Zagadka's Site

Up early for stock take at another store… Yah, that’s smart. It will be the last time I do that unless it’s for my brother DSE store across the road where I actually know the manager. I didn’t end up going to the other store anyway and it was lucky that I arrived early, the DSE store’s stock take prep was ruined. I got there at seven and the other manager wasn’t there yet so I opened up my shop and milled about in there for a bit at like 10 past 7 because it was bloody cold. Yay.

FYI so this makes more sense:
Stock take:
We count all the products in the store and how many of each product we have. This tells us what we physically have as opposed to what the computer says we should have.

Range:
The store is divided into manageable sections called ranges. We record all the catalogue numbers that occur in each range and then enter them into the stock take software. The software then tells us any catalogue items we have not recorded and also prints us nice work sheets to record counts on.

Variance:
The difference between the counted stock quantities and what we are supposed to have on hand according to the computer system.

It seems at the DSE store one of the staff got a little too ahead of themselves and deleted some ranges out of the computer that he thought were not current. It seems that they were and, well, we needed to do the bastards again. =( When the manager finally got in late at 8:30ish. So we started recording catalogue numbers in the store room first. Then the guy that deleted the ranges came in with an excel sheet of all the ranges that he had typed in at home. We imported them into the stock take software and all was good bar some scattered ranges that needed to be re-done. I left that store at 7PM. So 12h work. Got home at twenty past eight…

5:45AM to ~8:20PM = ~14h 35m

Mum + Dads today. What a great BBQ. I should have caught up with my Aunt and Uncle but I didn't really catch up at all. I was a little nervous, I havn't seen them many years; when really, I should have.

Home all day and No Blog?!?!?

Work.

Ah! Friday at last! Hrm, I might watch one of the Fridays on the weekend. "Cause its Friday, you aint got no job, and you aint got shit todo!"

I have finished P1500 - an S-Video socket and, as promised the rocker switch P7720 from yesterday.

P7720	P1500
p7720p	p1500p

Not a bad likeness! =P

7:00 PM:
Dumbass! I forgot to bring home the parts to actually MAKE this damn S-Video switch I have been designing... Doh!

Work.

I've been doing some more drawing. Pics later.

Work.
I have an interview today at head office - an evaluation as it were. I'd better get a pay rise or the shit is going to hit the fan!!!

Work or Paperwork as it were. Lots.

Work.

It seems things have settled down quite a bit in regards to the stomach bug bit. I was feeling bad this morning but once I ate and drank a bit it settled. There is still a slight "ache" there but no explosive diarrhea and twisted guts. A big plus.

More NWN... Re-Addicted I think. I don't know why I dropped it in the first place! Nm... Killed more trolls and ogres. Damn they hurt when they make contact, they drop like 50% of my hitpoints in one swipe. They don't like fire bolts though! I can see one of my quests being a big problem though. Claiming one of the troll's heads as revenge for one of the NPCs. I killed them all already! I went through the troll caves and ancient creator ruins backwards kinda. So I went from bottom up then talked to the NPC that I was supposed to and then go kill them... Doh!

Up early, damnit!#@$@$#%@$#%

While cleaning yesterday I noticed I still had Neverwinter Nights installed. I also found, in my “crap” folder, my saved games! But wait for it; from 2003! My thief character Zagadka de Noir. He is a Halfling thief with 17 dex. Very cool. It seems that the last time I played I must have just finished going through a dungeon and had LOTS of loot on me. It seems that this stuff fetched quite a few pretty pennies, especially after I bought the “Mask of Persuasion” from a “Suspicious Character” somewhere in the game. That item helps me sell stuff for a higher price and buy stuff cheaper. I had saved for a few really cool twink items having like 90K of gold! I bough a really cool set of Thief’s armour with multiple modifiers for thief related stuff. I also got a +2 AC ring, a +2 all saves ring and another helm that I swap when I’m not selling stuff that gives some thief bonuses. Man this “Suspicious Character” near the docks had a lot of high-end cool thief stuff. Now I can lay the smack down on some Trolls and Gobbies! I also made level 9 in the process of getting to the second chapter where I bought all this crap.

