Been one of those evenings.

Decided that I couldn't put up with the video editing software under linux, so I fired up VMWare to use VideoWave.

*core dump*

Oh, right, need to rebuild the modules cos I installed a new kernel. Run the setup program

*core dump*

Oh... spend 45 mins looking through their user newsgroups, down load a patch, install, run the setup program, run VMware, which complains about the lack of a license. Fuck - must have deleted it.

OK, I'll reboot to windows.

*Error in program 4#&%aa, please reboot*

Eh? OK, I'll reinstall the bastard. Remember that the CD is in the attic, so I got the step ladder, and the bedside lamp, up into the attic for a root around. Can't find the box anywhere, but I can't see into the corner because the lamp doesn't reach far enough, off to get the torch... which is were the problems started...

I kicked the step ladder by accident, and it wobbled, and rocked, and teetered... A frantic grap with my foot served only to give it enough momentum to tip over and fall down the stairs. A nasty thump and crash informed me that as the extention cord was wrapped round the ladder, the bed side lamp was following it down the stairs.

Bugger, I thought. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger. Bugger. So I'm in the attic, in the dark. Bugger. After a few minutes of loud swearing, I calmed down and swore more quietly.

Right, no problem, I'll just lower myself down and drop the few feet to the floor, taking care not to fall down the stairs.

*Arrrrgh*

OK, my shoulder is still too knackered to lower myself down, I'll ummmm... sit here until Amanda gets home and it'll be OK. Time passes. The phone rings. The answering machine picked it up; it's Amanda, she's going to the pub with the people from work, she'll be home later, much later.

So I sat there for a while, pondering. What felt like an hour or so later, I came up with a plan... There's loads of empty boxes up here... flat packed... I'll put them together, and drop them out of the attic, and I'll use them to climb down.

A while later, I'd finaly managed to put a box together in the dark. Only as they are large boxes, it won't fit through the attic trap door. A longer while later, I'd managed to half put the box together, sqeeze it through the gap, finish it off hanging out of the trap door, and drop it. Down the stairs.

OK, an even longer time later, there are 3 boxes lying on the floor, and one sitting on top of each of those. On top of those, I'd layered some flat packed ones, just for some extra support. It's not taken me as long as it could have, because 4 of the boxes fitted through the trap door OK.

Time to get out of the attic.

I have to drop a little bit, cos I can't quite lower my self to the to box. I aimed for the central column. I mumbled Geronimo. I dropped. The bottom box crumpled, sending the one I'm sort of standing on sideways (down the stairs) I drop, fall head first into the second row of boxes, which scatter into the spare room, fall back onto the third set which saves me from cracking my head on the wall behind, and land on the central semi crushed box killing it for good.

I lay there for a while, before realizing that I was completely unhurt, out of the attic, and still lacking the fucking CD.

Anyway, I tidied up, poured myself a large gin & tonic, and sat down to relate the tale to you lot. As I was reading a few posts, I noticed that I was tapping my feet on a box. A box containing some CDs. One of them a win98 CD. So I installed it. And it refuses to run saying that there is not enough memory to load windows. This is, by the way, a machine with 1.5 GBytes of ram installed.

Arse.

Reboot, mix myself a large martini, ukrm...