Day 690

Last day of Winter. More Cyclopædia, undertook the large task of putting what I've done so far into columns. Tedious work.

Went round to my parents'; Dad had borrowed the Windows 3.0 setup discs from work so at last I could get my hands on a 24-pin printer driver. Had to reinstall Windows though, which means more fiddling with the compressed disc. Listened to long depressing R4 play about relatives of alcoholics while I was doing it. It's always the Monday play when I do these things.

Day 689

The last Sunday of Winter. Tested the new well-behaved Write setup, printed out the chapter summaries I wrote some time ago with complete success.

Day 688

More Cyclopædia, had to pause to decide where the Companion and Master rules should go. Made more use of Windows, got Write pretty well tamed now. Wonder if Windows should go back on C: and something less time-critical on D: . Or is 8086 Windows so slow anyway that there's little difrence? FASTOPEN seems to help.

Day 687

More Cyclopædia. Write working very well, wish I'd investigated it earlier really. Read more of Fever Pitch.

Big massacre in Palestine by mad Israeli settler, killed 48 Arabs. Hitler would be proud.

No Red Dwarf thanks to Winter Olympics, made do with goodish ep of Only Fools & Horses.

Day 686

More Cyclopædia: finished the spells at last, thought about how to organise the other sections. Managed to make Write do page-breaks properly by setting page length to 10.1" (for 11" paper). Was pleased with this subterfuge.

Read a bit more of Fever Pitch which D sent me yesterday. Watched Minder in the evening. Read Private Eye.

Still waiting for inspiration careerswise.

Day 685

Walked into town cashing my Giro on the way, did some shopping. Cold, wet, gloomy weather. More Cyclopædia.

Day 684

Snow fell most of the day but didn't come to much. Carried on with the Cyclopædia, done all the Expert spells.

Experimented with the disc from that Windows book. Dad finally brought round the setup discs for Windows on the 386 so I was able to get the UK keyboard and add a proper Epson printer driver.

Watched Quantum Leap in the evening, quite a good one, first of a three-parter.

Day 683

Covering of snow this morning. Walked down to the DHSS, no wait! Looked through the cards, avoiding all the ones with 'must' and 'experience' on them. Went to the library, looked at last year's ROGET, didn't find it much use; got a useful Windows disc and book, (checked the former for viruses when I got home), helped an old bloke with the catalogue terminal. He said he tended to make mistakes, it was his age. 'Surely not' I said politely.

Walked home. Carried on with the Cyclopædia, onto the MU spells now. About 19,000 words so far.

Day 682

The penultimate Sunday of Winter.

Day 681

Went into town, took another look at the Fighting Fantasy expansion in Smiths. Carried on with the Cyclopædia in the afternoon, tried transferring C onto the virtual drive, but not quite enough space along with Windows.

Wark scored v Wolves in Ipswich's FA Cup fifth-rounder but it was a draw. Playing for Wolves was a bloke who played for them in the semi we beat them in in 1978.

Day 680

Up early, continued with the Cyclopædia, had fun chucking out alignment and the feudal society assumptions.

M came round about 10.30, had a long talk. She's getting on well with her course (this time!): she came back because her latest assignment was too easy and has left her nothing to do for now. She invited me to Hertford for a 'pub crawl' 'with her brother', but fearing that neither part would be as represented, declined.

Copied the Superstor disc doubler from the 386 onto my computer, set up a virtual compressed drive on the hard disc (takes up 5 MB, should hold 9 MB) and transferred Windows onto it. It would not compress the whole disc owing to something called DEVSWAP being missing, so I settled for this solution. I could bung something else on there with Windows too if there's space left.

Watched Red Dwarf, introducing Kryten.

Quite an interesting day really.

Day 679

Continued the Cyclopædia project. Had some success with the old Epson incompatibility after altering the page length and print quality DIP switches. Wish I'd thought of the latter years ago, it really has improved things.

Watched Minder.

Day 678

Dull, damp, dismal, dreary and cold weather. Had a frustrating time with Windows 3.0 printer drivers. Went into town with C in the afternoon, drew a blank at the charity shops.

Watched Star Trek and the first part of a series about the history of professional crime, pretty interesting.

Day 677

At least 1½" of snow lying this morning, drifting 6" or 8". I noticed it in the night and woke up at 7.30 - was unable to get back to sleep due to youthful excitement, so went and got the paper.