I fucking hate Nero BackItUp. Backing up 8 gig of VCD images I made of miscellaneous video clips and then, on the 11th disc of 13. BAM! “Backup Failed”. No error message, no alternative to solve the problem nothing. Fucking dead! 11 discs and 3 hours down the fucking tube. What a piece of shit!

Back to Neverwinter Nights. Doing well. Have laid the smack down on several Gobbies, golems, trolls, animated amour things and even some gargoyles! Man my thief is hard enough to hit with 17 dex! He has 19 now! I got some gaunts that give +2 dex! What a find! The main reason I have been able to survive larger mobs was the parry and improved parry feats, that helps me out big time! I also have sneak attack, 1d6 extra damage for a sneak attack. So I send Tommi in, my Halfling thief minion, and if he engages the other creature in combat I can do sneak attacks on it. I also found another “Shortsword +1”. I am dual wielding two +1 shortswords! I didn’t even know you could do that, he’s only -4/-4 because he has the “Two Weapon Fighting” feat. He used to use Shortsword/Dagger. Two Shortswords is working out well, he hits a lot of the time too. These last few mobs have been really nasty; the golems and grey horrors and shit. Big mobs that have so many immunities you have to scroll down the description page to see them all. I think I will pick this game up again, very therapeutic since I can’t see myself playing actual DnD anytime soon, very unfortunately.

Slept til late! Well 10AM is late for me. Feeling OKish… Still having problems untangling my guts that appear to have tied themselves in tight, painful knots. Yay for me. What a cool weekend. I decided to start making space and tidying up a bit, on my hard drive. I burned lots of stuff.

Work.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo the bug is back. Went home feeling crap – pun intended because that’s what I had to do, real quick and repeatedly.

Bug: 2 Tim: 0

Thursday 26th May 2005:
Yay for it not being flu; It's a weird stomach bug, or something I ate that is bothering me, I don't feel like shit anymore and hurt all over; just feel like my guts are going to explode. "Phew, lucky it's not flu!" Bullshit! Give me the fucking flu over this torture!

CeBit Today... I think I will manage, just.

CeBit Update:
CeBit was goooood! Lots of cool gear to look at, one thing caught my eye some "Embedded Systems". They were really cool, small PCs; the size of something you would expect to be a DVD player or a Digital Set Top Box... Very Cool. I collected a lot of propaganda.

The Geil Memory stand. I was wearing my badge that Identified me from Dick Smith Electronics; always good at these shows, you get more attention instead of bullshit salesmanship. The guy at Geil gave us a good spiel and he then handed over a promo bag that contained a bight green nVidia box; my eyes lit up. Seems it was a press kit... Boooooooo =( Where's my free video card!

Drank 1.5 mugs of shit coffee at the D-Link stand so I got two mugs. Man that coffee was bad! Really, REALLY, REALLY bad... If I wasn’t sick I probably could have taken it, I tipped most of the second mug down the sink. But I have two nice new shiny D-Link Mugs! I wandered around the rest of the show with my friend and co-worker teetering between being high on caffeine and sick in the stomach. NASTY Coffee!

There was a cool refrigeration place there that looked really cool and we went back to later, it really wasn't that cool. It was just a bench full of brochures and a small TEC (Thermo-Electric Conductor - See Peltier/Peltier Effect) demonstration burbling away on it. There were also miscellaneous temperature controlled wine cabinets and small mini-fridges, certainly not as cool as I thought.

A lot of the big names in case “rice” were there, CoolerMaster, Thermaltake, Geil and Corsair – well their distributors anyway – just to name a few. Lots of really cool LED covered, Cold-Cathode-Lit, shiny windowed, water cooled cases with lots of displays indicators and some more LEDs for good measure.

The lady at the Laser stand was nice, she gave me some pens, photo paper and some of their new headphones to try. Name badge paid off again! =P Free loot is always good!

