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.
