Mine's Prettier Than Yours

For a while now I've been playing around with Blogger In Draft - that is, technically, the Beta Version of all the fangled new stuff they are working on. I've mentioned it before, and have been playing with some of their stuff before people not on Draft get to play with it.

Nothing is secret (at least, I hope not. Please don't tell me off!) on there, and anyone can access it through the afore-mentioned link (here, in case you're dim) and I've used some of the new stuff - the New Post list I had for a while was part of that (which is now available to all), and the future posting I use every now and then is rather handy, again, available to all.

Yesterday I thought I had broken something when I logged in. Usually, when I get to the dashboard, I see what you see:


Not really a lot I can comment on it really - it's nothing new. However, yesterday...


It's all very shiny and professional looking. Not sure why I like it more, I just do.

Who knows, maybe you peons will get yours updated in the coming days ;)

In other news... People that are getting sick to the teeth of Twitter being a complete pain in the rectum, Matt and Sam have found Plurk. It's similar to twitter, except it seems to work (oooh meow!) and has a purdy interface thingie that shows the posts on a timeline - and you can reply to them, unlike Twitter where things got... well, kinda knotted and tangled.

I'm still getting to grips with it, and it does have a few things that I would like to see done differently, but I've already put my two pence in to see what happens there. Still, go take a peek. You can see my Plurk page here

Laptop Fun...

Update! After various comments on this post, I've tried a few things here and there, but it had never occurred to me to take out the battery and do it. So, I popped it of, plugged it all in and pressed the On botton. Nothing. BUT, Jaysen said he could hear the ticking, like "when the boiler has no gas" I held the button in and could hear it when WHOOSH! It turned on! Gave me a "Windows has recovered from a serious error" message, but appears fine. Rebooted it; Fine. Put in the battery; Fine.

So I have NO idea what caused the brain fart, but it would seem it is repaired. Thank you to Jack for looking at it over the weekend, and to the comments of things to try. Desktops - piece of piss. Laptops - I have no clue.

It doesn't take a lot to piss me off. OK, yes, some days the most silly of things gets me irritated, but this fun with the laptop is actually driving me insane.

Jo bought it for me last August, after my original one died, and it was fine and dandy. It's not the greatest in the world, but for what I wanted and what we could afford, it was the best gift of the year for an early birthday pressie. I've been really careful with it, keeping it away from anything nasty, keeping it cool, not using it on soft furnishings to block fans or anything, and yet a couple of weeks back, it died.

When I say "died" I mean it just stopped working. No blue screen of death, no pop, no bang, fizzle, zap or anything else. And it has stayed that way ever since. Usually, when it's plugged in, the "Mains" light is lit, as is the charging one if need be. NOW, you put the plug in and nothing happens. No lights or anything. It was running on the mains when it died - on a surge protector no less. It's not like I was taxing it either - listening to music and chatting on MSN.

As I was heading down to Mands, her better half offered to take a look, so I left it at that. Jack took a look while I was there and said there's not a lot he can do, and opening it up to fiddle would only void the warrenty. So we left it till I spoke to Fujitsu this morning.

And that's when the real hassle started.

I spoke to a very posh man there, who raised a ticket, but said unless I could PROVE it's within warrenty, either with a receipt or an invoice, then it'd be a chargable repair. Sod that. Of course, it would appear that in my cleaning, I've lobbed out the box and, consequently, the receipt :( So, the man told me to go to where I got it, speak to them and get a proof of sale. Where I headed this afternoon, thinking I could see a light.

No, no light.

The guy at Staples was useless and couldn't be bothered. He was assembling a folder for another customer. Apparently, unless I knew the DAY I bought it, they couldn't do a search for the sale. So I should get in contact with the bank and find out from them when I bought it. So, I toddled to the bank.

No, no help there either.

The only statement I am missing to show the card payment was the only statement I have missing, and apparently the bank are unable to print off a statement there and then. So I had to order some. Then, once I got home, I called Fujitsu back - would a statement be any use, but no.

So now I have to wait a week. Then take the statement to Staples. Then get them to search for the sale. Then get a sales thingie from the planks there - assuming they don't change their mind - THEN get that faxed to Fujitsu... And then comes the "how do I send a laptop to someone" issue.

Seriously, it's enough to make me want to sell a kidney* and just buy a new one. I have the credit rating of a sickly slug, so that puts finance out the window. I have money, but would need to save up, but I can always find something better to spend the money on... I'm going to try start saving, so maybe in a year or so I can afford a decent one. I'm considering going the whole hog and getting a really good one for gaming - that way I can then shift my computer off elsewhere and use my laptop for everything.

