2004-07-11 fully recovered

Off To Norfolk!

Claire and I are leaving Aberystwyth for Norfolk! Off to spend Christmas with her folks before heading up to Preston on Boxing Day to be with my family.

Have barely begun wrapping presents. For that matter, I still haven’t had delivered my mum’s present. Or one of Claire’s. Damned freaky postmen. Or something.

In any case, I’ll be in and out of internet access (well, technically, I’ve now put my Psion 5mx back into active service, which, combined with my funky GPRS mobile phone, puts me online ‘everywhere’, but hey: I think I’ve downloaded a telnet client so wherever I go I *theoretically* have e-mail access… we’ll see).

I’ll drop a blog entry or two while I’m gone.

In the meantime: Merry Christmas, y’all.

Out Of Place

Something feels out of place. Probably just the time of year, the amount of work I have to do, etc. The only good thing about working as long hours at work as I have been is the anticipation of how healthy my next paycheque ought to be. Which it’ll need to be, because I’ll be penniless by then.

Gonna play some Super Mario World on the SNES emulator I downloaded and try not to get too stressed and start snapping at people again. Must de-stress!

Hugz, ye’all;

Frustrating

How frustrating is it to write 5 CDs for clients, only to discover an error in some SQL scripts on them that mean that they won’t work outside of the development LAN… <grr>

It’s the world rebalancing the good and bad things, I guess. Making up for last night’s wild rampant sex tour of the flat (starting on the couch, finishing on the bed… without need for re-entry). Damn, we were horny.

I’d better fix these SQL scripts. Ooh: office Christmas dinner this evening! That’s something to look forward to.

Gatecrashing

Claire, Peter and I gatecrashed a friend-of-a-friend’s house party last night, and ate all of their Pringles. One of the housemates’ music collections was fab: all the best of the Goo Goo Dolls, 3 Doors Down, Nirvana… and some weird (but actually quite good) Welsh rock band.

(Is Welsh Rock a genre? Or just something you buy on the prom at Aberystwyth?)

Must start my Christmas shopping.

[Edit: Came home from the party with an irresistible urge to listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’. Weird.]

Banned From Driving For Life, Before He’d Even Passed His Test

As this news story from the BBC relates, a certain Alan Shirkey from Aberdeen was this week given a life ban on driving, as well as a £300 fine and a year’s probation.

He’d started learning to drive over a decade ago, but then stopped. Then, on the day in question – 10 years after he’d last been in a car and with only a provisional license – he drove (without L-plates or supervision, and with no insurance whatsoever) towards Perth. He stopped to fill his car up at a petrol station, and then left without paying. Realising his mistake, he began to reverse back down the dual carriageway, colliding with several cars as he went, and injuring several people. When he was arrested, he refused to give a urine sample.

And they only fined him £300?!?

Worst 100 Films Of All Time

IMDB provide a list of the worst 100 films of all time, as rated by their visitors. I particularly enjoyed the fact that four of the Police Academy movies made it into the list. In other words, Police Acadamy films are responsible for 4% of the Worst 100 Films Ever. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody.

Justification Of What You All Already Thought About My Sanity, And About Orange’s Competence

As I promised a few days ago, I called Orange today to complain that I hadn’t ever received the two messages for which I’ve had the cost refunded. The first couple of people said that there was nothing that they could do, but a lot of harassment and a few calls later, and I persuaded them to send me the latter of the two messages, which is apparently a Christmas greeting.

A few minutes later, my phone beeped to let me know that a new message had been received. A new multimedia message. The body of which was as follows:

You have received a Multimedia Message, which your handset unfortunately cannot support. Please refer to the accompanying text message and follow the instructions to view the message from the web.

WTF???

Did I miss something here?

Orange send me a message to apologise for having charged me for receiving some messages from them, and give me a refund, even though I never received said messages. Can’t find any mention of them on my bill, either.
I complain at length to Orange that I never received the messages that I wasn’t billed for (I don’t mention that I don’t seem to have paid – they might take the refund back out of my next bill or something), and they promise to re-send it.
The message arrives on my multi-media phone – the phone that they know I have and apparently already sent this message to, once, but it’s in a format that my phone can’t understand.
There is no accompanying text message.

Shall I ring them up and complain again?

Orange Gives Me 80p For No Apparent Reason

Today, Orange sent me a text message apologising for charging me for two picture messages earlier this year, and have apparently credited me 80p as a gesture of compensation. The Register reports that this has happened to others, too, but I can’t help but feel that Orange’s mistake is even larger than they thought it was – I never received these picture messages in the first place!

I’m tempted to call them and complain that I didn’t ever receive the two picture messages for which I’m having my money refunded, but as I’m not even sure that I was charged for them, either (can’t see it on my bill), I’ll probably lose me free 80p if I do. Decisions, decisions.

In other news, comment-heavy discussion on the difference between Christianity and Islam on Alec’s LiveJournal [link updated to use Web Archive, which still holds a copy]. Take a look.

AbNib & Str8Up!

Oh yeh; and, in case you hadn’t noticed – AbNib is down. And it’s not my fault! The server fucked up something rotten, but seems to be okay now. And whoever posted a comment to one of my entries the other day and had it not-appear; sorry: same issue.

I’ll try to get AbNib up again on Wednesday – my backup is at the office, and that’s when I’m next at work.

Went out to Str8Up! (Aber’s LGB Society’s event) at Bar Retro last night. Great night out with silly cocktails and dancing and general merriment. And I’d forgotten quite how horny it is to watch two guys – or two girls – getting it on. Fun in the sun.

And in other news, Tonari no Totoro, which I ordered from Japan on DVD last week, hasn’t arrived yet. It’s a great film. I hope it arrives in time for Troma Night on Saturday.

Next stop: Mecca, for lunch!

Parcel Of Goodies

Woo and indeed hoo. Just when I was about to wander down to Richley’s and take advantage of their sale on jeans (having had a nasty shredding-related accident with one-too-many of my existing pairs of trousers a couple of weeks back), my Auntie Anne sends me a parcel of goodies, including several pairs of trousers (including one with a million pockets, or thereabouts).

I think I’ve put on weight since the last time she sent me any clothes. [measures waist size]. Yup; I’m two inches fatter than this time last year. Well; there’s an incentive to lose it again.

In other news; I’ve almost completed an exciting little project that will provide some amusement to those of you who attend Chez Geek Night (BTW: it’s on Tuesday this week, so we don’t end up in a fight with the Irish Band again). No; it’s not a computer game version (although I’m hoping that the author will allow me to write one, one day)… but I think you’ll like it, anyway. Details tonight or tomorrow.

Yay! No more lectures today!