Thought of the day

Why is it that a woman who talks about stomping men is a feminist, whilst a man who talks about stomping women is a misogynist?

Chernobyl

I watched an interesting program a few weeks ago about the Chernobyl disaster. Details can be found here but the gist of it is that there were only 56 deaths directly attributable to the event (compared to 100,000 predicted by Greenpeace) and the majority of those were people who worked on the cleanup squad.

One very interesting fact was that a 10 year study of animals living near to the site seemed to suggest that low levels of radiation can help boost the genes that protect us against cancer.

Born under a bad sign ? (part deux)

My bad luck is becoming predictable now!

I had to stay in to receive a new sofa today, but before the delivery I needed to go to an ATM and withdraw some money so that I could pay the delivery charge.

As I was walking to my nearest ATM I thought to myself (somewhat light-heartedly) 'what are the chances that the ATM is out of order?'

When I got to it I discovered, to my dismay, that it was indeed out of order. I had to walk back home an take my car to an ATM further away.

Born under a bad sign?

Just dashing off a quick entry tonight as it is rather late. I feel the need to write as I have had a slightly unlucky evening which seems to be carrying on a string of bad luck lately.

First off, about three weeks ago I got an eye infection. I had to use eye drops for five day and then it was about two weeks before I felt that my eye had healed up enough to wear contact lenses again.


Then, about a week and a half ago my car was broken into and my stereo was stolen. The cu...riminal who did it bent the top of the passenger door back to gain access so now the whole door needs replacing. I took it to the garage last Monday to be inspected (by both the mechanics and the insurance bod) and am now awaiting news as to whether the insurance company will fix it or write it off. I was able to bend it back, but it does not quite fit flush and it is warped so the window will not close properly unless you manhandle it. It was not even an expensive stereo, so the thieves have probably cost a lot more in damage than the stereo was worth, let alone what they can get for it.

Then, I was getting along really well with a very attractive bird at a nightclub when a lady friend of hers dragged her off and I never saw her again. She had come back to me after dancing with me before as well, so I am convinced she was interested. Gaah!

Then, I was at a pub I go to listening to an excellent band when I heard a femal friend shout "look out fight" (or something). I started to turn around to see what was going on when two men crashed into me and bashed my bad arm into the wall before continuing to fight towards the door (forcing the aforementioned friend to retreat screaming) and then disappearing outside (followed by several people, including the landlord, trying to break them up). I have been going to that pub for several years and there has never been trouble like that on a music night before. It was most upsetting, never mind that I now have a sore arm which I am sure will be bruised by tomorrow.

I tell you, somebody up there has really got it in for me lately.

Anyway, that's the end of my self pitying whinge for now :-) More anon.

Odds and Ends

Heard on the radio the other day: "Life is like a hair on a toilet seet, you'll soon get pissed off."

Biro's

I received a request for a charitable donation today; and, as usual, it came with yet another bloody biro. I am awash with biro's. Thick biro's and thin Biro's; fancy biro's and cheap biro's; plain biro's and biro's with logo's. Do the charities really think that someone is going to go “oh my god, I really want to donate to this charity but I just can't find a biro”. It is ridiculous. Meanwhile they just keep arriving.

The problem is, what do you do with them. I don't want to throw them away and contribute to the growing landfills; but you can't give them away, who would want them. You can't even give them to a charity shop because who is going to buy biro's from a charity shop when everyone is getting them free from charities in the first place. (Mind you, what irony would there be in, say, a Help The Children shop selling Cancer Research and Animal Welfare International pens.)

So they just keep piling up in a drawer. I must have over thirty of them now, which is probably more than I will ever use in my lifetime.

So, if anyone from a charity is reading this; please, for the love of god, for the love of the environment, and for the sake of my sanity, stop sending out those bloody biro's.

Reboot Part Deux

Ok, so a little longer since my last post than I intended. My physiotherapy takes up so much time that I have little time for other things. The physiotherapist has me doing exercises that take half an hour per session (approximately). I have to do these about five or six times a day (as many times as possible). I am making some progress but it is slow, painful, and frustrating.

I promised to mention the “fun” I had getting my new phone. Actually, it was not so much getting it that caused the hassle, but activating it and getting my number transferred across.

I had made sure to get a PAC (port authorisation code) from my existing operator before the phone arrived so that I could get everything transferred as quickly as possible. However, when I phoned T-Mobile to transfer my number to them I ran into problems. The man on the phone was saying that there was a credit problem and that I needed to give my CIFAS password. When I expressed confusion at this he got me to give the serial number from my phone and then said that I needed to fax this to them.