Time and Money. All fun ;)



*Kidney offer still stands. One owner, £5000 ono.

The Next Stage

After what feels like an eternity, Jo called yesterday and told me that finally, she had managed to get a house. This has been through no fault of her own, but it was pretty much the last big step that needed sorting.

She sorted out the paperwork yesterday, and can move in "any time from Monday" which is excellent. Excellent for Jo - she can sort herself out and get out of her parents. Excellent for the Kids - they can stay with her now in her own home, without that worry of breaking grandparents possessions. Excellent for Me because I can start clearing through each room and getting "her" stuff and "my" stuff sorted out.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with "her" stuff being here, but I can't really rip each room out without figuring who's is who's. The hardest part will be the seperating of stuff - over the years, WE bought stuff, or stuff for one another. Of course, there are things that are obviously the others, but we'll just sit and work through it.

As we do ;)

It's not a massive panic either - one room at a time, nice leisurely going through cupboards, draws, units and what-have-you. Once she has taken her stuff from a room, I can be harsh and bin what I don't need/want, and job done - one room cleared. Rinse and repeat throughout the house, and hopefully it'll be done in time. Again, no rush, but will be nice to have less stuff in the house.

Less Stuff = Less Mess = Less Housework - and that's all kinds of good.

Before anyone starts jumping on the "Don't dump perfectly good stuff!" anything decent left over will be either given away, sold, or handed to those in need. The various items of "clutter" we have collected will probably get sent to the great Landfill in the Sky.

Once that is all sorted, then I can prepare each room for decoration. And then, by about Xmas time, the stupid-ass government departments sorting my money out will realise they are pissing me off and pay me so I can actually afford to buy decorating stuff. I also need to look into Laptop Repairs or, if that will be too expensive, a new laptop. SO angry that my nice one blew - thanks to Matt and Sam on Twitter, I'm going to check around see if it's a common problem with that brand, but I'm not holding my breath. I also - foooooolishly - don't have the receipt for it, so not sure if I call the makers if they will cover it under the warrenty. I miss my laptop. Pretty sure it is the internal power supply, but unlike a proper computer, I have no idea how, if at all, you repair/replace one. All suggestions and similar gratefully appreciated - I can't listen to music downstairs, I can't piss around online in bed, I can't sit on the balcony and blog, and the camera is now isolated to the lounge window. I can't even MSN or play WoW sitting on the toilet...

*cries*

Still, aside from that, things are still rosey - if a little painful physically from being so busy of late - but I'll get over it. Finally got a repeat prescription so I can continue self-weaning myself off the Paroxetine/Paxil under my own steam, so all is good really.

But I still miss my laptop.

To RSS or Not To RSS?

I am an avid blog reader. I read all sorts of blogs, from the various CHD parent blogs, general family blogs, a few tech blogs, random amusement blogs and adult blogs. I think my daily is something like fifty or so blogs that update frequently.

Yeah, I read a lot.

With my reading list so long, I originally used Firefox to open all the blogs I read, and went through them one by one, leaving comments, spamming tag boards and generally putting my oar in, regardless of it being wanted or needed. And then, I started pottering around with Google Reader, and using blogs RSS Feeds to read them away from the actual blog.

It was quick, easy and simple to use. It showed me what blogs had or had not updated, opened in one window, and meant I didn't have to sift or trawl through the unread blogs to find the ones with new content.

However, my issue with that is it's more like socialising with a friend over the phone that sitting in their living room. Bear with me on this one...

I create my blog to make my readers feel welcome. While I am always changing the template for ME, ultimately, you guys are the ones that get to see. There is stuff of interest on there for you - links to other sites, for example. There is also the Tag Board and Cam (when it's on) so you have a little more to do on your visit. With the RSS Reader, it doesn't matter how neat and tidy the place it - you don't get to see it.

So here's my bind. The Lazy Shit inside me wants to click one link and see all the content hand-delivered to me. Simple, lazy, ease of use. The Not So Lazy Shit inside me would rather go to each blog, see how nice it is, interact with you. Still simple, more personal.

Sunny Sunday

Poor neglected Bloggy. Ah well ;) Anyways, the sun is currently beaming in through the front of the house - great for us smelly bears that like the sun, not so great for us geeks that have a monitor near a window with afore-mentioned sun streaming in.

