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Year View| Summary| Highlights| April 2001 (Month View)

Dec ‘00 | Jan ‘01 | Feb ‘01 | Mar ‘01 | Apr ‘01 May ‘01 | Jun ‘01 | Jul ‘01 | Aug ‘01 |

01.04.2001 – Sunday 1 April

• I didn’t wake up until after 11. I walked over to Joneses. I went on the Internet and chatted to Silas. I looked around for Hard Drives and such like.

02.04.2001 – Monday 2 April – Hard drive and Sony DVD order

• I did both my Math’s and my Physics tests. They were hard and took a long time and I had to phone up my Physics teacher. Mum went to town to go to the Doctors about her broken thumb. Malarchy is sad, as there must be another dog on heat somewhere. I went to Joneses in the afternoon and we went for a swim at the halfway spot. I went on the Internet at night and ordered an IBM Deskstar 46 Gig hard drive and a Sony 12 times DVD drive for nearly $500. lulu was also on chat so I told her about my collapsed lung. The pathetic implementation of stifleware that Microsoft refers to as Internet Explorer froze the computer again. I was very surprised that such a reliable program would cause such a serious error in such a stable operating system. I would be nice to be able to run Outlook at the same time as being connected to the Internet though, I must admit.

03.04.2001 – Tuesday 3 April

• I did my schoolwork for most of today in what is becoming a nasty habit. I went for a jog in the afternoon in what I am attempting to make a nasty habit. It was very wet and I got especially wet when I went for a swim. Jade, Shan and Ella were also swimming. They got just as wet as what I did.

04.04.2001 – Wednesday 4 April

• I didn’t wake up until 10:30. I did my schoolwork. It rained on and off all day. I went for a walk over to Home Rule in the afternoon. I stopped at the shop and bought some lollies so that I would have enough energy for the walk.
  The power at Home Rule had failed so that Joneses were all in the dark. I also took the 2 CD’s that I made last night over and I had wanted to test them but seeing as how there was no power the best I could do was look at them with my eyes, which is a totally futile thing to do. I went on the Internet and turned forwarding off for Sarah’s Yahoo to see if it works from Outlook Express at school. I also logged on to the commonwealth bank’s site at www.commbank.com.au and sent nearly $500 off to the www.blankcd.com.au mob from whom I ordered my hard drive and DVD ROM drive from. It is the first time that I have used direct debit so I am hoping that the money actually went where I told it too, and not to Russia, via the Solomon Islands on its way to Switzerland. It has just started raining now, and it is half past one, tomorrow morning.

05.04.2001 – Thursday 5 April

• I did both my maths and physics tests and then went to town with mum. I made $20 and a nine-volt battery at Peter’s putting aerials together. I went for a jog but Joneses didn’t come. I sent and checked emails. I got a few with pictures attached from Carina, which I forwarded to Silas.

06.04.2001 – Friday 6 April

• A branch let gravity rule its short descent from an overhead tree into the caravan roof. The caravan roof was unable, despite its best efforts, to resist the force of the branch and eventually succumbed. I mopped up the water inside. The rain rained regardless. Mum was in a bad mood. The air in the tyre made a valiant and successful escape attempt. Ric captured it and confined it to its tyre once again. Mum went and saw Dad. Ric went to town. I studied the underlying principles. Jade, Shan and Ella jogged on. I met them and we all lived happily ever after. Except Malarchy, he is a sad dog.

07.04.2001 – Saturday 7 April – Rossville Rubbish Day

• I out of bed when I did. Clock was 11:30 when I did. I out of bed to eat. The phone rang. We used the extension to speak both at once for the first time. I eat then walk. The shop sold me some lollies. The Home Rule Bridge saw me walk by. Sarah went with me. We met them at the allocated spot. They hid themselves in the bush, as if to frighten us. We scorned them, and walked on. After an appropriate time we returned to our starting positions, and had dinner. Then I started the computer and went to bed.
  Today was the Rossville Rubbish day.

• It’s strange, isn’t it? You stand in the middle of a library and go aaaaargghhhh and everyone just stares at you. But you do the same thing on an aeroplane, and everyone joins in.

08.04.2001 – Sunday 8 April

• I awoke and get myself out of bed, after which I breakfast myself and ask myself, who am I? I then get myself to the Home Rule Bridge and read a book or two with the midges and the sister. After which I get myself some lunch. Shan phones up and says that they are getting themselves over here. Ric and Tony get here and get Ric’s Kombi Van back out to Home Rule. Shan gets himself up here, and I get myself down to the bridge. I jog. I get myself back again. I get fed. I get sleep. Mally phones. I get disturbed. I kick the squirrel. I try to make a phone adaptor headset to line in/out but the phone seems to require extremely high impedance. Oh well that’s back on the back burner then. I must get to bed and get me some better English. The Queen would get the hysterics.