At this point I need to digress for a moment.

Just over a year ago someone attempted to gain two store cards in my name. I was alerted to this when I received two letters in the mail rejecting my application for said store cards. I wrote to the credit companies in question stating that this was a surprise to me as I had never actually applied for these cards. These companies involved CIFAS (a fraud prevention service) and I had to provide a password. I was told that now and then I would be asked to provide this password when applying for credit to prove I was me. I then promptly forgot about it.

It took several calls over about four days before I spoke to someone who was able to give a coherent enough explanation of CIFAS to jog my memory about those events. (It actually happened when someone asked if I had been the victim of fraud in the past.) Finally the penny dropped and I tracked down the password and faxed it to them so that I could get the issue resolved. I guess it was partly my fault for forgetting about CIFAS, but you would think someone could explain it properly in the first place. The first person I spoke to had me believing it was the serial number in my phone!

I will try to review the phone and MP3 player soon. Just don't hold your breath! :-)

Reboot

After a shaky start and a long hiatus I have decided to try and update this blog on a more regular basis (time permitting).

A lot has happened since my last entry; the most important being that I had an operation to remove the pin from my arm (the one that had been put in after I fractured my arm). This necessitated a two week break from work to recover. Added to the six weeks I had off after the original operation, that makes eight weeks away from work. Some people might think that this would be a good reason to break your arm, but I assure you it is not.

Anyway, I had been doing physiotherapy to get my arm movement back to normal but had come to a plateau and did not seem to be making any more progress. One doctor thought that the position of the pin was interfering with the movement so it has now been taken out and hopefully I will be able to get my arm back to normal movement again. I am working it quite hard which is rather painful. I just had the stitches out today and it is looking rather gory.

On a happier note I have bought a couple of nice new toys recently: a new phone and an MP3 player. They both gave me a bit of bother in one way or another though. I ordered the MP3 player (an Archos Gmini XS202s) back in mid to late December. I was hoping to get it in time for christmas (though I was fairly certain I had left it too late for that). Sure enough I got an email saying that it would be available in January. Unfortunately, in January I got another email from the retailer to say that they did not have any in stock and did not expect new stock until six weeks later. Well, I did not want to wait that long so I cancelled my order and tried another retailer.

This time I got an email saying that they were out of stock, but no date was given for new stock; so I cancelled that order as well.

I thought “third time lucky” and tried another retailer. This time I received an email saying that they were out of stock but expected some more the following friday. That seemed okay so I waited. Friday came and went and no delivery. I did, however, receive another email the following week saying that they were still waiting for new stock. So I waited again, and then again the next week. I was just starting to think that I would have to cancel that order as well when I received an email to say it was shipping.

Now, whilst this was going on I finally bit the bullet and went broadband. The engineer came and installed it last Tuesday morning. This gave me a problem though, the new broadband modem required a power supply which meant my six socket power strip was no longer adequate to power all of my computer equipment and peripherals; so I went out to get myself an eight socket power strip with surge protection from Argos.

Before I went I took the precaution of checking stock and reserving one online. I paid for the item and then waited for it to arrive at the desk. And I waited, and I waited, and I waited. Finally, after over half an hour had gone by the guy looking for it gave up and I had to get a refund. I was not a happy fellow I must say. I went to PC World to see if they had any, but they wanted twice as much money for something similar. Finally, in desperation I went to B&Q to see if they had any. However, since the last time I had visited it the store had closed down so no joy there either. Somewhat fed up I went home only to discover that I had missed a parcel delivery by about fifteen minutes.

I went to the parcel depot the next day only to discover that it was out with the delivery driver again. I guess I should have phoned first. So I went home and discovered that the delivery driver had beaten me gain and left another 'failed delivery' card. This time I made sure to phone and was told by the automated service that the parcel would be available for collection after 7pm. That evening I went to the depot and arrived shortly after 7pm. After handing in my card and waiting for about 20 minutes I was told that the delivery driver was not back yet and should be back in about 15 minutes. After about 10 minutes it was announced that the delivery driver was back and I (along with several other people) gave my card in again. After another long wait I finally received my parcel at almost 8pm. I had finally, after two months, three orders, and a lot of hassle, received my MP3 player.

Still to come: The hassles of getting my new phone/pda, a short review of the Archos Gmini and a short review of my new phone.