My server power supply died this week, maybe as a result of the server running at 100% CPU load for four days.  I think I'm going to go back to the old solution now.  I have until Monday to mull this all over.  ::sigh::

So last night we went to see Underneath the Lintel at the Duchess Theatre.  We went basically because Richard Schiff was in it, but had read some good reviews of the play last week.  Richard Schiff, as you may or may not know, played the role of Toby Ziegler in The West Wing for the last seven years.  As Toby, his acting was always superb.  Even when in scenes where he was pissing everybody else off, he was a joy to watch.  You could see the weight of everything he was trying to achieve weighing heavily on his shoulders.
So after the west wing he did this one act play by Glen Berger called Underneath the Lintel.  Its a story of a Dutch librarian who discovers a book that has been returned after one hundred and thirty years and goes of a voyage of discovery to find out where it came from.  The journey destroys him in some ways, but also gives him a sense of direction that he never had before.  Its actually a brilliant play, giving a little insight into the evolution of a mind over time.  Schiff does the role brilliantly.  I won't spoil it by saying how, suffice to say you have to go see it.  
We had ordered some tickets from lastminute, and actually ended up in the middle of the front row last night.  For a large part of the performance, we were sitting less than two meters from the actor, and you could see every detail of the performance.  Everything from the spittle coming out of his mouth during his more excited moments, to the writing on the exhibits he used to build his case.  It was just awesome :-)

Anna asked me earlier if I wanted her to stay at home to take care of me.  Of course I didn't, I can take care of myself.  Its not like I'm blind, right?
Wrong.  I just went to make some coffee, and broke a glass bowl I had on top of the coffee machine to store utensils.  Then I spilled the ground coffee everywhere.  Then I spilled the milk I was going to froth.  
Its just not my day.

Had to go to the hospital again today.  This was just a follow up on my last Uviitis episode.  It has been hurting a bit over the last week, so they've given me more drops to put in the eye.  The doctor said it looked to be clearing up nicely though.
Of course, they dillated my eyes.  Roll on massive photosensitivity, and the blinding painful walking-into-the-sun experience of being outside.  Now I'm sitting at home with a pair of Anna's dark glasses on in a darkened room.  Believe me, I look VERY silly in these ;-)

Installation of WHS Beta 2 was a breeze.  Boot from the DVD, select a couple of options, confirm that you want to format all your hard drives and then wait.  There are several reboots along the way, and some clever driver installation routines that I haven't seen before.  Before installation I had crammed all my data from the 1.2TB RAID array onto several disks attached to my main PC, and space is currently at a premium.  So, I had abou 800GB of files to transfer back to the Home Server, and I couldn't because of a bug in the software.  This is an early beta, but it was an annoyance I could have done without.  However, I have it worked out now.  I connected to the server using RDP and copied the files from the client PC straight to the share in question.  Its copying right now, and I won't know if its going to work for another few hours.  I really have to upgrade the network to Gigabit Ethernet.  And get a faster RAID card.  I promised Anna I wouldn't do that for a while though, as I've recently spent so much money on the new Vista box.
Another minor inconvenience with WHS is that there are a set of default shares that you actually cannot erase.  I'm not sure if that's by design or not, but I'm going to but it anyway.
So, first impressions?  It rocks as much as I thought it would.  It's still early in the beta, and there is a lot of room for improvement, but it's definitely going in the right direction.

This product - Windows Home Server, has the potential to revolutionise how we do digital media in the home.  Think of a machine that you stick under the stairs which acts as a huge external storage facility for your network.  It backs up your PCs every day.  Its easy to use, and seems like it can be managed by idiots.  Also, you can get to it directly from the internet, allowing housecleaning and other tasks to be done when... on holidays, or at work etc.
Now, I already have a box under the stairs, but its management is troublesome.  I have to Remote Desktop in there and do whatever I was thinking about.  The connector for Home Server is a locally run app.  So, later on today, I'm going to install it.  I was accepted to the beta test last night, and the files are downloading as we speak :-)

Lots of stuff happening since my last serious post.  So, where to begin?  Firstly, Happy New Year.  Hope you have a good one, with health, wealth and happiness etc...  we were in Munich for New Year, and ended up in Marienplatz at the stroke of midnight.  I’ve seen some pretty impressive fireworks displays before, but I have to tell you; this outstripped all of them.  Instead of a controlled display by an efficient group of professionals, these were set off by ten thousand people with no sense of timing or choreography.  Consequently they all set the sky on fire, and it was incredible to see.  I can’t describe it, so I won’t anymore.
I’ve finally gotten Vista installed on my PC.  I had to get some new components together because my old one died, so I picked up a great motherboard to handle a Core2 Duo 6600, Nvidia 8800GTS graphics card and 2GB of Corsair Dominator RAM.  All in all, the new setup rocks.  In the process of looking for the link to Intel's site about the Core2 Duo, I discovered that the bastards have released a quad core version of the processor.  Now I have core envy!  Anyway, Microsoft gave me a free copy of Vista Ultimate for being on the beta test, so I've gotten that installed and stable, and I love it.  I've been playing with this OS for a very long time now, and this is the first time I've put it on my PC and it just works.  No more frankenmachines for me.  Hell, I even considered buying a Dell or something.
Work is the usual craziness.  I'm working for AOL Broadband now, which is the part of the organisation that was bought over by Carphone Warehouse.  S far so good, but I guess we'll have to see what the future holds.  Moving plans are still slow, though they've gotten a little boost recently, which is nice :-)
I have a mental blank now that I'm sitting here thinking about what to type.  Its very strange how that happens.  I was just looking at the West Wing (Series 7, circa Episode 19 or 20) and got up feeling very verbose.  Joycian, maybe even Neitschean.  But now all I can think about is that I'm tired and I've got a headache.  Oh yeah, I changed my glasses for contact lenses, and my fucking uviitis is back with a vengeance.  So I've been walking around for about two weeks with an almost perpetual mild headache.  It sucks.
Had another checkup last week, and all is good on the cancer front.  They've moved me to six monthly check-ups now, which is a really positive step.  What was it she said?  Oh yes, they were feeling "very happy" about the progression (or lack therof) of my cancer.  Nice :-)