So I woke up to the news that a friend of mine’s dog had been put down. That put me in a great mood for the day. I didn’t even know the bloody dog, only five. I just couldn’t get into work at all, I’ve really lost the will to live as far as GPU optimisation goes, shaving one hundred microseconds off a shader is tedious and boring.

I’m getting very pissed off with plumbers who fail to contact you, can’t understand simple fucking instructions or questions and produce quotes that are mostly meaningless. Then want to charge you three hundred quid for installing an extractor fan. I just really can’t be arsed with it anymore.

Went to the gym for Pump, Laverne seems to have Ebola so is coughing and spluttering over everyone. I’m sure she has flu, which is fine as I’ve had a jab. She should have too as she’s about ninety.

Came back and actually did some useful work. I’ve got flying on Sunday, not sure I can really be arsed with that either. I’ve seem to have spent the last ten hours doing emergencies in the circuit, which may look great on edited video but it does get very boring after a while. You just go round and round doing the same fucking thing at three hundred odd quid an hour. I’m tempted just to do the solo so I can tick off the bucket list, ‘I’ve flown a helicopter by myself’ and then just can it all. I’m not sure I can be assed to shall out another seven grand and take a load more exams. It’s coming up to Christmas, I hate fucking Christmas. I wish everyone would just fuck off.

So today I was staring tarmac mainly. Well ground shaders in general. Today was very cold. I walked the dogs, it was still very cold. Booked flying for Sunday. Quote arrived from second plumber. Now it’s a bit confusing as I can’t work out if he’s supplying a granite worktop or not. If he is then he is only seven hundred quid over the other quote and it would probably be worth it, if it doesn’t then we are back to plumber number one, he seems to be a bit thick as regards what I keep telling him and now apparently I have 80% of my walls prepared. Still, he’s over a grand cheaper. So I’ll wait to hear back from him anyway, see if we can negotiate. In the meantime I will continue doing what I was planning to do, which is skim over the missing plaster and flatten off the side of the window. I’ll then tidy it all up and remove the rubbish so at least we can use the loo again.

As it was freezing and blowing a gale I went to spin for the first time in months. It was supposed to be with Laverne, but she was ill so Kate did it. It was fine.

It’s been an odd week. But now it’s time for torture porn.

Woke up at 6:30 and took Dillon to daycare. Went back to bed. Phone rang at 8:30, didn’t answer it. Picked up the message at about 11. It was from daycare. Apparently Dillon had been fighting and getting up on his heckles and attacking other dogs. They wondered if he had been in conflict recently. Well apart from a tour of Afghanistan he’d pretty much slept all the time. No idea what was up with him. She called me later and said he’d had to be put in a cage as he was getting nasty.

Working on clouds yet again. Finished converting triangle lists to quads, getting of index buffers and stuff. Made some progress on it. Eventually we cut down on quads to stop pixel shader arbitration issues. Oh what fun that was. Picked up Dillon. Apparently he settled down later on and was playing nicely again. Went to Pump. Worked on my arms. Did a bit more work. Not that many fireworks around considering. Wine is beginning to clear again. Hopefully ready by Friday, if not it will probably have to wait until next week. Not sure about flying this weekend, not really feeling it at the moment.

So spent most of the working day looking at clouds again. Then fixed a couple of odd bugs. Walked both dogs. Came to the conclusion that I only really need to skim the cheek of one window reveal. Everything else just needs patching up. Need to think about tile trims and grout. Neither of which I really have a clue about. The onyx grey seems to match well with something called ‘manhattan’ so will try and get a sample of that. Probably leave this until everything is delivered and it’s pretty simple to get it all. Also need to get the flooring. More cost. I’m sure it’s all going to look awful.

Went to Combat. Looked at my arms.

So yesterday I did stuff and got a haircut. We then went out in the evening and had a curry. Oddly at the same restaurant at the table next to us was the guy who cut my hair earlier.

So today was all about the bass. Okay, actually it was all about the bathroom. Started with one coat of neutraliser, followed by blasting out all the remaining tiles. Got all that done, then took down all the plasterboard. It surprised me how this house actually stands up considering how piss poor some of the framing work is. Where then end of the bath is, there is now jointing to anything. Still, all gone now. Made a trip to the tip, git rid of a load, still lots lots more to go. Got the side of the bath off, that’s all free now. Two more coats of neutraliser and I’ve sanded down everything else. All looking pretty good. Plumber number one is going to give me a new quote. He’s still available at the end of November and isn’t VAT registered, which generally means he will be crap. No quote from Polish guy yet. I’m going to give him a serious mouthful if he ever gives one, which if he has any sense he just won’t bother.

