obsession

In between working and sleeping this week, (oops, and yesterday's imbibing) I've been trying to keep a few minutes for the NaNoWriMo novelling. I'm at the stage now where the story is beginning to converge, although I'm not sure whether I've been adding too many pieces into the mix.

As a way to blend in some content, I've been noting little items in my notebook and snapping interesting pictures which could somehow add into a scene. Hence this car. I sometime park in a swish London car park where there's always a selection of exotica which usually manages to make me smile. And so earlier in the week when I parked next to this Lambo I thought it should make an appearance in the story. And then a few days later, I was parked again and returned to find it next to me.

Its obviously the latest model and costs 'do not touch' amounts of money. I need to work out whether it becomes involved in a car chase ready for the film rights from the novel.

...hmmm, black or orange?

rashbre nanowrimo car+parks lambo

vmware running vista in OS/X

Windows ON OS/X
I mainly use Mac at home and nowadays run the super slick Leopard.

For my old-school moments, I've used Parallels for Windows in Mac and recently (pre Leopard) tried VMware, which is fairly similar to Parallels, although in my case it was rather slow.

Windows IN OS/X
In the last few days I updated VMware to the new version adn now everything seems to run quite well, with a reasonably nippy Windows Vista running inside OS/X.

No boot camp shut-downs, just click a Windows ap and a new Vista-enabled Window opens (much like a browser) with the Mac application inside. Its probably not fast enough for games, but certainly good enough for office style applications.

Though the weirdest of all is when the Mac starts to bling up Windows hassle boxes in the bottom right corner asking for updates, reboots and so forth. Its like a little separate eco-system. There... it wants to re-boot again right now whilst I'm typing this. You go ahead little vista. I'll keep working on OS/X whilst you take another nap.


rashbre vista OS/X mac microsoft vmware imac

Repair a Thinkpad's missing key

Yesterday evening, the letter 'D' just flew off of my Thinkpad keyboard.

"Oh, bother!" I thought, "What an inconvenience!" (or words to that effect).

It was actually rather late and I thought for a few minutes if it were possible to finish what I was typing without using that letter any more in any sentences. It seems to go quite a long way through a paragraph without using that letter very much. Almost unnecessary especially if one uses 'autocorrect' if it is missing (=see - whole paragraph without a single use).

So I then initially set about fixing it. Quite difficult. Other people had spent two hours and then ordered replacement keyboards. Including the key, there's four tiny pieces of fiddly plastic that need to fit together in sort of trapezoid / pantograph shape. I tried for about ten minutes and then rummaged around to find a spare keyboard to plug into the side of the laptop until the next day.

And so today:

How to replace a key on a Thinkpad

1) Don't panic
2) Have plenty of light
3) Ensure all of the pieces have been retrieved. There's four. The key, a black strip, a Small oblong piece and a slightly larger U shaped piece.

4)Assemble the pieces of the trapezoid first, on a sheet of white paper so things don't get lost too easily.
5) The black strip fits onto the large U shaped piece at one end. The two pieces should stay attached.
6) Then the oblong clips into the middle of the U shaped piece.
7) If the assembly is laid in the piece of paper it will look flat with no bumps, if assembled in the correct order.
8) If you lift either end, it will open out something like a miniature deck-chair (pantograph).
9) There are two little pins sticking out from this structure. They engage with the top metal hooks on the keybaord (at the top of where the missing key fits).

10) Clip them in carefully, and the little structure will open over the key's 'piston' and the black oblong piece willl remain flat.
11) Now is the time to push the key top back on. Nerves of steel required.
12) Align the key top with the others in the row, so that it lays on the black oblong.
13) Press down very firmly. There will be a tiny click when the key top engages with the other part.
14) Then normal typing can resume.
I wrote the above because I searched for articles about this on google unsuccessfully, although there were lots of people making the same enquiry.

:-D

...And my novel includes a computer fixing hint amongst the storyline. It could make an ideal gift and it's here.



rashbre repair thinkpad broken key keyboard

repair laptop missing or loose key on keyboard

The entry, which was originally for a Thinkpad but works for other laptop keyboards is here

the buzz of the city

Another logistically challenged day today. I have meetings dotted around and need to do some train travel. I also have some phone conferences where ideally I have my PC switched on, but it could all get quite difficult to fit together.

The theory of sitting in cafes in London on "the Cloud" WiFi and plugged into phone conferences sounds okay, but there is usually so much noise from expresso machines, ambient music and coffee drinkers that conference calls don't really work unless its a listen only kind of deal.

