So, what's up now.
There's this storm that has been going on for a few days now. Awful winds - in some places up to 120km/h gusts. Heavy rains. Many places have been flooded - including the Herzeliya train station which is now more like a Gondola docking station (well, no gondolas around, but it looks the part). And several other train stations are basically under water and unserviceable. A mall in Modi'in, a street in Holon.
So I went to work today by taxi. In these winds, I'm not about to ride a scooter.
But going to work was slow work, because first I had to wake up, have breakfast and shower. Which is all harder when electricity is off. Yes, my neighborhood has been off electricity for half a day today. Also part of the storm issue - many power lines were torn by falling trees and loose objects.
So I boiled water for my tea on the gas stove. In virtual darkness. And I also boiled a big pot for my old-fashioned shower. That is, boil water, mix with tap water in a tub until a good temperature is achieved. Use a carafe or something to pour water over yourself. Soap up, use same carafe and remaining water to wash off the soap. Don't forget to leave some warm water for brushing your teeth unless you like the way your teeth feel in cold water. :-S
It's good that at least the stove is not electric. Luckily, when I came back in the evening the electricity was back on, because I don't have any alternative heating.
Oh, and in addition to all that, one of my cats caught a cold. How she achieved that, I don't know, as she is not exposed to other animals. I suppose the cold I had 10 days ago is capable of jumping species. Poor cat. She didn't eat much, and was crouching (I'm told they do this when they find it difficult to breath) and shuddering. I provided her with a hot water bottle, and switched her for a couple of days to canned food, which has stronger smell (I think she didn't eat because her nose is runny, and she can't smell the kibbles very well. The canned food did the trick, but also drove my other cat crazy).
Now she sleeps more comfortably, no more shuddering, no more crouching. But her nose is still runny. Poor kitty, if it was my cold that she caught, then her throat must have been sore as well - another reason for not eating kibbles.
So yes, all the discomforts of winter. And I like winter! Anyway, thankfully now I have electricity, and I can afford the bills for the heating, and that's more than many people can say these days. :-(
In other news, I took my iMac to the shop to have it repaired while still under warranty. Apple sent me a letter a couple of months ago that my hard disk is being recalled. And there has been a problem of heat stains on the display (under the glass) which is definitely covered by warranty. I have just been lazy and kept delaying these things. But on Thursday my Mac froze twice - not even allowing me to ssh from my Linux box - and after I shut it down forcefully the second time, the hard disk would not mount. So I took the hint, and took it to the lab. Luckily I had it backed up on an external disk, so I could boot from it and format the heck out of the internal disk before they take it away. I don't like the fact that they are taking my disk away. It has private data on it. So I zeroed it out to the best of my ability (it's hard to do with a disk that's not entirely in order). And the bottom line - after carrying all 23kgs of it over to Diezengoff Center and waiting an hour for my appointment - ahem - with the local Genius - is that I am now Mac-less and had to switch to my Linux box.
Which would not be so bad if Firefox didn't crash on me every 5 minutes. I'm not sure what's up with that. But after two days of recovering sessions again and again, I decided to try and switch to Chrome, which is better than Konqueror because it has AdBlock Plus and Rikai-kun (an extension indispensable if you study Japanese).
Mmm... I don't like Chrome. I want my Firefox back. I know there are people out there who would marry Chrome if Human-Application marriages were allowed. I don't like it. It chooses fonts for me, and it chooses wrong. I don't have the kind of control per language as I have in Firefox. So it uses an almost unreadable font for Japanese. It also doesn't have any extension that allows several rows of tabs. I had to settle for something called "sidewise" which puts the tabs on the left side, which makes them at least readable. I usually work with at least 15 open tabs. Google doesn't like that. Mozilla doesn't mind, apparently. The sidewise thing is in a separate window that sort of sticks to the Chrome window. Not good. They said there is a way to make side tabs built in in Chrome, but it requires changing the command line. Seriously?, I work with a GUI. I don't know how to fiddle with the command line in KDE's Kickoff. And I don't want to start Chrome from the command line.
Also, if I have something like a movie or a game running in one tab, and one of the other tabs refreshes, it causes the movie/game to pause until the refresh ends. It doesn't do that in Firefox. It's annoying!
