It Makes Me Sick

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I've had no voice for the last few days. That's why you couldn't see any new blog posts - I was whispering them.

As for why I had no voice, my throat was burned by stomach acid carried by food in a great hurry to reach the toilet bowl, without having to go through all that tedious digestion first.

Yes, I spent half of monday night sicking up monday's lunch - and the other half getting hot and cold flushes. So either I had a little food poisoning...or I'm pregnant.

Considering the recent spate of sex the probability of pregnancy is admittedly raised, but something tells me that's not it.

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Tonight, a man slouched against a wall asked if I had any spare change. He said he was a hopeless alcoholic, slowly dying and just waiting for the end. He didn't care about living anymore - just wished it wouldn't take so long to finally die.

I smiled and said, "Hello Tony".

He stared at me in astonishment. How could I know his name?

He never remembers me. Each time he falls back into the cider bottle and onto the street, it's like his memory is wiped clean.

He told me again about how the wife he'd met at a detox clinic threw him out when he relapsed, and how he hoped he could patch things up with his son before the end. He wanted to know why Jesus was letting him go through life like this, if there wasn't some grand purpose that would make it all make sense.

There was a tumor on the side of his head that hadn't been there before - though strangely he looked healthier. There were no cold sweats, DT tremours or numb limbs this time, plus he'd put on some healthy pounds.

He refused to take the coins in my pocket, so I slipped them into the cap by his side, and he pretended not to notice. That's how dignity is maintained. He said he'd buy a bottle of vodka as a treat and sleep on the soft grass of the common tonight.

He's probably there as I'm typing this.

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There's a school for adults opening nearby. It goes by the promising name of Worker's Educational Association. I dropped 'round to sniff out the possibilities of employment.

So, I ask, do you run courses in EFL/ESL/ESOL/whatever-it's-calling-itself-this-month? Oh yes. Well, probably. Dunno really, we're just starting up.

How many students do you expect to have? Dunno yet. We'll see who turns up. How many teachers do you have? I couldn't really say - someone around here might know. And what sort of wages do you expect to pay? Dunno really, we're just starting up, you see.

Sigh. So how do I apply? Simple! Just fill out these ten pages of stupid questions and we'll add you to the list of teachers we might interview at some point. When we know what we need.

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And finally, a brief lesson on how computers work.

Adobe Reader aka Adobe Acrobat is a program you probably have on your computer that lets you read PDF files. PDF is a way of formatting text in a book-like way, so you can read what look like books on your computer - complete with numbered pages, headings and subheadings, embedded pictures and indeed watermarks and page creases. Very useful.

Now, Adobe Reader takes up 157 megabytes, is slow, awkward to configure, and not exactly neat in terms of how is works behind the scenes with your system. Sumatra, on the other hand, reads PDFs, is 1.33 megabytes, fast, easy to configure, and clean to install.

Like most such admirable programs, it was developed by one person working alone to solve a problem simply because it needed solving. Sometimes such people work illegally, and occasionally go to jail for undoing the mess made by the professionals.

Anyway, I want to deinstall Reader and install Sumatra. But I can't deinstall Reader because the 'helper' program Windows Installer isn't working. Normally I'd solve this by finding the uninstaller program provided by Adobe as a matter of basic professionalism, and run it. Except I can't because Reader doesn't have one. This is like manufacturing a door without a handle, or a car without brakes, but the good people of Adobe presumably had some good reason.

Hmmm, I think. Maybe Reader was misinstalled in such a way that it can't activate or communicate with Windows Installer? So if I reinstall Reader, over the top of itself, it might install correctly and fix the problem so I can deinstall it. Good idea, yes? Didn't work.

So I try reinstalling Windows Installer, thinking the problem may be there. But Windows won't let me reinstall it...because I've already got the latest version installed, so it can't see there's any need to install it. Gah!

Ah, but wait a minute. Installer isn't just a program - it's a Service. A Service is a little program that sits on your computer, always running, taking up space and RAM but doing absolutely nothing most of the time until it's needed. Like now. Which is why, six months ago, I configured it to only start running when it was needed. Well, it wasn't.

So. Deep breath. I configure Installer to run all the time, reboot, deinstall Reader, install Sumatra, reconfigure Installer to not run all the time anymore...and reboot again.

And that, gentle reader, is how you work with computers.

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