After a fun couple of hours I headed home and proceeded to go from computer to toilet about 50 times for the rest of the day. Fucking stomach bug. Toward dinner I was feeling OK and things had “Stabilized”…

Work.

Flu sucks.

Stocktake is here! I am at work Very early.
Well it's now 4:53 PM. ALL counted, all entered and all spot checked. The stupid system requires me to close down all the registers before I can get a damn figure! This means that I need to wait until I have counted the tils at 5:30 and finalised. Fucking hopeless and more time I need to spend here unnecessarily.

Work.

Still too busy to blog! Damn stocktake!

Sunday. No blog. NFI why, didn't do much at all.

Saturday at last!

I am having my parents over to pick up their PC. It's time to clean…

EVERYTHING!

2H til they come! Cue mission impossible theme!

I started with the kitchen, put the dried plates and cutlery away and washed some stray cups about the house and a stack of plates. That all out of the way I moved to the cook tops then the benches. I removed the pot stands, dunking them in the sink ready for cleaning; next I removed the burners from the cook top, they needed some cleaning too; once cleared I set about cleaning then polishing the cook top, I love stainless steel! I let the gear soak and washed the benches. I cleaned all of the cook top parts and set them to dry on a tea towel.

Now for the rest of the house. A general tidy up. Next I moved things off the floor all around the house and vacuumed. Once that was all done I gathered the rubbish and swept the kitchen and laundry floors. Done! (Last few bars of MI theme – Victory)!

2:12 PM:
Parents are now gone, it was good to see them. They were very happy with their PC - fixed and tweaked by me of course.

Now it's time to see if my little Experiment worked.
When you want to keep an opened sparkling wine fresh it is said that placing a metal fork or spoon into the neck of the bottle and placing it in the fridge will keep it fresh and retain the bubbles.

It seems it is true. I didn't drink all my OLD last night (a Long Neck). I could not bear tipping it down the sink. So I decided to try the above. IT WORKED! I removed the fork and poured it into my nice clean chilled stein and whoa! To my surprise, at least 30mm of head!!! Once that calmed down a bit I continued pouring and emptied the bottle. The taste test; I was a bit dubious about trying it, knowing stale beer is really not nice. A small sip, mmm, a bigger sip… It was great; I would say just as good as when it was opened! Don't worry, I am just as surprised to see it worked. I am now a believer! =P

Ah! The next best thing to your fiancé buying you beer and eating pizza to go with it, drinking said beer the next day with cold pizza while enjoying some TV. I will be watching some taped Stargate Atlantis. I am terribly addicted to it. I also have some taped ninja turtles that I want to watch. Yes, ninja turtles, the original.

Work.
10:00 AM:
Started counting the 'P' range. For those of you who are not familiar with Dick Smith/Tandy Catalogue numbers; The P category, standing for 'Plugs' consists of all those little bits and pieces you see at Dick Smith Stores; i.e. little plugs and sockets, adapters and fuses. These little mofos are going to take a long time to count.

5:20 PM:
When I said they would take a while I wasn't kidding. 6.5 hours. Yeah. A long time. 7 pages at 60 lines a page = 420 lines to count; often each line would have average 50+ items to count. 420 x ~50 average = ~21000 odd items I counted. Yay. This has really cooked my brain, SO - Fucking - Tedious.

7:42 PM:
Yay! Pizza. We will be getting three pizzas and garlic bread. We have decided to try the Dominoes "BBQ Burst" crust on a BBQ Meat lovers. Mmmmm should be nice. We are also having a chicken and bacon on thin and a supreme on thin. mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Kel bought me some OLD, how awesome is that! Can't get a much better deal than Pizza and Beer that was personally selected and bought by my Fiancé!

8:50 PM:
Hrm, that BBQ burst wasn't all that special…

Work.
Stocktake preparation:
- tidy
- count storeroom

Boooooooooooorrrrrring.

Work.
Fixing Audit Points is so fun.