That Don't Impress Me Much

There were plenty of things today that were not terribly impressive.

Norton Ghost 2003
The last time I tried this program, I had to reinstall Windows from scratch. But I thought I'd give it another go, to make periodic backups of my system so I wouldn't have to reinstall everything each time something went seriously wrong.

On this occasion, Norton decided to format drive C: to FAT32, destroying 15 hours worth of mp3s ripped from CD, and a lot of other miscelanious data. It also did the same to the partition I used for applications. And erase the windows partition.

So, in all, I wasn't impressed.

The Invisible Camera
An empty package arrived today from Hong Kong. Presumably this was supposed to be the camera I bought on ebay. I've sent the seller a stiffly worded note - we'll see what it takes to get a refund or the item sent.

The Hypnosis Diet
There's a new fashion in weight loss diets. Or rather, the wheel of fashion has turned again. Some health systems concentrate on avoiding certain foods, or food groups, or combinations of food groups, while advising moderate exercise. Others are exercise programs accompanied by the advice to eat sensibly but not neurotically. Then there's the idea of changing lifestyle, or psychology, or habit, as a way to 'bypass' food cravings and 'energise' for exercise.

The 'lifestyle' method is back, with books, TV advice shows, magazine columns, motivational gurus and other paraphenalia.

I got the chance today to skim through Paul McKenna's book "I Can Make You Thin", and I can summerise it's astounding revelations for you:

* Thin people don't think much about food, fat people are obsessed with it.
* Most of us eat, not out of physical hunger, but from what McKenna calls "emotional hunger" - lonliness, boredom, depression etc. Or just habit.
* There are four golden rules. Only eat when your stomach feels empty, eat what you feel like when you do so, enjoy every mouthful slowly, and stop when you're full.
* Imagination is stronger than willpower. So to put you off bad food like chocolate cake, imagine it covered in maggots.
* You can use acupressure taps on the eyebrow ridge and collarbone to remove cravings. Yeah, right.

The End of the World is Nigh. Absolutely Right Nigh.
Speaking of astounding revelations, my favourite television for the past week has been "Revelations". A paranoid conspiracy miniserial about the biblical End of Days. An astonomer whose children have been kidnapped by satanists, accompanied by a nun backed by a mysterious businessman, seek the returned and abducted baby jesus through the world's capital cities, hindered by the supernatural world conspiracy of devil worshippers.

If taken literally, it's far right biblical literalism, linking the devil, terrorism and atheism into one evil mass. If read as spectacular hokum, it's utter drivel, but highly enjoyable.

The final episode still managed to disappoint - not so much the book of prophecies written in braille predicting a sabotaged peace conference when a moon of Saturn entered eclipse. Or the threat of an army of eight million convicts who, being prisoners, were evil and therefore satanists.

It was the way the great fight of good against evil was reduced to a father fighting to get his son back, and god's victory achieved by sticking a knife in the ringleader.

People in Pubs
Those who stride around announcing to the world in general that Britain should solve all its problems by invading the Falkland Islands. Apparantly because it worked once before.

Those who try to pick a fight with the barmaid.

Those who insist on arguing about nothing with total strangers for an hour after closing time.

Can You Fix It?
Tomorrow will be largely spent trying to make a laptop connect to the internet. All I know is, it won't connect, and the disc drive won't work. I therefore have to figure out what's wrong, and mend it, without installing any software or drivers.

I enjoy practical puzzles, but only the kind with solutions.
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Remember, in the last entry, I said I had a pristine basic windows installation? Well, I've got another one.