A big thankyou to all the stupid f*ckwits at Verizon for giving the worlds most pathetic excuse for not supplying my DSL. Thanks to them I now have to wait until the 6th of February until I get back at full speed. In the beginning it was ok, as they kept saying, "Oh, sorry for the mix up, here have another reduced/free months rental etc". These days, even that is wearing just a LITTLE thin. I don't want anymore free anything, because they promise something is so, and then turns out it isn't like that at all. I just want it to work correctly in the first place. And I have given up asking them THREE times during every conversation, "So what you're saying is x,y and z...?" Because all you get is, "Yes of course it is sir". Then without warning, you are reminded of something through the post, and when you call and say, "Your operator (giving specific name) said this would be fine and it was all taken care of", they say, "Oh well it isn't, so we will have to do it all over again."

Editing a rant from this page, I should just like to add, that we were told, "We have to do physical work to get your DSL back online."

BIG PUZZLED LOOKS ALL AROUND. "But we HAD DSL this morning, and you have only just cut it off now!"

"It's not the number, it's the phone line, and that DSL was connected to a discontinued number"

"Thats your fault, connect it now!"

"We can't as someone has to go there and do something with a wire."

Cutting loads of pointless, "Well we HAD IT THIS MORNING" from this....it went further...

"What are we going to do? I need the net for work."

"Dial up"

Supressing loads of moaning about dial up, we then get passed back and forth between apparently same company departments, which amazingly cannot deal with a connected problem as they don't deal with that area....... this is wasting time SERIOUSLY now.....

After finally getting a dial up number, we find it doesn't connect. Calling the SAME department back, they say, "Oh we don't have a local access number for your city" I don't want to give away my location, but let me just say it's a major metropolitan city, which everyone on the planet has seen in the movies....

Much goading into getting them to look at the number list again and again resulted in even managing to extract more than one number, which a minute ago didn't actually exist. Extracting as in the proverbial teeth pulling version of someone who has brushed, flossed AND rinsed between every BREATH!

And that brings me to this page today, under the steam driven version of onlinedness, trying not to think of all the things I am NOT going to be doing without my DSL, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Boo hoo!

Well, inbetween the commutes from hell, I saw the Cancer Man and Audrey Roberts today while at lunch! They were crossing the road together opposite the deli I was in. In fact Audrey appeared to recognize me, and waved frantically through the window....to which I did of course continue to not react at all.

Take a look at this. A company thinks they can claim that frames navigation is owned by them, and anyone that uses it, should give them all their money!

I always thought this was a cartoon thing.

Every big tree grove I've gone to has one that was cut out some time ago to serve as a tunnel for tourists. This one was long since dead, and had been chopped mostly down above the tunnel hole.

Oh and another thing.... I always said I wouldn't be one of those people that commutes millions of miles every day to work. No point what so ever, in my book. After a lifetime of finding myself doing things I never thought I would get the chance to, or not understanding what the attraction was for people to do, what ever it was..... I find myself doing 500 miles in just two days! All that commuting crammed into what nobody could descrive as a novice level of travel. Not my choice, and on this occasion I see EXACTLY why people DON'T like doing it. So I was right all along, but this time I got the chance to prove it to myself....lucky?

So now my day is more like this, than this.

HA, in the final round, he lost to this. Makes all round for a less shocking, and well grounded type of day from now on. I'm done with excitement, if it means a zillion volts up the nearest extremity everytime I pass within 3 cm of any object in the house!

Antibubbles

An antibubble is the opposite of a bubble. A soap bubble in air is a thin film of liquid surrounding air. An antibubble in liquid is a thin film of air surrounding liquid.

It's the final round on the ESD beast that has been murdering my computer slowly over the last few weeks. This is me going to switch my PC on first thing in the morning. I used to laugh at those plastic covers that people put under their computer chairs so they can get around the floor easier. Well, it seems they were laughing back all this time and I didn't know it, because that is partly how you stop the static electricity zapping your computer.

I must say though, it seems my ancient PC has held up well against the onslaught of shock therapy every day. I do not want to push my luck any further with all this, as it only takes one small zap to kill a component.

Teaching went MUCH better the second time out. Everyone had a good time, and seemed to get lots out of the experience. I suppose I can throw in the fact that my job sort of insists on calling it 'Facilitating' rather than teaching, but as they (hopefully) don't read this, I can go back to calling it teaching for now.

