Time for an update

The semester has begun, which means I have classes Monday through Thursday. Fortunately, Fridays are off, so I can seek shelter and comfort in the long weekend. Blah. On average, from 18 to 21h, I have to go and sit there and listen to all kinds of business related stuff, which is not that interesting. Well... if that's why I'm here, that's what I'll do.

Otherwise, things are just peechy. Money is... it's... mnggggh I don't wanna think about money now... it brings me down. Weather... that's always safe. Thessaloniki is suffering from a mild case of snowfall... People here are just not used to snow. The pavements aren't ment to be used in wet weather. They are slippery. Extremely. I've managed not to fall until now, and I hope that I won't. But some scenes that you can see on the streets... just outrageous. When I used to live in another area of town, on a hill, every winter day was an opportunity to observe something amazing and unique.

The guys? Excellent... Dejan came a week ago, with a fresh haircut and chocolate (i kutijom onih bananica... jaoooo). In chocolate we trust. It never lets you down.

Computers...

When I woke up today, all I wanted was to play some music from my PC, and go make myself a coffee. Yeah, right. Malo sutra prijatelju. I press the power button on the bloody box, and it turns on for two seconds and then dies. Unplug the box, wait a few seconds to reset the power supply, try again, same result. Shit. There I am, thinking, which part of this hellspawn machine made a short circuit mess... Open the case, check the motherboard, unplug the drives, remove PCI cards, still dies immediately. Take the MB out, still the same. Hmmm. Must be the power supply. Take it out, open the fucker, clean tons of dust, check out various capacitors and such, nothing suspicious. "Fake" the power-on signal by shorting two leads on the ATX connector - power supply revs up normally. Fan spinning. Voltmeter in hands, I inspect individual leads on the connectors, all the voltages are there. OK. As Johnny often says, "I'm confused". Everything still in pieces, I connect the ATX connector to the MB, punch the power button, and it spins up, CPU fan and all. Fine, I say, it's just one of those "switch off/switch on and it works" phenomena, just a bit spiced up. So, I assemble everything, plug in all the peripherals and give it a go, and it just goes zzzzz-click. Back to square one. AAAARGGH! This time, I just take the ATX power supply lead, fake the power-on and measure the voltages again. The -12 wasn't there for a sec, but then it came back. Hell, I think, maybe I didn't make good contact with the probes. Put the connector back in it's place, everything works. Good.

Puzzled, but happy, I think "maybe it's a good idea to remove that modem that I'm not using, and rearrange the PCI cards since my LAN card is too close to the graphics card's fan..." So I do that. Boot up, and behold! Linux does not see the sound and LAN cards. Neither do Windows. Linux can see the secondary graphics card, but it doesn't use it - no picture on my secondary monitor. Hmmm.... After spending some time trying to configure my sound card, I just plug the modem back in, and everything works fine. Reviving the secondary display took another 40 or so minutes...

And all I wanted was some Massive Attack and a coffee. Was that too much to ask?

Later on, I found out that my mobile phone decided to switch itself off, right when I was expecting a call. Fortunately I saw it was off not long after the last time I used it.

I guess this is just one of those days...

Relief

Phew! There's finally cash in my account. Got tired of eating spaghetti and such. On to the supermarket!!!! How much? 45 Euro? Maaan.... this stuff better last a good while... Cash - 480, bills 204, rent 135.... I'll be broke again before I know it :(

Dejan is in Belgrade, Johnny is taking an exam, and I am boooooored, since I got up spontaneously at 9h in the morning, and there's nothing to do.... 'haps I'll go out to do the Greek thing - sit in a caffe, and drink a frappe (for the ignorant, check the coffee howto, link is below). Baaahhh.

Did I mention I play rugby?

No? Today was our first practice after the Xmas break... Only four of us were there (David, Matt, Tim and me), but it felt good - my body is happy it got out of the sofa and onto the pitch. Anyway, rugby in Greece is not very popular, as you can imagine, but it's growing...

Sleep

Johnny and Dejan (flatmates) let me sleep the other night, as in didn't wake me from my afternoon nap :) This resulted in me waking up at 7 am the following day. Now it is 13:50, and I haven't slept since 7 o'clock yesterday. I feel good. Coffee helps. Oh, while we're on the subject, go check out the linux coffee howto. Where was I? Ah, sleeping. Funny - my sleeping habits got completely twisted around when I came to Greece. I keep wondering what's the reason.... Anyway, here I am, typing away happily on my freshly reinstalled (with a lot of hassle.... again) linux box... Whatcanisay...

Me happy!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Last of the exams for this semester is over and done with!