09.04.2001 – Monday 9 April

• Disaster strikes. And again. POW! Actually when I awoke it seemed like any other day. I started school in the morning until the power failed. I phoned up BSDE to ensure that they had sent my next mailing, which the Pavouris said that he had. I still couldn’t get the phone to let its sound out. Kick the squirrel. Then Ric came and I let the last of the ink out of the printer, so now I have none left. I didn’t quite finish his for sale signs. Him and Tony are theoretically off to Darwin this afternoon. I phoned Shan to find out that he was in a bad mood, and see if Ella had any ink left in her cartridge. Whilst on the phone another caller called. I spoke to them and discovered that it was the DiscShop and that my hard drive that I thought might be here on Thursday is unavailable and is not expected to become re-available. I asked them to hold the order. I relocated a light dimmer from the kitchen where it was never used, into the caravan where it will be used.
  Today’s success. I went for a jog to the shop and purchased some health, and jogged out to the halfway spot. I then went to Home Rule where they still don’t have any power, and back again later. I went on the Internet after seven up until nearly 12. I got a new email address at Yahoo and talked to Becky on chat. I also emailed the blankcd mob asking them to continue processing my order but return the Hard Drive money. I downloaded the Capture the flag EAX files for Unreal Tournament. I need to use my little finger more often, especially on the left hand.

10.04.2001 – Tuesday 10 April

• I didn’t get out of bed until 9AM. I suppose it might have something to do with the late nigh I had last night, or maybe I am just getting old. I did some studying. I went for a jog earlier than normal (4PM) and went out to Home Rule. It takes me about 5 minutes from the bridges to the halfway spot and another 5 minutes from there to the mailbox at Home Rule, which should be a little under 3 kilometres. I got Ella’s ink cartridge, which seems to work well, and checked my emails. The discshop sent an email saying that they were sending a check. I got a reply from Pam, and a few emails from Silas. I sent a few humorous emails to Marriette and one to Ric.

11.04.2001 – Wednesday 11 April

• I went to town with Joneses after lunch. Shan got his learners. He actually failed but Wendy gave it to him anyway. They only allow one question wrong in section one, and two in section two, and Shan got two wrong in section one, and one wrong in section two. I bought a broken Easter egg and also 3 bars of Dove chocolate on special for $1.99. My next mailing of schoolwork arrived, as did 2 CD’s from Silas, containing WinDVD and PowerDVD. One of them seems to have an incorrect serial number. I went on the Internet to check emails, but also went on chat for a moment and Becky was on, and Shan came on at that time so I stayed on. Silas also came on a little while later. I downloaded some utilities and also the rest of the Playcenter155 up-grader, but it was faulty. I installed WinDVD.

12.04.2001 – Thursday 12 April

• I went to town with Mum. I went to Centrelink and sent off my “looking for work agreement”. I went to Peter’s and got a few BP connectors and a few fuses, as the fuses in the car have been playing up recently. After arriving home, I read in the local paper that local call rates were now available for Telstra Bigpond Home. I phoned up Telstra and got some details, and then phoned up Shan. I went over and saw Shan later on in the afternoon; arriving around 4 PM. Shan came back here with me and stayed over. The power failed just after dark, and did not return until after 9 PM. After the power was restored, Shan and I went on the Internet and changed his account over to Telstra’s Bigpond Home Essentials Plan, which includes a nationwide local call number. We stayed on the Internet until nearly midnight and then disconnected and connected again with the new local call rate number, to test it. We ended up staying online until nearly 4:30 AM. I ripped the remaining CD’s into Mp3 tracks.

13.04.2001 – Friday 13 April

• Shan and I slept in. We went back online in the morning, to check the phone bill. Sarah walked over to see Jade. I phoned Silas and said that I would try to make it down and see him (at Kangaji, his parents place) tomorrow in the morning. Shan and I walked over a bit later, after going to the shop and buying some lollies. Sarah and I stayed at Joneses for the afternoon. I burnt 5 CD’s of Mp3’s for Silas, one of which reported a few trackwriter ASPI errors, but seems to work OK.

14.04.2001 – Saturday 14 April – Silas’s Place

• I awoke and made my way to the markets to purchase some breakfast. They were slightly bigger than normal, but had less breakfast available. I went home and phoned Silas’ mum, and drove to Kangaji (Silas’ parents’ home). I arrived roughly 45 minutes later. The road was very rough but I did not scrape on anything, although the front drivers side wheel began to make some strange noises from the vicinity of the brake. Silas’ picked me up from wharf and took me up to his parents place. It was a 45-minute boat ride, and it was a bit rough with a bit of a swell. We passed the Bloomfield Lodge and a neighbour and moored at what appeared to be a bed of rock. There was a track behind the rock leading up to a house. It was surrounded by a nice garden, and was altogether quite a nice place to live. I stayed the night, not getting to sleep until late.