Meh, I'll survive!

Last few days have been a bit busy, with a family do yesterday for my nans 80th, plus entertaining squids, housework (which only appears when the mini-me's do) and generally out and about. Oh, and Ruth has fed me again too.

Tam and Jaysen are off to Jo's parents today, Tam to stay, Jaysen will be back this evening but wants to see Mummy. So they get a roast dinner. The original plan was a boys day before school, but now I get a day to chill out (and bloody wake up!) before school restarts tomorrow.

In other news, I've been poking around the Blogger in Draft stuff, which is basically where they test random stuff. Down the bottom right, you will see the blogroll reproduced, but in order of most-recent-posts. Be warned, some of those ARE adult blogs, but I will figure how to rename them later. Seems quite nifty for people wanting to blog hop but bored of reading the out of date stuff.

Update your blogs you stinkers!

And while I am prattling on - another nifty feature in the Blogger in Draft stuff - timed posts... That is, a post that you write, set a date for it to publish and Robert's your Mothers Brother. Which will mean I should miss less Musical Mondays. The links to Draft are dotted through this post - you know you're on there when the Blogger Logo is blue.

Anyway - if you've not seen me on your blog of late, don't fret. Where I've got SO DAMN MANY blogs to read (which, I may have mentioned previously, you need to update more!) I've taken to reading all of them through Google Reader. I have it sorted so I see all the new posts, which makes my life so much easier - no need to trawl through nearly 70 blogs looking for new content when it shows me what's new instead.

Huzzah!

So, with Grandfather en route to get the monkeys, the sun shining, I do believe I will spoil myself with milkshake, erm... er... And whatever else I can rustle up!

Privacy

I like to think that when I am pootering around on the computer, wandering the web or chatting to people, I can expect some level or privacy. Not from people here, but people out there. The Watchers. Big Brother. The Powers That Be.

Now, I'm not silly to think that my surfing can't be checked on someone at any time, and that everyone leaves a trail. Heck, you only have to look at StatCounter to see the sort of info the "average person" leaves behind on websites they visit. But that sort of stuff doesn't really cause much hassle.

The things that really piss me off on the web are the adverts. Popups, Popunders, Banners, Skyscrapers, Miniads, Flashing, Animated, Static - they drive me nuts. So nuts, in fact, that I no longer see them. Yes, I am probably doing someone out of their GoogleAds paycheque, or their referral meter is slipping behind, but you know what.

I don't care.

Yep, it might sound harsh, it might be heartless, but there is nothing that anyone advertises that I want. Hosting, Space, Sex Toys, Pills, Diplomas - not to mention the "You Have Won!" crap. I don't want it.

Thanks to Firefox and the little addon called AdBlock, I don't see any adverts. And, on the rare occurrence that I DO see one, I add the server details to the filter, reload the page and... Ahhhh Ad Free.

However, it would appear that there are plans by various ISPs over here to start cashing in on the "Targeted Ad" stuff, and three of them are already planning on rolling it out; BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse. All these companies are adding a product from a company called "Phorm" who used to be a Spyware/Adware company. Nice.

The essence of the Phorm scheme is straightforward. It will have equipment at ISPs that will track your activities on port 80 (used for the web) - though not to secure websites. With each site you visit it will capture the URL (and, for a search engine, the search terms too) plus enough of the header data from the page to "categorise" it into one of a number of areas. Anything longer than a three-digit number is thrown away. Your IP address is not captured, but a cookie with a unique number is set on your browser when you start using it, which persists into the future.

Sounds nice doesn't it. Just what you want. Plus, they are making it "Opt Out" as opposed to "Opt In" because they prolly know most people will respond with Heeeeeell No!

So, you can read the full article here. I suspect it's a UK thing only, but who knows...

Vista SP1

Those of you that have been reading for a while will remember the absolute nightmare I had when Microsoft released Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. For the strange reason of making my XP look different, the patch would not apply. I had a mission with it, but over the space of almost a week, I got it sorted.

Now fast forward to last week when I read the Vista is preparing for SP1. "Ut oh" thinks I, sitting in my mansion smoking my pipe. I adjusted my cravat and started reading about the Service Pack, looking for info from others that have done it and similar such reviews.

Like the previous Service Packs for previous versions of Windows, it fixes flaws, new updates, improves this or that and generally (should) help the computer. And, eventually, they will make it compulsory too no doubt. I keep my computers up to date anyway, but a big pack...

Well, it worried me.

