Singapore 1990

Real rain at last. Can’t complain about this, can we? But who said they love the sound of rain on a tin roof? If you’ve got a tiled roof, I’ll swap you. The noise can be so loud I can’t hear the TV.

Minnie is amazing. She won’t come inside, no way. Even when she’s partly in the rain and getting wet, she just lies there. Oh well, it gets her a bit cleaner. I must admit she and the house are a bit pong-ey. I’ll have to get the carpet cleaner in. She soiled all four carpeted rooms to some degree when she came in last week, but after I put her outside, she’s taken the hint and doesn’t even try to come in any more, even if the door is open.

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The title refers to having to update Kaspersky Internet Security. It’s been giving error messages lately, about not starting properly. When I followed the link, it told me to update to a newer version. OK – a 200MB download, but on ADSL I don’t have to worry about that any more, thank goodness.

The first attempt to install it told me I had to let it uninstall MS Security Essentials. OK, I let it do it. Then it told me I had to do it again. I let it do it again. And again! I rebooted and tried again. Same result. OK, manual uninstall then. Half an hour gone by now.

Reboot and run the Kaspersky installer again. It seemed to work for about 6-8 mins, then started giving error messages about being unable to copy various .sys files. I couldn’t get past these, so had to cancel and that killed the installation process. An hour gone now.

I follow a link to the Kaspersky web site for error messages. Nothing about this problem out of about 40 error codes! Reboot and search for all .sys files on the computer, thinking the error message ones may have their Read Only flag set. There are hundreds of them! I checked a few of the likely ones, but none had a Read Only setting. Drop that idea. 1 hr 20 mins gone now.

Reboot and this time a message came up that I needed to download and install the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool. OK, but it turned out to be another 200MB download. Another half hour wasted in downloading and running it, with no problem found. Nearly two hours now.

Reboot and this time a new message comes up – “Do you want to update KIS? If so, you have to turn off Kaspersky. Do you want to do this?” Yes, of course I bloody do! So I accept, the icon turns red and I wait. Nothing happens. Once again, I run the installer, and this time it all works. I can tell it’s a new 2013 version from a slightly different look to the icon.

So all up, about two and a half hours to update my antivirus program. Not funny. Only from experience did I know how to deal with this. Not good.

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While I was doing it, I was listening to a CD, and it reminded me that a couple of months ago I was in DJ’s at Karrinyup (it seems an age ago now). Some jazz was playing that I recognised and like very much. It went on to a new track that I didn’t recognise. I said to one of the assistants, “This is great. Where’s it coming from?”, meaning where’s the music sourced, from the office?

She pointed to the ceiling and said, “From the speakers up there.”

(Pause)

Duh. I should have known better than to ask someone under 40 years of age, I suppose.

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Minnie’s done it again. I gave her a lamb neck slice and she went and buried it under the quartz chips again. This is highly unusual. I hope she’s not sick. She seems OK, coming to the door all excited about getting her food. Yet she doesn’t want to eat it.

She disappeared down to the back and didn’t know that I was watching her through the back door. She just spent a long time sniffing around, in the rain, then did a poo and explored some more, then went back to the patio. I think she must know now that the garage is a dry area, but is not interested. Wet or dry, warm or cold, she doesn’t care.

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I made a mistake last night. I took a diuretic tablet by mistake instead of the one I wanted (for foot pains). As a result, I was up four times from 10pm to 3am to pee.

All these tablets look the same. The only difference between these two is that the one I take at night has a chamfered edge, while the diuretic doesn’t. Both are white, the same size and almost the same thickness, with a break mark.

I’m finding that the chemists substitute the generic brands at will, which vary wildly in size, shape and colour. Sometimes they’re plain white, or smaller, or much bigger, or a different colour, or shape, or … Many times I’m not sure I’m taking the right ones (but I am, it just takes longer to be sure). I don’t like these generic brands. More profits for the chemists, though, which is the important thing isn’t it?