15.04.2001 – Sunday 15 April – Silas’s Place

• I awoke around 7 AM. We had hot cross buns and toast for breakfast. I stayed at Silas’ Parents place until around 11 o’clock. Silas gave me a lift back to the wharf in his boat and I drove back here, both of which took about 45 minutes. Jade was here as she had stayed over with Sarah the night before. Ella stayed down at Home Rule with Jenna and Ashley and their friends. I went on the Internet in the afternoon at the same time as Shan to test whether Bigpond would allow two simultaneous connections, however Shan seems to have quit either as soon as I went on, or possibly slightly before. His nickname quit mIRC due to a ping time out just as I was saying hello. I had a serious system error and had to restart so I was only online for a few minutes. My Playcenter (1 and 2) have a problem playing mp3’s. They do not seem to like any mp3’s not encoded using joint stereo from what I can work out. The bass and certain other sounds are decoded terribly, causing popping and tearing.
  It is now going on to 11 PM so I must go to bed.

16.04.2001 – Monday 16 April

• I awoke late and went on the Internet. I stayed on the Internet for nearly 4 hours, eventually being disconnected. Shan rang up and we both went on to test whether we would be disconnected or not. Shan was. It appears that the first to go on is disconnected if someone else connects on the same account. Jade and Shan came over and I walked back with them. I showed them Massiva (a midi composing program). I also burnt a backup CD onto a previously faulty burnt Verbatim CD. I ended up going on the Internet to check my emails and had a late night.

17.04.2001 – Tuesday 17 April – DVD drive arrives

• I went to town with Mum and Sarah. We stayed in town all day as Mum was taking Sarah kickboxing. My DVD Drive was at the post office. I went up to Mathew’s and borrowed his BBC “The Planets” DVD set. I also hired “Gone in 60 Seconds” (DVD) from the video shop. I got a lift home with Bob and installed the DVD drive straight away. The install seemed to work without any problems. Mum, Sarah, and I watched “Gone in 60 Seconds”. It is slightly jerky but seems to work well. There is a problem with the display driver, however this seems to be a general windows problem as I have it in many other instances as well. Probably the nvdisp.drv file?

• Everyday I beat my own previous record for number of consecutive days I’ve stayed alive.

18.04.2001 – Wednesday 18 April – Ordered 40 GB IBM HDD

• Sarah and I went to town with Mandi and Jade. I took the DVD back to the video shop. Sarah stayed in town, and I went back out to Home Rule. I went and checked Bob’s governor, which seems to be in perfect working order, despite Elsie telling him “lots of smoke came out”? Harold is drawing about 32 Amps at around 220 volts, 46/7 Hz. It must be right on the regulator’s limit. It clamps the voltage back drastically when the speed drops to prevent stalling, probably what keeps it regulated. I walked back here, meeting Mum at Jacks’ old driveway, where she had just given him the drill that Bob had fixed ($35 for trigger and $10 labour).
  I then went on the Internet and downloaded Creative’s SoftDVD player (Based on their Playcenter version 145 and InterVideo’s WinDVD). It seems to work well (although I still cannot work out how to change the screen view from anything other than widescreen 16:9) and also seems to support 4-speaker output, although I cannot notice any amazing surround affects; but it definitely sounds better than the standard TV. An added bonus was that it fixed my faulty Mp3 playback problem that I had with all my Creative products. I also checked the www.blankcd.com.au site and they have 40 Gb hard drives for $329, which I think was about what the 45 Gb drive cost before. I probably should order one straight away before they become unavailable again. I downloaded as many DivX things that I could find. From what I can work out it is a compression format that either allows the conversion of DVD to MPEG-4 and WMA, or something like that. I went back on the Internet (after being disconnected) fairly late. I ordered the IBM 40 GB hard drive from www.blankcd.com.au and also 10 Verbatim 80 minute blank CD’s and an audio cable for the CR-ROM. I transferred the money and forwarded the receipt. I wrecked PowerDVD by using DVD Genie to null the region code.

19.04.2001 – Thursday 19 April

• I woke up late. I walked up to Dad’s but he was not there. I took Malarchy along the creek and out to the halfway spot where I went for a swim. It was very cold. I went on the Internet for the full 4 hours and received an email from the BlankCD mob saying that my order would be sent as soon as possible. Presumably they have the drive in stock. Mathew’s “The Planets” DVD 1 does not play. I fixed PowerDVD by using DVD Genie to set the region code back to region 4. It seems to work better than WinDVD (and Creative’s SoftPC-DVD which is WinDVD based anyhow).