So yesterday I set it to downloading (400+ Mb as I was doing the stand-alone version, sizes vary if you use Windows/Microsoft Update) and finally, after having a quiet five minutes, I double-clicked the bastard.

"May take an hour or more. Computer will restart several times. It is not advisable to use your computer during this process"

Bugger it.

Well, 30 minutes later, it's done. It's all installed, everything still works, I'm still online... In fact, it was completely painless. Which means this is a pointless post!

Of course, I still have to update the Laptop, so maybe will explode while that is happening!!

Vroom Vroom

I'm not a car-freak. Car crasher, maybe, but not a car freak. I can, however, fully appreciate a car that looks nice. Torque, HP, Braking Power, and all that milarky mean precisely bugger all of nothing to me, but I can look at a nice car and like how it looks or sounds.

While blog hopping earlier, I can across Claire's newest entry regarding a couple of cars that are for sale. Both are famous. One was in a magazine that she did the photography for, and the other was made into a cake.

OK, so maybe one is more famous than the other, but you get the idea!

For those local to Essex that are in the market for a new car - or even not local, knowing some petrol heads will drive miles for a new car - I figured I'd link to the cars for anyone that might be interested.

BMW M3 SMG II 3.2 (Semi-Automatic)

Toyota Yaris SR vvt-i 16v 1.3

Don't contact me for info about them though - to me they are just cars for sale - click the link/photo to see more photos of the cars and the seller information!

Back Once More

After the run up to yesterday, I can honestly say that I woke up and felt better this morning. Yesterday was particularly hard, though I don't know why exactly. I felt drained, both physically and emotionally, and for a good part of the day, I was playing Hellgate: London, blowing seven kinds of crap out of everything bad, evil and demonic.

For the last couple of years, we've got to Jo's parents for both Bethys birthday and her Angel date, but this year, neither of us could face that little drama pit, so we did our own thing again yesterday. In true form, we had Ruth and her girls over, and Jo cooked one of the ultimate in Cheer Up Dinners - the mixed grill. Steak, Sausage, Bacon, Mushroom, Onion, Chips... It was sooo what I needed.

Last night we had a relatively early night and laid in bed having some cuddles, but it took me forever to drift off, then when I did, I kept jolting awake. So I'm tired as ever. But, none the less, I am in a much better frame of mind.

Just feels like it's been another long week yet again. But it's Friday finally so after the school run shortly, I can kick back and do sweet F.A.

Of course, as you may have noticed, I have the Cam on at the moment - thanks to Jo buying me a nice cheer up give of a Logitech QuickCam Fusion. Holy hell is it the best Webcam I've ever used - not to mention, sexy:



Lots of knobs and whistles on it, and I've installed it on both the computer and the laptop without any hassle, so no doubt will leave it pointing at something most of the time. I also have other plans for it, especially thanks to the quality of the picture it's kicking out!

I might even get a new blog template to incorporate it... *ahem*

In other news, I have a nice rant planned about the latest school-developments, luckily which don't affect me or Jaysen directly, but none the less, it's a good one that has the gaggles of mums up in arms while I stand back chuckling at them... Plus I have a few tagged/meme things to post, which I am hoping to string out for a while.

Lastly, once again, the overwhelming amount of sympathy and messages from people around the world still amaze me. Yesterday I received emails, text messages and even a few phone calls - all from people I've never physically met. Once again, thank you to you all.

Why Oriental?!

I mentioned this a few days back, and a couple of people enquired more about what I was blattering on about. That is, trying to view Flickr is a mission in near-impossibleness. Assuming that's a word. I don't know.

However, the issue at hand is quite obvious from this screenshot:


Now I am not a Flickr user, but I do occasionally have a need to go and browse the pages, though I do find I go more thanks to Claire's photography on her blog. Regardless, I can't figure head nor tail of oriental languages. I don't know if it's Chinese, Japanese or Korean (prolly the latter methinks), but I can't bumble my way around it.

Please - anyone have any clues? OR am I being a complete divvy bollocks and that's how it's supposed to be?

Tagged: Album Meme

In an effort to chill out, I've been struggling with Insomnia and Boredom. To that end, I was blog surfing, right until I came up to Nutty Mummys post on Little Nut Tree. I had seen it before elsewhere, but decided tonight I would actually do it.

While laying in bed, no less.

So, I tag one and all to take part!

Here’s the meme, you design the cover of your band’s album using these links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. You then take the pic and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your pic.

