Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Dragons Fandango

by Suw on June 16, 2004

My good friend and filmic co-conspirator, Vince, has started a blog all of his own, Dragons Fandango. Why don't you pop over and take a look, and give him a wee traffic spike?

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Happy 2nd Birthday CnV!

by Suw on June 16, 2004

This day, two years ago, I thought to myself, 'Ooh, wouldn't it be fun to start a blog?' and so Chocolate and Vodka was born. For the first few months I didn't really know what to do with it. My early posts were mixed in tone and style, and probably very dull for anyone who wasn't me.
It was around winter 02 that I really got into blogging on a regular basis, and I've barely skipped a beat since. My style has evolved and, I think, improved. The stuff I write about has changed, but undoubtedly my blog is still representative of me, of who I am.
But it's not all about externalising what would otherwise remain internal. Over the last two years, my blog has had a profound and positive effect on my life. It got me through the collapse of my business last year, a time which has to rank as the hardest I have ever had. It has helped me improve my writing skills by encouraging me to write every day and it has put me quite emphatically back on the writer's path. It has even got me some work.
But best of all, it has introduced me to some of the coolest people in the world. I can't list all of the wonderful people I've met (on or offline) via my blog, I can only pick a few names at notquitesorandom: Gary, Euan, Joi, Pete, Matt, Horst, Maciej, Jeannie, Stu, Kevin.
Thank you everyone of you for enriching my life, for becoming my friend, and for reading my blog. Long may it continue.

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OS update

by Suw on June 16, 2004

Despite my recent reinstall of WIN98don'tlaughSE, my computer's behaviour is no better. Still crashing several times a day. So I'm going to be upgrading to 2K today.
I may be some time…
UPDATE: Oops. I appear to have accidentally partioned my c:. I now have a partition with Win2K on, and one with Win98SE on. Halfway through the installation, Win asked me if I wanted to maintain my partition and I thought 'I don't have a partition', so I just clicked 'next'. I didn't even know my computer had *been* partioned. I didn't do it, that's for sure.
So, now I have a Win98SE partition with all my software and documents on, and a Win2K partition with nothing in. I did see if I could reinstall Win2k to get rid of the partition, but it warned me that if I did that, it would wipe everything off my c: and do a clean reinstall. I simply have too much stuff to back the whole lot up, and I really don't fancy losing everything if there is any other way of dealing with this.
I'm consulting with the guys on #joiito, who are advising me to get a pro to fix this for me. Luckily everything in the Win98 partition appears to work just fine, so this is not catastrophic. Just frustrating.
But I am left with the question of how that partition got there in the first place. I didn't put it there, I know that for a fact. I don't know *how* to partition a disk. The only other person who has physically had access to this computer is my Dad, and he wouldn't deliberately partition it without asking me.
So does Windows randomly go around partitioning disks? And does this partition have something to do with why my computer's been so unstable lately? Could someone have gained access to my computer despite my up-to-date Norton firewall and have partitioned me, and started running their own stuff on my computer? If so, that would explain why I have had so many problems with insufficient memory – their crap's been using my CPU and my memory. Or is Windows just shit?
I really need to start a new catagory called 'Suw Screws Up Her Computer. Again.'
LATER: Ok, seems that the whole partitioning thing was a red herring. What I've actually got is a multiboot system. I can actually get at my documents from my Win2K install now that I know where they are, and I can see my programme files even if half of them don't work. I lose, however, any settings and customisation in those programmes unless I go and and find the appropriate settings files and move them over.
So, now I am faced with the choice of continuing to use Win98 and hoping it works ok, or reinstalling all my software on Win2K. Hmm… Scylla… or Charybdis. I don't think I'll be deciding tonight.

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