I wish I knew how to stop Firefox from crashing or freezing all the time on this machine. For the time being, I'll just stay grumpy.
So I went to work today by taxi. In these winds, I'm not about to ride a scooter.
But going to work was slow work, because first I had to wake up, have breakfast and shower. Which is all harder when electricity is off. Yes, my neighborhood has been off electricity for half a day today. Also part of the storm issue - many power lines were torn by falling trees and loose objects.
So I boiled water for my tea on the gas stove. In virtual darkness. And I also boiled a big pot for my old-fashioned shower. That is, boil water, mix with tap water in a tub until a good temperature is achieved. Use a carafe or something to pour water over yourself. Soap up, use same carafe and remaining water to wash off the soap. Don't forget to leave some warm water for brushing your teeth unless you like the way your teeth feel in cold water. :-S
It's good that at least the stove is not electric. Luckily, when I came back in the evening the electricity was back on, because I don't have any alternative heating.
Oh, and in addition to all that, one of my cats caught a cold. How she achieved that, I don't know, as she is not exposed to other animals. I suppose the cold I had 10 days ago is capable of jumping species. Poor cat. She didn't eat much, and was crouching (I'm told they do this when they find it difficult to breath) and shuddering. I provided her with a hot water bottle, and switched her for a couple of days to canned food, which has stronger smell (I think she didn't eat because her nose is runny, and she can't smell the kibbles very well. The canned food did the trick, but also drove my other cat crazy).
Now she sleeps more comfortably, no more shuddering, no more crouching. But her nose is still runny. Poor kitty, if it was my cold that she caught, then her throat must have been sore as well - another reason for not eating kibbles.
So yes, all the discomforts of winter. And I like winter! Anyway, thankfully now I have electricity, and I can afford the bills for the heating, and that's more than many people can say these days. :-(
In other news, I took my iMac to the shop to have it repaired while still under warranty. Apple sent me a letter a couple of months ago that my hard disk is being recalled. And there has been a problem of heat stains on the display (under the glass) which is definitely covered by warranty. I have just been lazy and kept delaying these things. But on Thursday my Mac froze twice - not even allowing me to ssh from my Linux box - and after I shut it down forcefully the second time, the hard disk would not mount. So I took the hint, and took it to the lab. Luckily I had it backed up on an external disk, so I could boot from it and format the heck out of the internal disk before they take it away. I don't like the fact that they are taking my disk away. It has private data on it. So I zeroed it out to the best of my ability (it's hard to do with a disk that's not entirely in order). And the bottom line - after carrying all 23kgs of it over to Diezengoff Center and waiting an hour for my appointment - ahem - with the local Genius - is that I am now Mac-less and had to switch to my Linux box.
Which would not be so bad if Firefox didn't crash on me every 5 minutes. I'm not sure what's up with that. But after two days of recovering sessions again and again, I decided to try and switch to Chrome, which is better than Konqueror because it has AdBlock Plus and Rikai-kun (an extension indispensable if you study Japanese).
Mmm... I don't like Chrome. I want my Firefox back. I know there are people out there who would marry Chrome if Human-Application marriages were allowed. I don't like it. It chooses fonts for me, and it chooses wrong. I don't have the kind of control per language as I have in Firefox. So it uses an almost unreadable font for Japanese. It also doesn't have any extension that allows several rows of tabs. I had to settle for something called "sidewise" which puts the tabs on the left side, which makes them at least readable. I usually work with at least 15 open tabs. Google doesn't like that. Mozilla doesn't mind, apparently. The sidewise thing is in a separate window that sort of sticks to the Chrome window. Not good. They said there is a way to make side tabs built in in Chrome, but it requires changing the command line. Seriously?, I work with a GUI. I don't know how to fiddle with the command line in KDE's Kickoff. And I don't want to start Chrome from the command line.
Also, if I have something like a movie or a game running in one tab, and one of the other tabs refreshes, it causes the movie/game to pause until the refresh ends. It doesn't do that in Firefox. It's annoying!
I wish I knew how to stop Firefox from crashing or freezing all the time on this machine. For the time being, I'll just stay grumpy.