So, but following those rules, I came up with the following for myself:

The name of my band is Littlewood Conjecture
The name of my album is "Will Do Everything Wrong"
The front cover of my album:


And of course, chuckling to myself, I ended up doing it for Jo too...

Jodies details:
Band Name: Radbod
Album Name: Most Responsive To Change


I even did it for the kids, but didn't make their actual album covers - paint is a pain in the arse to use so I got bored of that aspect!

Tam
Band Name: Effective Evolutionary Time
Album Name: The Water Is Calm
Cover: Click Here

Jaysen
Band Name: Annulment
Album Name: Those Whom We Admire
Cover: Click Here

And before I close the laptop in an effort to sleep (pfft), I leave with this oddity. WHY oh WHY is it that when I access any Flickr page, regardless of viewing a friends work, randomly, or google search result, why do I only get a Korean version??

Rhymes With Bucket

So today, against my better judgement, I decided to attempt to reconstruct the dead computer. I put it off and put it off because, frankly, I was really hacked off with the whole situation. I've had a feeling it's been screwing of late, and expected it to go wrong, but not quite on such a monumental scale.

I had the main components out of the case and connected on my desk, testing everything I could with Jo's parts we knew were working. While having a rummage, I found the cause. My graphics card - the part that I prolly use most due to my gaming needs - has gotten hot. I don't mean "I bit on the hot side" I mean, "melted the fan" hot. To help out, the side of the case has been taken off, and a desk fan - the sort you crack out in the summer - is blowing on the inside 24/7. However, things have obviously gotten worse, and the graphics card has gotten so hot, the solder itself has melted.

Now, Wikipedia tells me this has a melting point of 180 to 190 °C (360 to 370 °F), so I would say the card has "well and truly overheated". Of course, it doesn't end there. One component of the graphics card, marked just "1R5" has fallen off completely. Two capacitors are loose. And, melted solder has dripped onto the motherboard and blown it. It's dead to the point, it doesn't even attempt t boot up. No beeps, no errors, no BIOS, just... dead.

So, unless I win the lottery, sell a kidney or otherwise find a case of money, it's no computer for me, just the laptop, which doesn't run games. The other components are all fine - I just the PSU, the Hard Drives and CD/DVD/Writer, plus the peripherals are fine too, so now I've just got to save up.

On top of this I am stressed out no end (I hate fixing computers when I know there's nothing I can do), plus feel rough as arseholes with some germs fighting their way into my body. Oh yes, my head is pounding too.

So yes, my computer. The solution. It rhymes with Bucket.

Marvellous

I stood up and could smell hot plastic. A quick glance around showed the TV was on and fine, my laptop was on and fine, Jo was using her computer... I looked at my monitor and it was off - which is strange. Then I noticed the power light was flashing - which usually means No Signal.

The computer was ON, but no signal. Forced shutdown, fiddled with graphics card - still dead.

I've got such a headache I just cannot deal with it at the time being, but I have a suspicion something has died on a massive scale. Ho hum. Fingers crossed I can repair it, otherwise, it's laptop only for me.

Goooo...gle?

Is it just me today, or is Google on a real go slow? I've done a few blog posts, tried various searches and suchlike, and it's taken ages to spit out results or my posts. My last post too three attempts to publish without timing out.

At first I thought it was something on this end - perhaps loads of shite running on our machines, perhaps the router having a brain-fart. I was making excuses because, let's face it - Google doesn't go slow. I've rebooted, cleared files, tidied stuff, but nothing. So I tested other sites elsewhere on the net.

Forgive me, I even did some Yahoo searches. I sold my soul to the devil. But it was in the name of science, I swear. I even went to the secondary devil, my ISP, to see if they were having problems, but nope, aside from various regional issues, nothing affecting me.

Not to mention, Jaysen is playing WoW without any problems at all.

So it would seem Google is having problems... I think I might faint.

Another New Phone!

Those of you that have read for the last few months will know of the shite we've been having with our mobile phones. People out there swear by Vodafone, but we have had nothing but trouble. Double payments taken out the bank, apparently random charges, limits on texting and stuff...

So today, we popped into town with a friend who was getting a new Orange phone, and while he was being sorted, one of the reps came up to me who was drooling over the pretty phones. He tried to offer me this and that, but I resisted. I told him I have a crap credit rating, not to mention Vodafone have me.

