Cav's Place

I should have written the report about the recent protests this week, but can’t get myself to do that, I guess in some part also because I’m driven away by the complete focus on the way the gendarmes handled things and the violence, including from activists and other protesters I mean, which just serves to bury everything else, the original purpose of the protest. Initially meant to do it Monday, when I just had three days to cover, but gave up on the idea and instead started “Divine Empire” scenario number 20 in Disciples, again picking Humans since the Undead are not available anymore. Didn’t manage anything that day though, since I lost my main leader, tried to continue but was getting beaten back, so just gave up… And only tried again yesterday… And again lost my main leader and quit, then quit the third attempt as well, on the very first turn, since that went badly from the very start. Fourth attempt was finally successful though, started yesterday and finally finished today. Did reload the autosave after stupidly losing the main leader once though, but that was due to rushing to attack a tough ruin directly even though I had a thief close enough to inspect it that same turn. So it wasn’t easy, but the map was actually rather interesting again, this time due to being very resource-poor.

Moving on, this week’s run was Thursday morning, and 16 kilometers again, the time being 1:18:24, with sector times of 4:23, 5:11, 6:01, 4:33, 5:05, 6:01, 4:32, 5:08, 6:07, 4:37, 5:11, 6:05, 4:35, 5:10 and 5:45, making for lap times of 15:35, 15:39, 15:47, 15:53 and 15:30. So this is the second best time over this distance and also the second time I manage five laps in less than 16 minutes in a row. It was also nice to see that the fastest lap was the last one, even if it’s still not the fastest lap five, and how fast that sector three was. Just gave it everything, there was no reason not to at that point, and was also helped by other runners, at first two that had a pretty good pace and which I struggled to overtake though I wasn’t sure I still had it in me, and then just ahead of them I saw a woman running while pushing a pram, so I kept pushing over those final seconds to finish just ahead of her as well.
Speaking of runners, there were plenty of them at that time, since after getting in bed around 4:30 AM I had set the alarm at 7 AM but actually woke up some 15 minutes earlier and just got up then, being out the door just after 8 AM and starting to run at 8:15 AM, such a morning run having been the plan for this week. There were also quite a few people with dogs though, and plenty of workers, the pavement being washed, the garbage bins emptied, the grass mowed… Was a bit worried when I saw the main alley, from the entrance, wet when I got there, but 16 kilometers means just five full laps, so have nothing to do with that part, and while I did see one of those cars washing the path around the lake as well, it wasn’t a problem there. The wind bothered me a bit at times, but it wasn’t bad, and muscles, joints and toes held well enough. Was a bit worried about my left ankle and right big toe, after hitting myself quite badly during Sunday’s protest, but it had been a few days and my assessment that it may be a bit uncomfortable but structurally it was all right was proven correct.

Since I had slept so little, after getting back I took a shower and around noon I was back in bed, only to be woken up around 3 PM by neighbors drilling. Only actually got up to go to the toilet around 3:25 PM though, and not long after that it got quiet again, so I tried to get back to sleep, and eventually managed it, though it took me quite a while. Woke up and actually got up just before 6 PM, when my phone rang. At the time I had no idea who it was so I just ignored the call, but after I got another call from that same number yesterday I looked it up and learned that it’s the number of this nearby Carrefour, so I guess it was an attempt to contact me after the complaint I had sent, about the issue I’ll mention later. Still didn’t answer, of course, since I sent a message on the site and expect any communication to still be on-line, but it doesn’t matter much anyway.

