Happy old year.

Tonight is a loud night in with the family.

Freda appears to have some unspecified illness, noticed as a rash around her mouth on Sunday down the pub and clearly being considerably out-of-sorts. So she gets lots of telly. Today a spot's showing on her tummy. The spots don't appear to be itchy, so if it's chickenpox it's an odd one.

The luvverly Steven of bohemiancoast helped me lug a vanload of charity shop fodder to Oxfam yesterday. We can actually get through the hall and into the spare room! I appear to have hideously strained my back in the process, leaving me unable to do much here. Bah.

I have been spending my holidays geeking furiously in the quest to get Wine running on Windows. I hope to be the first person to successfully compile current libX11 on Windows (currently stuck at ELF assumptions on a PE-COFF platform). The unbroken chain of "WTFFF?!" responses on the mailing lists is most gratifying. In fact, I'm writing this in Firefox in virtual Windows XP and only using Ubuntu to run Windows programs under Wine. It's distinctly odd seeing all the ads on teh intarweb.

Update: By crikey my back is fucked. Sitting on the couch in considerable pain and barely able to move. Beer, codeine, probably naproxen as well later. Bah. I want 2008 to linger a while, I want a proper new year's. (One second is not enough.)

Third and bird.

I'm also reading LiveJournal for the first time in about three or four months. This is why some of you are seeing an inexplicable barrage of comments on old posts.

(If anyone's thrown an "answer this post or you suck" tantrum, do feel free to point them here.)

Beer. Beer good. Back hates me lots and lots. Being a sour and grouchy old man. (Young teenager consistently calls me "old man" now. For some reason I find this endearing.)

Called my dad on Christmas Day and said I now understood LOTS of the stuff he did as a dad, now that I'm "Dad." He laughed. Good Lord, I do housework unbidden. I still loathe it from the core of my being as ever, but I do it.

arkady's genius idea: replace the Microsoft Office paperclip with a pair of breasts, nipples jiggling about in a helpful manner. "Hi, it looks like you're staring at my chest. Would you like help with that?" (horngirl points out this would make a fantastic T-shirt, and I point out she's just the person to wear it.)

Been taking a week off Notnews. Now I need to get back into the groove. Suggestions welcomed.