Today is the bleedin' Super Bowl. I am so used to being able to escape such events, because in the UK it seems even big events sort of keep in their place. Olympics, Grand National, and even the odd Royal occasion in London just happen before those that choose to watch. Here things are a little different. Every single known product suddenly sprouts an almost DNA'esque connection to the Super Bowl!

You see rugby ball shaped things on every advert everywhere! It is apparently all in readyness for the big day. Everyone is urged to go out and get this must-have thing, in time for the big game on Sunday.

Even one of my geekiest retreats has been invaded by it. I suspect (thankfully) that it is a thin vale of pandering to the TV company bosses who think that their audience is actually interested in this event. But thankfully, those on the front line that are making the shows just call it Football related, and don't actually change anything. Rather like the adverts I mentioned earlier.

So spent most of today slaving over a hot script for tomorrows class. Here's hoping it goes a little better.....

Did my first teaching. Was odd as normally I would have to revise or look something up, but being the one teaching meant I knew it all already. So spent the last few days wondering why there was nothing to be learning before the big day came.

As to how things went, lets just say that I sucked more than a room full of cheap lady-boys in Singapore! But I am glad I had a crap first time out, so hopefully the next few will get better. Better than crap? Hmmmm...doesn't sound like any course I would like to go on...

In fact somebody told me that the pauses would seem longer to me than the class, and I hope they were right, because people leaving the class had long grey beards, even the women!

Just been watching Changing Rooms on BBC America. No, that doesn't make me reflect on the manliness of my tv viewing habits. Come on chaps, remember after all, this IS America so you can imagine what is available to watch on TV. In fact a peanut could imagine what is on tv over here!

Meanwhile back somewhere near the plot.....

They did the usual thing of going to people's houses and changing them into something of (usually) great taste. But my issue with the whole thing is about the husband/boyfriends part in all this. At the start when they get into the other people's house to appear to discuss with them what the room should be turned into, the male (who will no doubt be working AND responsible for any mishaps along the way) seems to fade from view. The women of the piece get on with what colours go where, and what would look "Great, painted over that antique wordwork...etc". The chap just seems to go into the background like an extra in a movie. Once the end of the show arrives, the man is simply there for TVBackup. That is, if the woman doesn't like it, or isn't 'telly' enough, they can ask him, in his obviously limited and tasteless world, what HE thinks. But according to BBC regulations, they must try and ask the woman at least THREE times what she thinks of it all. Even if she is slowly turning red, growing horns, and sprouting paint stripping devices from the ends of her arms, as they, er.. sorry SHE makes her initial assessment of the now altered room.

There is something about the show that you cannot resist. Nobody, and I mean NO-ONE can watch just a bit of that show. Once you watch the demographically stereotypically correct couples exchange keys, with a big smile from Carol, you are hooked. You never think it's going to look like anything and feel just a twinge of smug satisfaction and fake sympathy, when it looks completely stupid, and the woman (not the chap) hates it with a vengance.

They also have an American version in which they usually start in houses that look like they have already been done, and seem to not want to annoy anyone in them, so all they ever do is paint something and make everything completely reversible.
Tame. 2/10

Tried using one of those little keyboards for a PDA to write a few entries. Did battle with the supposed innocence of the kittens. You know how it is, they 'innocently' explore exactly the thing that fluffyness and little wet noses would do well to steer clear of. I'm sure in the same way that cats have become domesticated, they have also an uncanny sixth sense when it comes to, things to softly (but with EXACTLY the right amount) of force, knock over/interfere with/lick so that the owner has to throw it away or give it to them to finish off!

You could say they get a feline about it, chortle.....

Anyway, the little keyboard worked surprisingly well, as long as there were no fluffy bundles of inquisitiveness about. Could tap away for as long as I didn't need a number, or a punctuation mark of any kind. There are only letter keys so all the other symbols have to be shifted in some way....hmm....this is boring I can tell.....

In the end I gave up, although probably during my working days I shall endevour to try this again, due to the hours I have to travel.

Wow, just think how long and boring this can get then?

