With the arrival of mini-wonko #4 the time has come to buy a new car. The poor old Citroen Xsara is just too small to fit 4 children and 2 adults in so we have been on the lookout for a 7 seater people carrier (MPV). We've managed to pick one up cheap, it's a little rough around the edges but it's nothing that a bit of TLC can't sort out. It's a 2.0l Nissan Serena 8 seater. It's an "N" reg which means its ... about 8 years old I think. It's been well looked after and the only problem that I have found with it is a tendency to mis-fire a bit which is probably either the plugs, leads or ignition coil. The back doors are sliding and there's so much room in the back you can walk between the rows of seats. The back seats flatten out and fold up to the side of the car where they can be fastened to give a big boot. The middle seats can be folded forward and fastened to give a huge boot like the back of a van, only with carpet! When I first popped the bonnet I was surprised to see only a couple of filler pipes and a spare wheel. The engine is actually mounted underneath the driver and passenger seats which flip up to give access to the engine. It's a pretty bizarre layout but trying to shoe-horn a 2 litre engine into the front would have been impossible without extending the bonnet another couple of feet making the whole thing the size of a small lorry. :-) I've already discovered one car park that we can't use because the overhead barrieres that stop trucks from parking there are too low. :-D
They say that only two things in life are certain - death and taxes. I'd have to say that three things in life are certain - death, taxes and Windows falling over after a few months.
Over the last 18 months or so I've only had to reinstall XP Home about 3 times which is a vast improvement over previous versions of Windows. However, that time has come again and this time I've gone for XP Pro. I've not noticed a great deal of difference over XP Home yet but the I've spent most of my time trying to find installation discs and catching up after a couple of days of being without the internet while I struggled to get Windows to see and use my USB cable modem.
I'm still struggling to get Enemy Territory up and running which is a bit of a bugger because I haven't played now for a week and I'm starting to miss inflicting mass genocide on the forces of evil. :-) I can't find my Office disc anywhere and I haven't even got VB or .NET installed yet.
What I still find amazing about Windows is that Microsoft still can't make it last more than a few months without breaking yet they provide nothing to ease the process of reinstalling. Then again, I suppose it's my fault for not having a 100Gb tape drive to do backups with ...