Weekend started off rather well with a quick 17 mile bike ride up to White Coppice and back, then home for a deep clean of the bathroom and pubbage.

Saturday featured a lie in (apart from getting up to feed two insistent kittens) and some faffing around with my main PC. Unfortunately it's rather hot internally (up to 41°C); ironically I think this is due to the fscking huge Tuniq Tower CPU heatsink which is actually impeding airflow. I've not yet swapped that out for the standard Intel cooler to see if it makes much difference (hopefully CPU temperature up, case temperature down) - first I added an extra fan (no difference), and then went down to one graphics card (also no difference - a max of 51W removed and no temperature drop!).

Of course, to make matters worse when I got up this morning the system had hung and will currently not boot into Vista. Even safe mode produces a corrupt screen. Duff video card?

Anyway PC aside there was some general sorting, letting cats into the garden, retrieving a fluffy spotty kitten from under a car three houses away where he'd discovered there were Other Cats and was hiding..

Then there was L's 50th birthday party. This was rather fun, after a slow start. Good chat, drinks, dancing - I even got teenage kudos for keeping up with an 18 minute extended remix (of course this was for being an Old Bastard that can keep up, rather than actually being young and cool).

Sunday featured lots of kitten cuddles, fixing the lawn mower (just needed wonky cable cutting, stripping and reseating), watching Dr. Who whilst it rained hard, then another bike ride (managed to spot a hare).

I was also rather pleased to find I was also fractionally under 11 stone, and can fit into my small stretchy t shirts again. I may be in danger of going down a trouser size if I'm not careful!

I'm not planning to be ridiculously zealous about weight, but I feel stabilising a few pounds below 11 stone is quite a good healthy target.

This week will feature drinkies on Tuesday for L's real 50th birthday, Bollox Friday maybe? Also lots of furniture re-arranging. I think I shall have a real go at the study, after sorting this bloody PC out.

Things were going well last week until a few unexpected expenses materialised.

First, there was deliberate shiny buying in the shape of a cheap Sound Canvas 55 off ebay. It's somewhat more modern than the MT-32 I got a while back - the piano actually sounds like a proper piano and it can be mapped for proper General MIDI compatibility (even if it's capable of a superset of that) although my modern standards the note polyphony is a bit low..

Then the UPS died at home (it was cheap, and has lasted a couple of years) encouraging the purchase of a second hand with new batteries one (this also showed that the old one was never doing a fan test, which may be why it failed). The new one carries on the tradition of the old one in continually trimming the input voltage - it appears the household voltage is a bit high.

Eye and dentist appointments hit simultaneously, and I think it's likely I'll need a new prescription - probably the same frame though.

Thus, despite the fact there are lovely people I wanted to see in London, I stayed around Manchester - particularly as it was therainbowqueen's 30th birthday, and that only comes around once!

Due to the rainbow theme, there was a last minute dash on Thursday to grab some orange machine dye. An old pair of white jeans magically became burnt orange, coupled with my Stuff Is Awesome orange t shirt with a rainbow on it :).

Saturday consisted of going to Futuresonic with T. I was confused here, and actually thought it was Eurocultured - which is on the coming bank holiday weekend. Anyway, it was a decent diversion and some drinks and chat were also had. Then, onwards to see the RQ in all her splendid rainbowy glory together with various colours in the rainbow friends (S in green and C in an orange jumpsuit were particularly good).

Sunday was spent vegging on games (it rained) and Monday a bit of snoozing and a quick 17 mile bike ride - jolly good.

Last night was Biphoria.. I'm pondering looking at running Manchester Bifest in November.. Any suggestions or offers of help (workshops, cake, crafts, decorations, entertainment) welcome!