See anything wrong?

Or,  today's post is brought to you by the letter "F".

If you want to make the effort to actually read that message,  you're welcome to double click on it.  For further reading,  I'll happily* suggest this link.

*With a very loose definition of the meaning of "happy".


I pretty much figured this was a variation on the "blue screen of death",  which was something we experienced on the PC back in the Low Countries.   I think it had something to do with it not getting its updates from the mother ship.  It was isolated from the collective!
It's now running open source,  and will do the few things that I want it to do,  like play my favourite radio station from Toronto.
Open source won't necessarily play certain games that were designed to run on Windoz,  but that's another story.

 Turns out this latest blue screen is more of a hardware issues than anything else,  and my somewhat more patient Travelling Companion actually got the thing rebooted last night.  Not sure what's in store for this evening.   This is an ageing laptop that we have in the bedroom that's hooked up to an external hard drive,  on which we play DVDs.  As you may recall,  we ain't got no TV....



So, to put it into the Caretaking vernacular:

old laptop + hardware issues  =  yer screwed.

(well,  I could always refer you to our sponsor letter, "F"....)



So fine,  we may end up having to pony up a few Euros for a DVD player,  as long as I can find something that will play "region one" DVDs.


Chances are slim.

 As well as DivX,  since a lot of our stuff is recorded in DivX format,  (thanks Grasshopper)

 
or,  and I don't really even want to say this,  a suggestion has been made to buy an Apple.  *gasp*.  



Hm...don't really want a Mac,  or an Apple,  or any other fruit.   I know some folks swear by them, but I just figure I'm too set in my ways to try and learn a whole new set of skills that I haven't even really figured out on a PC at this point.

I'm easily confused.  Sorry.

Maybe we'll pick up something when we're home for Christmas.  Patience is a virtue.  Bla bla bla.

 Whatever.


Although I've only ever mentioned these things in passing,  as of late we've had a few issues in our building that make me thankful that we can go back to our house at some point later in life.  I mean,  if I have a leak at the house,   it's my problem,  and I'll get it fixed or fix it myself.  There are no phone calls,  no irate letters from fellow tenants wanting you to join forces with them to take on "the Man".   No elevator that craps out if you look at it sideways.
No smelly Chinese restaurants cooking up dead cats in what should really be a storage room off the main hallway.   No Mexicans whipping up tortillas down in the basement over on the other side of the building...

That kind of thing.

Puts one in a foul mood.   Kind of goes with the foul smell.

Yes,  I admit that our neighbour back home has a stupid assed dog that barks at four in the morning BUT,  at least that's outside my building.  And if I really wanted to get nasty,  I do have their phone number and could put it on speed dial.  It may still happen.  Mind you, if the dog doesn't wake them up,  then I'm not sure they'd hear the phone.


 Now,  I don't know if what you see in the photos below was a weak spot left over from when we had our flood back in the spring,  or if someone got a little carried away pounding the living cr*p out of a Schnitzel in the restaurant above?

 Either way,  I'm pretty sure I referred to our sponsor letter,  "F",  when I came around the corner.

Nice parge coat there genius!  Ever heard of using something called "lath"?? *

The horror!

What?  Are we in Beirut?   I didn't hear the shelling.


There didn't appear to be any damage to any of the bikes,  even though that one bike fell against "new and shiny".  
I just have a real problem any time I see a bike over on its side.  Makes me cringe.


End of rant.



Seems to me today's count is something like 65.

We're counting "sleeps" here after all.

Time to start dinner.






*in case you didn't know....

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