale).

It's really hard to think who they could get in that circumstance.

And yet, do it they must.

The Dream

For the past few years we have had milk delivered to our door. Consequently, the dream has always been to get up before the milk is delivered. ("The dream" doesn't need to make sense; it just is.) I had actually assumed that this was impossible - when I returned home after Grandma's funeral I found the milk waiting for me at half past midnight that night, so getting up before that would be madness.

However, since we adopted Lion I have been responsible for the morning walk on weekdays, and that has seen me leaving the house at 6.15. And the last twice we have had a milk delivery, I've returned from that walk just as the milkman has gotten to our house.

So, huzzah, the dream has been fulfilled!

The downside now is that I need a new dream...

(Incidentally, prior to Covid we had milk deliveries at the office. And on exactly one occasion I made it to the office before the milk arrived. So the dream was fulfilled there, too. We don't have milk deliveries any longer, though that isn't really anything to do with me.)

Resting my Brane

I fell in front of the TV on Wednesday. This seemingly-mundane event really isn't like me - the last time it happened was on the day after Funsize was born. So it's a sign that I'm really tired. Not my usual, extreme, level of tiredness, but something more.

As a consequence of this, I've been taking things somewhat easier the last few days, and intend to keep doing so over the weekend. Sadly, the auspices don't look good...

Millstone

A few months ago, after many years of consideration of the matter, I finally bought a NAS. It's a lovely device, that sits proudly on a shelf in pride of place.

And I wish I'd never bought the damn thing.

It took me several weeks to find any time to get the thing out of its box, and then still more weeks to install its expanded RAM, find, a spot for it on a shelf, and the switch it on. And then I promptly switched it off again, because I had absolutely no time to do anything more with it.

Several weeks later I again found a little time, and started on the "quickstart" guide for setting it up. Which took several hours, and got the device configured so that it is usable.

Sort of.

Because while the device itself is usable, in order to actually do anything it needs to be made visible on our network, it needs the relevant files copied across (and regular backups set up), it needs configured as a media server, and all our other devices need set up to act as clients.

And I have neither the time or, frankly, even the remotest inclination ever to do any of that. Because the whole thing is such a massive pain to do anything with that I really can't be bothered.

At this point, the most honest thing for me to do with it, and the thing that would cause me the least pain and hassle, would be to put it back in its box, put the box in the garage, and forget I ever bought the thing.

(I can't even sell it on now, because it's set up just enough that I'd have to restore it to factory defaults before I did. And even the thought of doing that pisses me off.)

The whole thing has just turned into a devastating waste of time, money, and energy. And is, frankly, really upsetting.

No, Tesco, Nobody Said "Christmas"

Doing the weekly shop this morning I noticed that Tesco now have their first Christmas displays up, bearing the legend "Did somebody say Christmas". Given that it is the 15th of September, and indeed we were enjoying our belated Summer only a week ago, this is frankly absurd.

Hang your heads in shame, Tesco.

How to Screw Up an Idea

Apparently the Welsh government are about to change the default speed limit on their roads to 20mph. Which is absolutely fine, I guess - I'm not particularly a fan, but I don't have any enormous objection.

But...

The law is being changed to make this the default the speed limit on all "restricted roads", which are defined as those where the lamp-posts are less than a certain distance apart.

At which point the whole thing goes from being a reasonable change that I don't particularly like to being one that is utterly insane. Because drivers won't be, and indeed shouldn't be, aware of the exact distance between lamp-posts as they drive through an area. Not only is it an inappropriate distraction from what they should be paying attention to, it's also something that people aren't going to be able to estimate - if there's a row of lamp-posts on the road ahead of you, your estimate of the distance separating them is going to itself be affected by the speed at which you are travelling!

By all means, reduce the speed limits. But for goodness sake, clearly and explicitly indicate the speed limits that apply! We have perfectly good, indeed extremely clear, signs that can be used to indicate the speed limits. Use them.

Day 257: Update on Goals

I realised last night that I was overdue for an update...

• Books: I'm almost halfway through the final book from The List, and expect to finish either late October or early November. I've read a total of 16 books so far this year, which isn't exactly a huge number.
• Blogging: By day 200 I should have completed 84ish posts here, plus a further 42 on The Imaginarium. I'm behind on both blogs, although not disastrously so in either case.
• Redecorating: We've mounted some nice picture frames in our hallway, and so the final remaining job that I'd like to do this year is to replace the hallway carpet. That feels like it should be doable by the end of the year. That leaves a grand total of five rooms in the house that we haven't redecorated since moving in, where the next on the list will most likely be Surprise!'s bedroom. But that's a discussion for another day.
• Other stuff: Nothing to report here.

The goals remain more of less achievable by the end of the year. But given how light they are, that's not a great achievement.

#16: "Firefly: Carnival", by Una McCormack

Gubbed

It turns out that I was wrong about my hard drive - although it did start working again, that was a final flourish before giving up the ghost. It appears to be totally dead this time.

I have purchased a new (and, indeed, bigger) hard drive to replace the failed unit. I decided that was cheaper and less hassle than having to engage with tech support (who, almost certainly, would just replace the drive anyway, with all data lost). I'll have a go at recovering the, fortunately few, things on the old drive that weren't backed up, but I don't hold out much hope.

Which is all somewhat odd: prior to 2023 I'd never had a hard drive actually fail on me. In the course of this year, LC and I have now each had a drive do exactly that, in each case with the loss of some, but not all, data.