So I shall have to find somewhere quiet for the calls and be offline.

rashbre london noise expresso audio+conference

nearly wordless wednesday

The other fifth element is garlic

minor character about to get a speaking part

Most people who saw Gerald for the first time looked away. He normally lived in a squat around the Balls Pond Road. He called the area Hoxton - which is an up-and-coming area - but the reality was that he lived close to some deserted warehouses and by a Saturday ad hoc marketplace where mainly Polish and other middle europeans would sell minor goods directly from cardboard cartons. Gerald lived by his wits and scrounged a living from small errands and some petty crime.

He usually walked around in a grey raincoat, with a knotted scarf and a baseball cap. In a clean and well fitted version this could have made Gerald look quite respectable, but with the uncared for versions, the overall impession was desolation.

There was rain this evening, a grey, drizzling rain that had persisted all day. It had the effect of flattening the landscape, and blurring detail. Car lights were smeared and there was a deadening of sound. This was not a good rain, just a persistent one.

Gerald was shuffling back to where he normally lived. He looked as grey as the surroundings and blended well into the general misery. Things had not always been this way and Gerald had gone through a good education until the point where everything slid. He drifted South to London as a missing person. Now he was well versed in the art of street life, which was his main means of survival.

tunnel vision

I travelled to Canary Wharf this afternoon and as I arrived at the train station there I glimpsed some smoke rising from across the river. It actually looked like two separate locations and I thought someone must be having a large bonfire with some rubber tyres or something.

Then I walked to my meeting and because of the stories of people wandering around lost for half an hour in Canary Wharf before they find the right building, I'd made a mental map of where I was going. It also meant I could get there completely underground - much of Canary Wharf and Canada Square are linked with underground malls and walkways.

So I arrived at my meeting and after travelling in a lift, said by way of small talk to the people I was meeting that I was disoriented and didn't know which way I was facing. So one of them said, "You're facing towards the fire"...

At this moment I realized that the smoke I'd seen earlier wasn't just a couple of pirellis but was a large warehouse at the site of the new London Olympic 2012 (c) (tm) (r) area. No prizes for my earlier lack of observation!

back of a bus?

I learned a new phrase a few days ago - 'bus wrap'. Its the technical term for what they do with London red buses now when they cover them in a large advertisement. The smaller 'taxi wrap' is the same idea.

Londoners are pretty used to being blasted with advertising from all directions and I've noticed the emergence of animation now on the sides of buses, as well as on the backs of the pedicabs (rickshaw taxis), some of which now seem to have the equivalent of flat screen televisions attached to them.


As long as the traffic advertising doesn't start to become overly distracting, like the famous 1990s advertisement around Piccadilly which created multiple minor traffic bumps the day it was first displayed.

birthday lunch

The Lanesborough today, at Hyde Park Corner, for my birthday lunch.

The Lanesborough is in high Bentley country and there were three or four parked outside when we arrived.

A piano and double bass type of occasion, with a traditional Sunday lunch, which included a splash of fizz and took several indulgent hours.

We dined in the conservatory and then wended our way through Belgravia, past Sloane Square and into Chelsea. An enjoyable day for all of us, and for me including the gift of a CD by Bat for Lashes and a signed copy of the latest Douglas Coupland novel, complete with the almost unobtainable Glove Pond, by Roger Thorpe. More of that later.

posh bangers

Saturday has been good for bringing the novel writing back towards target. I had the main story-line and the two other sections which I'd written whilst travelling during the week. I've somehow stitched them back together and the three pieces are beginnng to form the basis for the story.

I've also managed to have a few of the characters meeting in places from some of my recent travels. There's the canal-side discussions in Birmingham, action in amongst the houses of Hoxton and a scene outside the Market Porter in Southwark, although no-one actually gets to eat the posh sausages.

Its interesting to be able to base the story-line in some real and recent settings. I must admit that when I was in the Epernay bar in Birmingham the week before NaNo started, I even started to sketch a picture of the surroundings near to the window facing the canal.

Adding my original 3900, plus around 1600 in one separate piece from my flight to Nice and another 2000 waiting at the airport on the way back, plus today's exertions has got me to around 16,000 words, which is probably more or less back on track. I'm not quite ready to post an extract, but there is definitely a story forming.

not mellow

You can tell from the double yellow lines that I'm back in the 'no parking' areas of the metropolis. Its a beautiful sunny day, but I need to spend at least part of it tapping away if I'm to get anywhere near back on track with the November novel writing. I dare not even look at the word count until I have worked out what down-and-out Gerald and the mysterious Anya are doing, let alone why the Italians decided to meet in Birmingham.

I am just getting to that stage though, where the characters seem to start to want to do things by themselves, based upon the logic of their personalities. I still don't have a clue where the plot-line will lead, but if I follow the line long enough I hope the seemingly parallel tracks will blossom into a beautiful flower.