And I held back. I fought, I resisted. And he sorted out Vodafone for me, and in the end, got me and Jo new mobile contracts on Orange with unlimited texts! Hurrah! Jo got a shiny new Walkman phone, but me, I opted for the camera-side of of the Sony Ericsson range, the w810i. I could have gotten the newer model, but it's out of stock, and would have taken 4-6 weeks to get.

Gimmie gimmie gimmie.
Very sexy.

Anyways, I THINK I sent a message to everyone with my new number, PLUS it's on my Facebook. If you need my mobile phone number, just shout and I will let you have it!

New Year Roundup

First post of 2008. Go me ;) Only sixteen hours into the day - think I need a prize or something.

So, I've been contemplating what to write for this post, but I figured I wouldn't go into too much detail until certain other "things" have been covered elsewhere. That is, I'm not going to spoil someone elses story. You will get the gist of it from my points here.

And in order to protect the innocent, I've not actually named-names of the guilty, bad or anything else. Because, you know, blackmail is sooo much better ;)

• Me, Jo, Steve, Amber and Pete got ready at ours last night. Fat Pirate, Wench, Skinny Pirate, St Trinian's, and Cross Dresser respectively.
• We got a little "lubricated" before we left.
• The pirates got more strange looks than the man in a dress-wearing-large-boots-and-fake-tattoos.
• We got to the party around 9pm.
• Aside from our host, Jim, it was quickly apparent that Me, Amber and Steve were the only people over 30.
• It was also apparent that our group of five were the oldest there period.
• Aside from our host, there were about 25 people at the party. A fat pirate, a skinny pirate, a cross-dressed-man, a monk, a clown, a gangster and a guy in his pants ("The Rock" apparently) making up the entire male population.
• The pole dancing kit was erected by three drunk guys.
• My words of "We should video this because it'll come down and hurt someone and be a YouTube classic" echoed around us as a girl span, the pole collapsed, and smacked a girl right in the face.
• I laughed.
• We were well tipsy by midnight and everyone kissed everyone else.
• "The Rock" received a near-perfect Atomic Wedgie, and was perfectly exposed to everyone.
• The Wenchs boobs kept slipping free.
• The School girls bum kept being flashed.
• Cleopatra fell asleep in the corner.
• Someone dared someone else to drink a copious amount of vodka in one hit.
• Several minutes later, the "someone" was very very drunk.
• It took two pirates to walk someone home - a fifteen minute journey took almost 45 minutes.
• Someone ended up very very poorly.
• A patrolling police car pulled up, and didn't ask about the poorly someone, but asked where our parrot was, and what dock our pirate ship was in!
  
• I sat up till nearly 0430 this morning making sure someone was OK.
• By now I was fully sober.
• I dozed off in bed around six-ish, and was up again just after nine this morning.

So, as you can tell, an amusing party, some amusing costumes, and lots of laughter/drinking/fun. The falling girl was fine, the clobbered girl probably has a black eye this morning - it started going last night before we left. I only had a few drinks, no where near enough to get me drunk. "The Rock" was our old roommate, Dave. He looked most amusing in his pants, but the wedgie nearly cut him in two.

Despite being firmly entangled in her corset, Jo's boobs kept making bids for freedom, much to my pleasure. Added to this, Amber failed to take into account the shortness of her skirt, coupled with where her stockings ended. Every time she leaned or bent, someone got an eyeful.

My costume just made me feel ick - especially as the bottom-half of it were, and I hate to admit this - but they were jogging bottoms, an article of clothing I loath with such passion, I very very nearly refused to go out. Oh, you fellows across the Atlantic known them as sweat pants. Blergh.

So, here we are, January 1st 2008. Steve left for home, and I set to clearing up the house a bit - putting stuff away and pottering around when the phone rings. Another "Someone to remain nameless" had a computer problem. Yes, already. So I spent an hour on the phone, giving my not-so-expert assistance. An hour later, he calls back - still broken. He speaks to PC World customer support, and bearing in mind the warrenty ran out last month, AND bear in mind he cancelled the additional support thing because he has me, I wasn't sure what he expected. They told him to talk to the tech guys but it was up to the manager to offer any sympathy or whatever.

So, we head to PCWorld where we explain everything. They say "Hard Drive failure" so he gets a new hard drive. When deciding what he wanted in regards to capacity, e asked what size MY hard drive was. "250Gb" I reply. So he gets the 400Gb, discounted by the manager to £64.