Wow, actually managed to get to my first International Car Show. It was not quite what I was expecting. The bestest thing in the whole wide, cooler than kewl world was the REAL BATMOBILE!!! Well, the link doesn't really show it off THAT greatly, but I think it DID deserve 3 whole exclamation marks!!! (again)

The rest of the auto show was surprisingly sort of, well, you know....just cars really. Was like having a load of car dealerships all next door to eachother, but without the walls. Obviously my S.U.V. gland is severely damaged, because there was not an ounce of stir, in any part of my er... well....I think you get the idea... I tried to revive it by visiting the allegedly exotic car sections, but that was merely fewer cars that appeared to cost more. As for the supposed glitz of the whole thing, well, perhaps it was my 'out-of-townedness' that made sure the non-existant celebrities at the show were lost on me. I should have taken a camera, so I could take a pic of Batty's little runabout, complete with rocket powered bit on the back. So you could see how much money the moblie phone company had spent on the stand, and how bored the bleach blonde, smile smeared, leaflet ladies looked..... Always next year.....

Someone thought the earlier photo shoot comment was a bit over the top and I quote.

Were you going to have a photo shoot (how very la di da!) with Maury Perpins? "smoil et the cemera Maury"

Well, I thought it was extremely funny. Brits only on this one I'm afraid.....big raspberries all round then!

Ok, there must be some law of the universe or something that has the rules regarding download speeds. No matter how big the file, where the server is, or how much you have still to obtain, a file always remains the same time from completion. If it starts off at twenty minutes then that is how long it will be until the very last moment. The servers all get together and decide to throttle the bandwidth the exact percentage that the file has downloaded.

So, with ten percent gone, they throttle it ten percent. When you reach ninety-eight then it is ninety-eight percent restricted. See how it works now?

Blimey, bloomin' blinkin' eck! As Dick van Dyke from Mary Poppins might have said...or is that 'Maury Perpins'?

In a sadistic conga line of fate, I seem destined NEVER to reach an area that exists in legend only. I always thought America was full of what ever you want, when ever you want it, but alas no. Trying to get anywhere without a car is insane! Takes 5 hours to do a hundred miles, on a bus!

Excuse me while I go away and shrug a lot....

demoscene.org

Firstly let me just say that I cannot get on with work right now as it involves a photo shoot and it's way too dark right now.....good, I don't feel quite as guilty as I did previously...

Onward to today's topic which is once again shopping. I popped out for a small battery (you know, the type you put in a watch) and thought it would be a great excuse to go to Radioshack. I used to quite like going to Dixons in the UK, as they sell all the stuff you like, but nobody really knows anything about what they have available. Expect for an encyclopedic knowledge of every insurance scheme since the dawn of time! RadioShack even sells all the little bits of things you need, right there in the store. Bit of wire for a speaker, bulb for the fridge, battery cover for a gameboy. So this beats Dixons, as they only stuck to the completed mass produced, sell them for six months-reduce them after four, and then never sell them ever again because they were a terrible idea anyway, type of things. But alas, it seems RadioShack is EXACTLY the same as Dixons. Only one difference. Now there are a near infinite amount of little things that the sales person can have absolutely no knowledge of at all.

After waiting for a very long time to be served by the slightly more animated sales person of the two, I was told that I should see the other one, as they knew more about it. The reason I did not choose the 'other' person was that every time I go in there they seem to have some sort of zen like thing going on with the cash register. I go in there, and they are deep in thought looking straight at it. Even the person that was being 'served' by them seemed annoyed at the hypersleep sales technique. I witnesses three (yes THREE) phone calls come in during my fifteen minute wait, and they were ALL put on hold. Then later one of them would pick up the phone and ask why the person was waiting, say yes, and then put them back on hold.

Somebody please tell me I am missing something?

See what I mean? This is not Data! And that ain't Spock! Try others, you will be absolutely astounded at the non-lookalikedness of nearly all of them!!

Is this the results of the forbidden liason between these? Sorry, but it made me laugh :) I always thought the idea of a lookalike, was to in effect..er... LOOK LIKE the person.

Oh no, somebody save me! I have been getting quite addicted to this dancing thing. I was staggering about like a bad Charlie Chaplin wanna-be, not very convincingly pretending to be standing on a sheet of marbles...oh how sad. I wonder if they can legitimately take you away for such things...?

Probably get my honourary Olivia Newton John pink headband and leggings soon! I suspect that you are not supposed to sweat so much BEFORE you start dancing though.