Personal Archives - Page 4 of 11

August 16, 2006

I must be mad

My brother-in-law lives just round the corner from us. Which is nice. He and my wife hatched this cunning plan a month or so ago.

“Let’s go running at 6.30am every morning!” they said. “We’re both morning people. It’ll be great!”

I hate mornings.

Then they said, “Why don’t you come with us? It will help support us in this tremendous endeavour.”

I hate mornings.

But I agreed.

So it all works quite well for a couple of weeks. Occasionally, one of them will bail for some reason or the other, but we’re all doing quite well, thank you.

Then there’s a patch when almost everyone – except me – bails.

So they get together. “I can’t take mornings,” says my wife. “It’s so hard getting up early. How about we run in the evenings?”

That works fine for a day. “I can’t take evenings,” says my brother-in-law. “I get too tired during the day. I prefer mornings.”

So they agree. Sarah will run in the evenings, my brother-in-law will run in the mornings.

Guess what I’ll be doing, in addition to going to the gym three times a week.

Yes, I’m running in both the mornings and the evenings.

I must be mad.

July 27, 2006

Have you ever had that odd feeling, when doing a phone interview, that your interviewee is doing something odd? First he sounded a bit out of breath halfway through, then the mobile phone signal started going a bit wonky, then I could swear there was the sound of water splashing.

I have the oddest feeling my interviewee was in the bath.

Oh well.

Not as weird as the interview I did where the French CEO of the company had hurt his back mountaineering the day before and was completely off his head on his painkillers, though.

July 25, 2006

Last reason to leave Orange

Tomorrow is Orange Wednesday aka The Day I Leave Orange Forever. Here, though, is my final reason for leaving Orange.

Remember how Ernst & Young seemed to be taking their time getting back to me? Turns out they called back almost instantly and left me a voicemail on my mobile phone. That was on the 6th July. Orange finally got round to telling me I had a voicemail – on Friday. That means it took a grand total of 15 days for Orange to let me know I had a voicemail.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another reason why I’m leaving Orange.

July 24, 2006

Premature language class conclusion

Spoke too soon. Looks like we’re both doing Italian now.

July 21, 2006

Language class problem solved

We’ve worked out which language class to go to. Sarah’s going to go to French level 3, I’m going to go on Spanish level 1. That way Sarah will be able to get her French up to the level of fluency she’d like, I can get my Spanish up to the same level as Sarah’s and next year, we’ll be able to do Spanish level 2 together.

For some reason, Italian just doesn’t appeal. German was on the wrong day and the others had a ceiling that was too low. Plus this way we don’t get too competitive too early.

July 21, 2006

Don’t buy a Sony camera: if it ever goes wrong, you’ll regret it

I’ve mentioned my ailing PowerBook and the ever-vexing question of whether I should get a new one or not. Here’s another one for you: if your camera is slightly broken, when should you get a new one?

We have a Sony DSC-P200. It is/was very nice indeed. Then we dropped it, trying to take a picture of ourselves. The zoom lens was out so now the camera doesn’t zoom anymore. Its focusing capabilities are now in the range of “no focus at all” to “very, very nearly in focus”.

We’d like to get it repaired. But here’s the thing. The camera cost about £200. We rang Sony and asked how much it would cost to get it repaired. £112 (or something very close) just to have it looked at, with the possibility of more costs if parts need replacing. So basically the entire cost of the camera then?

“But aren’t there other people who could repair it?” you might ask. No. I rang a camera repair shop to ask that very same question.

“Ah. It’s a Sony is it? That’s going to be a problem. They won’t sell us the spare parts.”

So only Sony can repair your camera if it goes wrong and it’ll cost at least half the price of the camera to get it replaced.

I’m thinking it’s time to buy a Fuji Finepix F30. Anyone had any experience with one of those? The ISO3200 feature looks very inviting…

July 20, 2006

Oh dear. Here come the script kiddies

Sometimes you can feel so naive and trusting.

I spent a happy couple of hours removing spam files from my web server last night. I hadn’t realised they were spam. I hadn’t been compromised myself. There was no sign they were there without a good look at the file system. But thanks to the rubbishness of my host, Dataflame, I found out about them and took them away.

Continue reading “Oh dear. Here come the script kiddies”

July 19, 2006

Virgin: not so helpful but friendlier

There’s something about Virgin Mobile call centre staff. You just can’t be nasty to them. It’d be like killing Bambi. You just can’t do it.

As you may know, I’m in the process of moving from Orange to Virgin Mobile, a process that is taking way, way longer than it should. Since I’ve now got a PAC code from Orange, migrating my phone number to Virgin Mobile is now a Virgin problem, rather than an Orange problem.

Trouble is, Virgin aren’t proving terrible efficient. There was that trouble with setting up my direct debit for starters. Although I mentioned in that last entry that I’d set up my direct debit, what I should have said was “I asked Virgin to set up the direct debit for me”.

You see, two days after getting my new PAC code, I rang to give it to Virgin. The trouble was that direct debit hadn’t gone through, so they couldn’t start the migration. The fluffy person who took my call promised, just promised that as soon as it was authorised, she’d text me (on my Orange number) to let me know and that she’d start the migration as well, texting me the date of the migration at the same time. She was on duty till 11pm that evening, so she really would, honest.

Except I didn’t get a text. A day later I tried my Virgin SIM card and there was a text waiting for me there, to tell me the paperwork had all gone through. No migration date though.

So I called the next day. Oh yes, the fluffy man at the other end said. She’ll text you when it goes through. She’ll do it for sure. That was Friday.

Today, textless on both SIMs, I called Virgin again. Fluffy new lady spent six minutes going through my account before revealing that the port hadn’t been authorised because of the direct debit screw up. She’d put it through now and I’d be getting ported on the 26th.

That’s 16 days and five phone calls to do something that should take seven days and one phone call at best. And yet, they’re so fluffy at Virgin, I just don’t have in my heart to complain. At least I’m on my way at last.

The one redeeming thing is that Orange’s rubbishness means that I still haven’t had my account disabled, so I can still use my old number for now.

Thanks heavens for small Orange mercies.

July 17, 2006

Cardiff Bay

I spent the weekend in Cardiff Bay, which is pretty impressive, I have to say, even if they seem to be allergic to apostrophes there. Not much to say, other than there some’s pretty impressive architecture down there and to ignore the tour bus since one of the guides is very bad indeed and you might be unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of her “guidance”.

More tomorrow, where I’ll be talking about the hotel we were staying at.