We go back to his. I open the computer, swap the drives, and unamazingly, the same error. So I go through everything and place the error to be either RAM or the Motherboard - I'd stripped everything else out. Still nothing, so BACK to PCworld. Guy we spoke to before was "unavailable" so explained again to a different guy, who trys to tell me the error is my fault as I am doing the install wrong. Riiiight, a computer crashed, gives an error message, and the new drive gives the SAME error because of - get this - how I put the windows disc in.

He offers the only other solution - to book the computer in for diagnosis (£70), to have the Restore stuff put on the system (£30), and if it happens to be the RAM, the memory upgraded (£20 PLUS the cost of the memory itself).

So now I am home, trying to chill out, tired and hurting like an absolute bitch. Happy New Year indeed :D

So how was YOUR New Year celebrations, and what's your impression of 2008 so far?

Must... Not... Kill

Yesterday in Chez 0ddness was, shall we say... Fun. And I don't mean fun as in Clowns and Balloons and Laughter, I mean fun as in "I'm going to stick that so far down your throat your..." Well, see the end of the post for what I meant as it won't make sense at this point.

Two days ago, I get a call from one of my thorns in my side technically inept people. "My internet has stopped working on two of my three machines" Now, I may have mentioned this before, that while I can fumble around a network to fix it, it's not my bag, baby. I hate networking with a passion because, invariably, if it can go wrong, it does.

So I tell the person to try this, or this, or that. Nothing. Two hours on the phone. Nothing.

Now this person is a notorious fiddler. This is the person that has deleted windows files ("They were old and not used"), as moved key program files ("I wanted them on my other drive"), and has deleted items in the registry for no reason ("I was cleaning it up a bit"). After two hours, my patience - which usually limitless - is wearing a wee bit thin.

"Have you moved or deleted any files?"
"No, I've not done anything to it this time."
"OK, but are you sure - check the recycle bin."
"I'm looking... Hmmm, nope nothing in there, just movies pictures and photos"
"Been at the registry again"
"A little bit, but nothing to do with networking"
*me with clenched teeth* "When did you play in there"
"Oh it was last week, so this can't be related"

So I carry on trying to help over the phone, but the realisation that I'll need to kick it in person... That has already sunk in. I get him to repeat the story, see if I can place anything. He was copying photos to a CDROM on one computer, while playing Warcraft on another, and the photo computer was on a go slow. He quit WoW, and rebooted the other machine. When it came back on, he couldn't get onto WoW or the Internet, and when he checked computer #3, that wasn't working either.

So yesterday afternoon, I go there, intending to just pop in. Jo and the kids come along too for a trip out and I set to work. And I poke, prod, uninstall, reinstall, unplug, replug, everything I know how to get rid of the error message that is the bane of my life:

"Limited or No Connectivity"

I downloaded "fixes" from Microsoft (which didn't fix), I tried entering manual numbers to confuse the network (which didn't confuse), and rebooted the modem and switch to reset the network (which didn't reset)... A friend of his called (who apparently knows all but couldnt fix it the day before) giving me advice which was so far over my head I wanted to pull my eyeballs out. He then suggested getting a router. Information I foolishly passed on, and ended up going for a ride to PC World.

I'm not even going to start on the staff there, but, needless to say, we tried asking a "Tech Guy" for advice. His reasoning? "The two ethernet (network) ports have died at the same time, get new network cards". Aside from this being unlikely as hell, the guy refused to listen to the fact that the computers could see one another on the network.

But the PC owner decided that was the course, despite my "it's not that" comments. Then we went to look at routers which are actually reasonably cheap now and very easy to set up. However, they weren't cheap enough for someone so he complained. To me first, then to two random people in the store, then to one of the girls that works there. And again he gives her the story of what happened, except this time...

The story is slightly different.

As he's telling the story, I am drooling over a very nice laptop (so sue me) when I hear the words "...and it finished it's update and had me reboot the computer, and then I lost internet on the other machines"

Now my WTFoMeter is pinging away, and I ask what the update was for. He doesn't know. The woman says maybe we should do a system restore a day or two previous which - had I known he'd done an update, I would have done. I tell him to put the network cards down, and we leave. Get back to the house, and do the following:

• Click Start
• Click Accessories
• Click System Tools
• Click System Restore
• Click December 19th
• Click Confirm

Computer does it's thing, reboots - internet comes back on.

At that point, my emotions rippled from crying to murderous rage. We've been there so long, we're cooked dinner, eat, chat, leave.

I get in, sit on the side and watch help Jo fold laundry and the phone rings. You know where this is going too, huh.