Made more programmable calculator progress, finished reading through my old White Dwarfs. By the time I stopped getting it (Nov. 1986) it really was awful, I'm glad Dave Morris wrote in to say so. His mention of the Tirandor days (WD 50-51) really struck a chord.

Considered typing up my own Rules Cyclopædia from the D&D books.

Apparently there was a small earthquake here today, 3.6 on the Richter scale (1000 times weaker than the recent Los Angeles one). Can't say I noticed anything.

Day 676

Cards received today 0, all-time total 0. Outpost of Spring all the same. Weather not in keeping with that though: freezing cold with tiny dry snowflakes.

Investigated my programmable calculator. Took papers to be recycled at Sainsbury's. Colder than I can remember.

Day 675

Rotten hangover this morning: got up about ten and suffered very bad boredom. In the evening Only Fools and Horses, a later one with good jokes but a lot of white space in between them.

Day 674

Walked down to the station at 3.30, met C on the way with his visiting mates. One was a dead ringer for Ray Daley from Minder.

Waited for D's train to come in, had a good evening out in town with her.

Day 673

Tidied the room, vacuumed, mucked about with a sort of expanded Fighting Fantasy system.

Watched Red Dwarf.

Day 672

Condensed more of my RPG writings with the typewriter. Minder and Ben Elton in the evening.

Day 671

Went to the post office, took yesterday's silver to the building society. £30 so far! Went round the charity shops.

TSR catalogue arrived. Interesting read, but would cost me £27 to get 90's D&D. The game has expanded interestingly, non-human PC's etc, but nothing I couldn't make up for myself. It's interesting to see how the official stuff goes but that began to wear off when Companion was 'not quite compatible' with old Basic and Expert.

Cooked Brie and spinach quiche for tea. In the evening watched Star Trek, also gave The Day Today a watch.

Day 670

Experimented with the calculator. Went round to my parent's, mail-merged some job applications for C with Word. Conducted a thorough search in the loft for missing White Dwarf issues - no luck, but did find that complex combat system Andrea Batten's brother made up way back circa 1980. Must go back and do a complete search, mark all the boxes I've looked in etc

Counted another £15 in saved silver - not bad! Watched Quantum Leap - farcical comedy about bigamy, with a third wife and family appearing as a final twist.

Day 669

Went through my saved change, had £15 in 20p pieces. So when I rode into town to sign on, put them in the building society and got out enough cash for a programmable calculator with miniature graphs from Argos. Nice little device. Got some books on short-wave radio from the library too.

Day 668

Sorted out the contents of the many files lying about (including stuff that's been 'Pending' since I came back from uni in 1991!).

Got to sign on tomorrow, and Cl's got to make a New Claim. 'Thatcher's Britain! Thatcher's bloody Britain! Perhaps I'd better check funding for Aberystywyth.

Day 667

Went into town, looked at the 'role-playing' development of Fighting Fantasy. Quite well done really, given the limits of the system.

About 5.30 D rang up to suggest she come down next Saturday. I told her about S's debt grievance and she seemed put out and said she'd send her a tenner. Reporting in this way always caused chaos in the past, hopefully it'll be for the good this time.

Day 666

More encounter tables. Watched Red Dwarf. C has finished his course - he'll be living back at home again.

Must do something by April 14th, when I'll've been as long on the dole as I was at uni.

Day 665

Read old White Dwarfs, did some Traveller animal encounter tables.

Good ep of Minder, taped Alexei Sayle, watched Ben Elton. Very funny again - must be 8 years since I first saw him, on Saturday Live.

Explored new radio stations. Thought about how to fill in the Aberystwyth form.

Day 664

Saw a good radio with presets, short wave and a clock in the Argos catalogue, went into town and bought it with some of the Great Abstinence money.

Got a reply about the Aberystwyth library course; it seems I've got to investigate funding first, which is difficult as they don't say how much the tuition fees are.

In the evening watched The Day Today.

Quite a good day really, nice to spend some money for a change (still got £209 left!).

Day 663

February first, Boot... It's come quickly this year. Round to my parents' again, got a couple of issues of the fanzine I co-edited in 1984 down from the loft. Some of my bits were quite good.

Watched Quantum Leap in the evening, an odd one where he met his evil (female) counterpart in time travel. Strange. It's been ages since he leaped into a woman, btw.

No reply to my letter to the Aberystwyth library people yet.