20.04.2001 – Friday 20 April

• Sarah phoned up in the morning asking if I could come and pick her up from town. I drove in to town and picked her up, and also got out a DVD “The Essex Boys”. Sarah said that it would probably be good as she and Shan had both seen another movie “in the same style”. We stopped at Madonna’s and saw Craig and Shan on the way home. Jade phoned up and came over around lunchtime. I walked out to Home Rule and waited for Shan and then we all came over here and had a stay over. We watched the first half of the DVD and then went on the Internet as Shan had to go on at 9 PM for some reason. Jade didn’t like the DVD so Mum, Sarah and her did not watch the second half, although Sarah watched it the day after. I ended up staying up until 4:30 AM.

21.04.2001 – Saturday 21 April

• I didn’t wake up until late. I walked out to Home Rule with Jade and Shan.
  Sarah went to town to go to a Disco that Donni was having at the Shire Hall. Mum phoned up saying that she could not get the pump to start, so I came home and started the pump (without any problems). Sarah phoned up around 11 PM and I went in to town and picked her up. It was a dismal failure with hardly anyone going. Gillian (and Jackson), Rhiannon (and Bill who was very drunk) and Derek were about the only people there when I went to get Sarah. A few of the Lee’s were there as well. I went on the Internet late at night, and stayed on for four hours, not going to bed until after 5 AM.

22.04.2001 – Sunday 22 April – �

• I awoke late (not surprisingly). � Sarah and I went for a walk with Malarchy up to the Terrex Dam and down a creek near to it. I installed WinKeys, allowing me to customize the Windows key on the keyboard. I changed the mouse cursors up to a large size. I had a small sleep in the afternoon, missing out on hot chips that Mum had made.

23.04.2001 – Monday 23 April

• I did schoolwork for most of the day. I emailed the school and talked to lulu for about ¾ of an hour. I then took Sarah up to Ben’s. Sarah went in to go kickboxing and I went to go for a jog, but I met Shan at Monty’s so we walked back together and I jogged back instead. It was quite dark when I got home.

24.04.2001 – Tuesday 24 April

• I awoke late, and did schoolwork. I went next door and helped Carl bring an electric hot water heater up here. Barry Innes was there installing their new meter box. Mum and I went to town. Mum went up to the hospital and I took the car to Cape York Tyres to get the sump fixed. I then went to the radio station and copied 3 CD’s of mp3’s. My hard drive did not arrive, only a health care card. I must learn typing again as I have forgotten what little I did know.

25.04.2001 – Wednesday 25 April

• I did school. I remember little else.

• Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

26.04.2001 – Thursday 26 April – HDD Arrives

• I did school. Mum went to town and came home with my new IBM Deskstar 40 GB 7200 rpm hard drive. I put a new fan in the computer, a new audio lead so that both CD drives now have analogue audio to the soundcard. I then put in the new hard drive as primary master. My old hard drive is the primary slave. The DVD-ROM is secondary master, and the CD-Burner is secondary slave. They all have 80 wire UDMA EIDE cables now. I partitioned the new drive into 4 equal sized parts. I then installed windows 2000 onto the new drive. I went on the Internet for a while. Shan phoned up to say that his Internet was not working, but then it did. Silas emailed to say that he would not be coming up over the weekend.

27.04.2001 – Friday 27 April

• I awoke late. I did school. I defragged all my drives, and moved the “My Documents” folder. I copied all the MP3 CD’s to my hard drive and alls moved the “My music” folder. I walked over to Home Rule and took Jade’s bathers back, however no one was there. I met Craig and Shan on my way back, and Mandi pulled in to the Rossville Store just after I went by. I went on the Internet in the afternoon, and got disconnected after some time.
  Copy times [minutes:seconds]
  CD mp6=4:34
  CD mp5=6:45
  CD mp4=4:28
  CD mp3 and 2=(mp2=9:45 DVD-ROM) 13:21 (using both CD drives simultaneously)
  CD mp1=4:42
  1.32 GB Quantum>IBM=3:40

28.04.2001 – Saturday 28 April

• Sarah and I went to the markets, and out to Joneses afterwards. We went down to Home Rule and borrowed a DVD "The Abyss" and walked up here and watched half of it. We then jogged back to Joneses just on dark and had a stay over.

29.04.2001 – Sunday 29 April

• We all came back over here and watched the rest of the DVD. I then went back to Joneses and stayed for the afternoon. I don’t remember what, if anything, happened after this.

30.04.2001 – Monday 30 April

• I started school, but went to town with Mum instead. I bough some cable and pipe fittings for the hot water system. I didn’t end up getting any school done. I went on the Internet twice, once for 4 hours late at night, and earlier on when Shan kicked me off. I borrowed the CD “Rammstein, Sehhnsucht” from Jason, and copied it as MP3’s.

Dec ‘00 | Jan ‘01 | Feb ‘01 | Mar ‘01 | Apr ‘01 May ‘01 | Jun ‘01 | Jul ‘01 | Aug ‘01 |

Year View| Summary| Highlights| April 2001 (Month View)