Also installed this month’s Windows updates Thursday evening, and that second version of last month’s security bundle, which I hadn’t yet installed since I hadn’t experienced that problem caused by the first version. Didn’t really mean to install everything then, at first just meaning to install those for Internet Explorer and .NET, which I thought would be safer, so didn’t even make a backup first, but after rebooting to install those two something weird happened. Also got scared for a moment when I saw a text just showing up, only remembering after reading it about a little issue Emsisoft had the last time I tested something, which left it believing it had an “infected” file to delete after reboot, though there actually was no file there, so it failed to do so. But the real problem came after that, when, instead of the desktop showing up, I got a message that conhost.exe had crashed and the screen was otherwise just black, only the mouse pointer being visible. There was some HDD activity, so I waited a bit, but nothing seemed to happen. The pointer briefly changed to the “working in the background” one when I used the keyboard shortcut to open Task Manager, so it received input, but still nothing showed up.
No idea what that was about, whether it had anything to do with Emsisoft trying and failing to delete that test file, with one of the updates, possibly the .NET one, with Comodo Firewall, which had again lost its HIPS settings, with a combination of these, or with the video driver, which runs a .bat file at the start, so would cause conhost.exe to start and result in display problems if it fails to do what it has to do. But at least it wasn’t a lasting problem, since pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del resulted in the expected screen being displayed, so the problem only seemed to affect the desktop, and from there I was able to log off and then reboot normally, things seeming fine after that. Still, wasn’t sure they actually were fine, so I was wary of making a backup of the system at that time, deciding instead to keep relying on the previous one, and just install those security patches as well while I was at it. And those didn’t seem to cause any further problems, so I hope that was the end of that, all updates being listed as successfully installed now. And since those for Internet Explorer and .NET are cumulative, in case something less obvious did get messed up, the next ones should probably take care of it… I hope.

Since I’m not writing the protest reports, I’ll leave Saturday and Sunday out of this personal post as well for now, so I’ll just end it with Tuesday evening, when I went to buy a few things. First went to Auchan, meaning to take the free bus in order to spare my ankle but apparently just missing it and therefore walking there after all. Didn’t take all the plastic bottles which had gathered, since I didn’t know whether the recycling machine had been fixed, and it was a good thing I didn’t, since it still wasn’t working, so not sure what’s going on there. Also not quite sure what’s going on with Auchan, since they changed a lot in the bread area, and the whole wheat bread I tend to get is now almost twice as big as it used to be. Asked how much does it weigh now, since this is paid by weight, and the person working there hesitated a moment, then just placed one on the scale directly, without putting it in a paper bag, which definitely bothered me, but I bought them all anyway. The thing is that now, instead of putting the bread whole in the freezer and then eating one in two days, I have to cut it in half before putting it in the freezer, so it won’t stay out too long after that, and I end up eating somewhat less each day. But the weight differs a bit, one of the three I bought, which were the last three left, being small enough to be eaten in three days instead of four, so I cut a third of it and left it out and put the rest in the freezer. So I guess I’ll have to wait and see what weight they’ll settle on…
Either way, after dropping off the few things I bought from there, which included a lettuce I unfortunately ended up putting in a plastic bag because leaves kept falling off it, though in doing so I think I probably grabbed a few fallen from others as well, I took the other recyclables and, after dropping them off, went to Kaufland and Carrefour too. There were a few electronics to take as well, which I forgot about, but that still left a few things to drop off in the bins at Kaufland, so went there first, and when I saw that the day’s special discounts applied to some things I tend to get I just got quite a few directly, without checking the prices at Carrefour too first. Somewhat surprisingly, even more so since this is Kaufland we’re talking about, some of those products were already discounted and the discounts stacked, so they ended up being even cheaper than I thought they’d be, as the day’s special discount is applied at checkout, not listed on the price label, and I had calculated it starting from the full price, being quite sure that they won’t stack.
And then, once I got to Carrefour, there was that problem I mentioned earlier, which led me to send a complaint. They had two types of pumpkins and one was surprisingly cheap, so I expected it to be the kind that usually is cheaper, even though that’s still quite expensive at this time of year elsewhere. And indeed the price labels were placed that way, so I didn’t even realize until much later that the product names made it quite obvious that they had been misplaced, the employee placing them probably thinking the same thing I was, about which kind is cheaper. So I grabbed three of those, but when I gave them to the employee weighing things, since Carrefour obviously won’t trust customers to weigh their own things like Auchan and Kaufland do, the price label listed the more expensive price, and when I pointed it out she said that’s the price she has there for that. So I just grabbed the price label and gave it to her, to which she said that she believes me, but that’s the price she has listed there. So I just left the pumpkins there, obviously not being about to buy them at that much higher price, but had another look through the area later and saw that price label put back, even though it was apparently incorrect. If I’d have realized it, I’d have had a look at the other kind, because it’s normally the better kind, so if indeed it was so cheap I have to wonder why, but I didn’t and just left without any pumpkin. It’d have been quite a pain to carry those I meant to take anyway, since I had bought a watermelon as well.