"It's gone again."
"Both computers?"
"Yep, both Limited or No Connectivity, it's really strange"
*me wanting to cry* "Did you run, say, an update?"
"Yep, it was an nvidia update for the graphics card so I ran that, rebooted the machine and now the internet has gone."

So I talk him through a system restore (which, I might add, may only be six mouse clicks, but took me 5 minutes) and it all comes back on. He then says "My graphics card wants to update"

"Just click No, and don't run that update..."



"I'm going to stick that router, modem and network equipment so far down your throat, your farts will come out on the internet"

Arse & Dammit

It has to be said that the last few days have been less than successful on the "being online" front. Sunday the intarweb was on a go slow. I mean, we're talking treacle-slow. Minutes to open the main google page. MSN unable to connect. Nothing working right.

Not even WoW would connect.

So, needless to say, I was a bit peeved at my lack of connectivity, and like all true red-blooded males, I took matters into hand. So I connected to my modem directly (I know the IP address), messed with the internal settings, I messed with my router, I messed with with settings...

Somehow and mysteriously, the internet then broke. Completely, utterly, wouldn't even SEE the internet, let alone stay on it and remain connected.

Oops.

Now, the cynics among you would assume that I, Master of Technology, perhaps broke it. Shocking, really, to consider that I would do any such thing. So I unplugged it all and left it over night to see if that helped. Upon getting up this morning, I connected it all back up and it connected to the web and STAYED on. However, it was still slower than the old woman at the checkout, so I sulked off and left it.

Jo gets up, logs onto the web, it's fine. And is still fine.

No, she did not fix it. Clearly my fiddling, disconnecting and reconnecting did the trick - Jo just happened to notice it was working.

Stupid Telewest/Virgin whoever they are...

Wiiiiii!

Without making any urine jokes*, last night we had our first brush with the Wii console. I keep thinking that we need to get one for the sheer hell of it - the physical exercise, the companionship for playing with friends, the keep-fit aspect of it. Sure, I've seen a few cases of damage, but all in all, it looked amusing and a piece of piss.

So, cue last-nights alcohol-fuelled Wii'ing, and much hilarity was to follow. Gailey and Al "showed us how it was done". We started off easy with brain games, which, I hasten to add, the boys lost only because Gailey cheats. Then it was boxing. Gailey beat up Al, then Jo beat up me. I sense a theme. A spot of Bowling, in which, amazingly, *I* won. Jo blames cheating. Baseball = nigh on impossible. Then golf for me which was just a case of "smacking a ball till it went in the hole". Eleven over par. On three holes.

Huzzah!

AND we even managed a single injury. Bowling, which Dan is notoriously bad at (despite the win) saw me struggling at first with the technique. A technique that most 5 year olds grasp. I blame the wine and the Smirnoff. I stepped back, raised my arm, and *FLING-CRUNCH* into the ankle of Jo, who was sat on the sofa behind me.

I got a spare though ;)

I am, however, on pain of death to NOT mention a mishap incurred by another person while playing, a mishap that caused much laughter and time-out of playing for several minutes.


*OK, maybe one urine-comment

Repaired (For Now)

So, after several hours of pissing around with templates again, I think I've settled on one that A) Works, and B) I Like. I am still never completely satisfied with the various templates I end up with, but for the time being, I'm done.

Speaking of repairs, Jo is having a "bit of a mare" with her mobile phone. It suffered some moisture damage at the hands of Tamsyn - that is, she plopped it in the dogs water bowl to clean it. We took it to the store and said "help!" and they sent it off, but her insurance doesn't actually cover accidental toddler damage. Luckily, the only part of the phone that was affected was the memory card reader - which means not a lot really, she just couldn't use a memory card.

The chap at the shop said should either take it as is, and have it as a phone (because all the other functions worked), or we could fork out three-digits to get her a new phone. Well, being the kind soul I am, I said to her "Don't worry dear, we'll just swap phones, I don't need the memory card bit.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon backing up both phones, saving contacts, shifting files here and there, got the phones switched (we've still got the same numbers, so don't worry), and headed out on the school run. One of our friends was late, so we stole her kids and I called her on my phone which was Jo's damaged one.

And the fricking microphone has stopped working. Whoever opened it at Vodafone has broken another part of the phone, rendering it now virtually useless. Their answer? "Bring it to the shop and we'll send it off for repair".

So, that should be interesting to see if they try saying "no, water damage stopped it working" when it was working fine before hand...