nastybun » 2011

Mar 28 2011

failure to tech

Category: musing — pimento @ 8:04 pm

Barklars, meerkats and frustrated weasels all, it’s spelunking time again.

So it seems it’s been a tech failure time for me again recently. It kind of began with my Xbox 360 dying just past its warranty in December, though that’s a stretch – I was really fine until the past few weeks (except for that breadmaker thing). On saturday however the video card in my PC shat itself with what can only be known as pizazz – there were funky colours happening during POST and subsequent hardware check, and weird characters floating about in the BIOS. It did get to Windows briefly, albeit with severely messed up visuals, before crashing into oblivion. Long story short, I bought a cheapie ATi 5570 to get be by, set my CPU back to standard clock speeds and also had to chuck my RAM back into single channel to fix some further crashing. It’s been quite annoying all up, I must say. Some further tweaking was required though, as there was a funny line intermittently flickering down my other monitor – seems it wanted to indicate that there was some movement on one of the screens. Killing the software overclock that was on by default seemed to calm that though, so I’m back to functionality – albeit with absolutely no fancy enhancements on anything at all. My PC it seems is bored of fancyness and wants to live a humdrum life in obscurity. Maybe I should turn it into a POS kiosk or other such hardware hell. That’ll learn it…

The other annoying failure recently involves The Beastie, though its not entirely its fault. The poor thing has been neglected of late as I’ve been putting off replacing a bunch of things on it for various reasons. One of the reaons is that some prick tried to steal it, and in the process destroyed the ignition barrel so I’ve not been able to ride it. (Who steals a postie bike, honestly..) On Saturday I aquired the replacement part, this morning I installed it so I could ride it to work… but it wouldn’t start. Frustrated, I decided I was already a bit too late to be troubleshooting so I leapt upon the wee bonnie was off. I discovered this afternoon once I was back home that it was just refusing to play ball due to sitting about too long – a few kicks after checking for a spark, it was away. ‘Tis a little rattley though.. might have to check the tappet gaps.

Here’s hoping my tech holds out for a little longer.. I’ve gotten rather fond of having it around. Oh, and also, three toobz later and the rear tyre on my bicycle still refuses to hold air for more than a week. It’s rather frustrating to say the least. Hulk rage.

Comments Off

Mar 07 2011

let them eat bread

Category: awesomeness — pimento @ 8:44 pm

I recently purchamachased a breadmaker, thus beginning a benign and relatively humdrum series of events entitled (with much ridiculous grandiousity) The Breadmaker Saga. Read on to learn more, bemused reader.

It was a dark and stormy moment in time somewhere in the world, but in Sydney it was sunny and humid. I decided ‘this is the day.. I’m going to buy a breadmaker!’ My travels took me to the local Breville factory seconds outlet, but they didn’t carry the model I wanted. My next few stops left me similarly empty-handed, so I gave up and went home.

The following day however turned out much more fruitful. With quarry sighted (after I asked where the breadmakers were.. nowhere near the toasters?!) and firmly grasped, I approached the register and went through the usual rituals. Once firmly ensconced into the back of The Beastie, we were off home and into a world of bread! Or so I thought….

Once Sir Breadmakerton was placed upon it’s plinth, I put it to work. Initial results were positive, and tasty! Much lunch was provided for, in sammich form. However, things soon took a more sinister turn. It seems my next attempt, with new measuring apperatus contained not enough flour, and lo – there was FAILBREAD. So aghast was El Breadmakersaurus at such a failure, it simply gave up. When I switched it back on later for another attempt, I was met with E:03. Further attempts on following days were met with a similar refusal, so an exchange for a more willing unit was arranged.

Breaddus Makerus MkII was brought home much fanfare and great hope for breaddy goodness.. and we were not disappoint! Genesis loaf the second was a definate success. One thing that has been noted during this saga is that I might need a bigger toaster. I’ll have to take a slice into some toaster stores and try some out. I’m sure they won’t mind, what good is visiting a showroom and not trying out the goods? The most recent bread has some garlic and chilli masala in it.. I’ve yet to try it out, but its inception was not without its problems.. this time there was too much rising. Ahh well – its tastyness will be measured tomorrow. For now, have some more pictures.