We went to the local fireworks display, it wasn’t bad considering it was free. Had a bath. Now looking forward to the joys of work next week.

Work was very dull, so won’t even go there. Spent quite some time in the bathroom removing plaster. I’ve finally worked out whats gone on there. The wall by the window has been tiled before. So, going by layers, there was paint, followed by plaster, followed by PVA, tile adhesive, plaster, hard wall, then brick. What’s happened is moisture has got behind the first layer of plaster, activated the PVA and all the plaster has become loose. Anyway, all that side of the radiator the plaster has now been removed, back to the tile grout. The other side of the radiator the plaster is fine, thankfully it’s been skimmed to about 1mm, so the difference in levels can be made up with tile adhesive. So where are we now. Well I’m now working on the right hand side of the radiator, just removing the cling-strip and the rest of the paint. There’s still quite a way to go there. Both window ledges have been removed, a bit of repair work required one side, the other side is fine. So job for tomorrow is to hopefully remove all the rest of the paint. Then Sunday that leaves removing the rest of the tiles and then ripping out the plasterboard around the bath. That should then just leave some sanding and filling jobs. It won’t go to plan though, never does.

So this morning I got up early as this plumber was meant to arrive. So started work. By eleven thirty he still hadn’t arrived. So phoned, he was stuck over at Hanham. Said he would phone in the next four to five hours. I worked on cmask caching, which was interesting, but slightly uneventful. Walked both dogs. Went for a run in the dark. Came back, had shower, had phone call from plumber. Tried to call back, left answering machine message telling him not to bother. I get a text saying he was in the bath and could come over now. He came over, really wished he hadn’t. First thing he said was, “This is a perfect example of why people who don’t know what they are doing shouldn’t touch things.” He’d kind of blown it there and then, but by this point he’d actually wiped his hand across a wall and touched his face, so he now had a white dot of plaster on his knows. From this point on I couldn’t really take him seriously. He then went on to tell me the joys of why I didn’t need to remove the paint and then asked about why I wanted an electric shower. I said it was because the water pressure was too low. He then said I had a problem with my pipes or my boiler. I finally got bored and told him it was a gravity fed system. Still he pointed out everything that needed doing and asked when I wanted it done by, I said Christmas, he said no chance. Then why the fuck did he ask. He buggered off saying he would mail me a quote. I look forward to that. I think I’ll go back to plumber number one who wants to put bonding on fucked plasterboard walls and tile over that, thats a disaster waiting to happen. Bonding takes ages to set, then you really have to prime it properly. Really if I want it doing properly I should take the time and do it myself, as I can do the research and then do all the preparation. Still, I said I would rip out the plasterboard around the bath, at least then it can be replaced and done properly. Bonding, fuck me, probably the worst thing you could tile over, next to grass or water. I just know I’m going to pay this guy two and a half grand and half the job is going to be bodged to fuck and it will forever annoy me.

Tried to transfer the wine, fucked it up, it’s gone all cloudy so will have to clear again. Had enough of today really.

Took Sasha to daycare. Cleaners arrived and did a shit job. Chisel was finally at Aztec. Worked on stuff, which wasn’t very successful. Have an idea though that may be more successful. Walked Dillon, he was quite happy without Sasha. Talked to another plumber, he is coming tomorrow. Have a feeling my jointing compound exercise will now need a coat of some sort of waterproofing over the top, as jointing compound will turn back to powder if it gets wet, which is not great. But a waterproof coating may be a pretty good idea anyway. Still, see what chap says tomorrow. Picked up chisel, picked up Sasha. Went to Pump. Came back and played with chisel. It’s quite good fun. It’s certainly a lot quicker than a bolster and a lump hammer. Anyway, far too much going on in my mind at the moment. This bathroom may get done this decade.

I spent all day looking at cache issues. Well, not issues really but performance. For a 4K memory clear I have to flush 512K of cache. It’s very annoying. That really did eat up pretty much all of it. Rang up the hire company, they completely managed to fail to get a chisel bit from Swindon to Aztec West. So moaned. They have now requested it again, plus the same bit from Heathrow. All to pop a few tiles off.

Went for a run, worked out a new night route. It’s about an hour and ten minutes, so spot on. Came back and washed bottles with what can only be described as a spring loaded bottle douche. Anyway, thirty bottles now all prepared.