Saturday, December 11, 2021

May Maggots Eat Their Living Brains ...


 ... yes, as you've probably worked out

 a) Microsoft have screwed me about again, and

 b) Margo bought a Hewlett-Packard printer a few years back.

Sadly, there is some shite which requires me to run Windoze, so for about a week I had to boot the trusty laptop up under Windows 10. Which required leaving it for a few hours as it downloaded accumulated updates and installed them ... then, one day up in Strasbourg, it decided to spend all day downloading some crap "quality of life" update that would bring me massive satisfaction with the inclusion of Paint 3D! (as if) and then, around 5pm, chose to install this huge pack.

 

Which was hideously inconvenient but luckily after half an hour or so it rebooted - as it will - and I took the opportunity to turn it off and hie me back to the hotel, where I let it go about its business whilst I ate ... and when I got back to the room after a couple of hours it had got up to 60% done and then, in front of my eyes, displayed the rather alarming message "Windows is trying to recover your previous installation ...": this is not the sort of thing you really need. Especially when far from the office.

Luckily for me it seemed to succeed, so I tried in every way known to man to turn off automatic updating: this is not, it seems, possible with Windows 10 Home, albeit only mind-bogglingly difficult with the other versions. But despite my best efforts a few days later it tried to reinstall the borked update ... now, when I have to boot Windows I have Wifi disabled and I unplug the Ethernet cable. I suppose I could give the thing a static IP address and set up the router firewall to ban all incoming/outgoing traffic for that address, but that seems overkill.

And as for the printer, sometime last year it decided to download a firmware update that basically bans the use of any but HP toner cartridges. Which Margo discovered when she bought some rather cheaper-than-HP "compatible" cartridges, and the beast threw a hissy-fit. She complained to the toner company who sent out replacements only to have the same thing happen: so I went goofling, as one will, and found (in addition to a large number of disgruntled ex-HP customers) a tool that should let one downgrade the firmware.

It started off promisingly enough, with first of all "Erasing" and then "Programming..." but of course things that seem too good to be true usually are not, in fact, true and this turned out to be the case because the bugger reset halfway through the process and still obstinately refuses to recognise the new cartridges. According to various forae there should be an option in one of the setup menus to enable firmware updates, but of course this does not exist on this particular printer ... also, it now comes up with a "Fatal Error 200" on random occasions, and still won't print.

So we have a borked printer, two sets of colour cartridges, and slightly elevated blood pressure - which I'm going to do something about in the immediate future. Just remember, people - never, EVAH, buy an HP printer. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but when I buy a bit of consumer electronics I do rather expect it to belong to me ...
 
(Just as an aside, it's now reposing at the local tip where it can contemplate the errors of its ways. Rather spitefully, I actually feel good about that.)

In other news, little Lilibeth looks a bit sad just now, up on the big hydraulic hoist in Philippe's garage with nothing in her rear end, what with the engine sitting on the floor on a pile of sawdust and the gearbox and differential disassembled on a couple of workbenches. Still, a little jaunt to Carcassonne got me three of the four bearings for the gearbox, and as it turns out the front bearing on the main shaft - which is rather difficult to find - is in good nick and doesn't actually need replacing, which is kind of convenient.

And I've found online and duly ordered the synchro slider, the synchro ring, the two springs that go with it, the spie joint for the driveshaft and a full set of gaskets (not to mention rear shock absorbers and a few other bits and pieces): all of these things should arrive before the end of the month so with any luck she'll be in running order by October. That would be rather nice ... next project, an Alfa Spider, anyone?
 

Ah well, there's many a slip twixt cup and lip, and the Red Guy is always there ready and waiting to throw up on my eiderdown ... looks like this is going to be a Christmas/end-of-year missive rather than the one I'd planned for somewhat earlier. Never mind.

Lilibeth is still up on the hoist: once Philippe had redone the gearbox we bolted that back onto the engine, stuck that back into its compartment, lost some skin putting the transaxles and shocks back where they belong, hooked up all the various cables for accelerator, clutch, choke ... and couldn't get her to start. The starter motor engaged, but refused to turn.

Fortunately the RTA has the full wiring diagram and it didn't take me too long to realise that we'd omitted the basic step of connecting the battery lead to the starter ... in my defence, let it be said that the lead was actually hanging hidden behind the radiator fan.

Having corrected this basic but totally understandable error she started on the second go - not so bad, all things considered - and the gearbox works perfectly: sadly there was an - unusual - noise from the diff so ...
 
... as it happens you can in fact, if you're correctly equipped, uncouple the gearbox from the motor and then just drop the former out from underneath. Which is what we did. I am assured that adjusting the differential on an 850 is a complete pain in the arse which, unless you happen to have the proprietary (and long-since unavailable) Fiat tool for the job, best recalls the tedious process of successive approximation for N iterations (where N is a number too large for comfort) which I had to do for maths, a long time ago. (Luckily, these days we have Excel and the like to do such shit for us.)

Whatever, it's done, she can be put back together again: sadly it's about 8° in the garage and although the entire job should take no more than a morning that's assuming that your tiny hands are not constantly frozen. So she can wait for a spell of warmer weather.

In other news, it would appear that our bar is cursed: all those that take it over seemed doomed to ... well, doom, I suppose. Let's be clear, I am sufficiently French by now to feel that there's absolutely nothing wrong with having an affair - come to that, why stop with just one, if you happen to enjoy it?

But even (maybe especially) in France there are rules for this sort of thing, and the first (and possibly only) rule is that You. Are. Discreet.

So if Sandra decides she wants to shag Fabrice (the "why" escapes me, I can only assume that he's a really exceptional lover, because to all appearances he nicked his nose from a bust of Julius Caesar and his voice from one of the cartoon extras in Roger Rabbit) then that's none of my business: not only do I not care, I don't want to know.

Unfortunately "not knowing" did not seem to be an option, and soon enough a number of people did know, and then of course Eric found out, which led to a scene ... neither the ambiance, nor the clientèle, are what they were: I might have to fall back to Fontcouverte.

Still, it's a shame. Godnose I'd not have expected anything better of the fawning little tit, but I'd thought Sandra was rather smarter than that. It would seem that I was mistaken.

On the bright side, it's given the village something to talk about for the next six months at least, so all the vicious old biddies who like to regret the lamentable lack of moral fibre in the yoof of today will be able to die with smiles on their faces.

Whatever: it has not escaped my notice that the new year is approaching. The end of 2019 was very bad as far as I was concerned, 2020 was a completely shite year that's best forgotten, and 2021 has been an admittedly mitigated disaster.
 
So here's hoping that 2022 will be a little brighter. Mind how you go, now. 

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