Always with the chaos!

Nikon D700 launched. Nice camera - £2K, D3 sensor, hybrid of D3 and D300 body/facilities, rather a nice design overall. Very predictable, though.

SpeedLite SB-900 is rather good, though, very flexible and powerful

Met up with emmavescence; she had, after all, kindly invited me to park in her driveway (a surprisingly tight fit. I had to fold the mirrors in and wait for a workman to move out of the way) and I got to see some Burnt Oak street theatre in one of the cafes as a result. We popped around the corner from the station and had what must be the slowest ever Italian meal. Hanging out = good. Also, I got to see mattp's decking (which is well suited for a Jacuzzi and he has been informed thus) and very clever Chilli pepper painting.

Apparently many people that I like or people I like like are going to be converging in one house soon, which means that I have yet more excuses to go to London. Well, fewer excuses to not go. Realistically when the M1 is finished (HA!) the drive really is better than the run to Glasgow.

Can't get hold of the bloke with the BMW. Maybe another used-car-that-carries-shit-plan has gone to the wayside.

Finally got around to downloading the cheap Spore Creature Creator download I'd bought in error, so I can muck about with it on my PC.

Fail

BMW ran like shit. Which I don't think is the seller's explanation of "low fuel"; I think it's suffered bore wear due to the Nikasil linings failing (they react with high-sulphur fuel). Added to that; not only was the A/C shot (as expected), the heater wouldn't blow cool air from outside either. And the servotronic power steering gear was leaking. And it had a bald tyre and heavy steering, and the brakes didn't feel 100%, though they worked (and the Suzuki brakes aren't fantastic either; I'm used to this - car brakes don't last long in the UK due to the salted roads and crap maintenance).

Which is really quite a shame, because I liked the driving position, the visibility (low dash, thin pillars for a '90s car), the V8 engine (which also felt down on power, more suggestion of low compression due to bore wear), the big boot, the clever opening rear window and the extensive history and full set of original keys.

If I wanted the driving position, loadspace and so forth, I could actively seek out an E34 Touring with either the later V8 engine, or the 4/6 cylinder, but I reckon any in my "budget" would be equally shagged with regard to steering, leaks and A/C operation, and if I wanted to spend more, I could get plenty of not-premium priced cars that would carry lots of stuff and have a towbar (I notice C5 estates are £2K now) - it was only interesting because I was offered the BMW and money for the MR2.

Non fail comes from Hawick and UPS. UPS delivered the table for my QuikLok keyboard stand (I sense potential fail in that it looks like it might not clear the height of the Trinity, an immensely stupid design if that is the case given that Korg's top-end keyboards - the kind one might want this sort of stand for - have always had fairly high rear panels) and left it at the front door. It's a BIG parcel. It was also still there I suspect 24 hours+ after delivery.

The cat will not shut the fuck up, she's yelling her little kitty head off at me.

Not Fail

siani_hedgehog and jezebel_z have made bits of the house that were not presentable, presentable. I will present them shortly. The hall fully lined and stain-stopped is a sight to behold!