Category: Uncategorised

Still off work with chest pains, but there’s not a lot of the office-work I can’t do at home anyway.

In the meantime, I’ve added a new “feature” to the blog. Have a scroll down to the links section and spot the icon for Bloglines. Basically, Blogger have added the ability to publish the blogs as RSS newsfeeds, to save people actually having to go to the pages.

It means you can visit one web page and get all your blog feeds in one place (minus the nice formatting and decoration, sadly) and they also have a free download that’ll keep an eye on all your subscribed blogs and let you know when a new post has been made.

One for those with multiple blogs (or other news sources) to keep an eye on, and the sites have to be published via RSS for it to work. They don’t, however, have to be self-registered with Bloglines. You can add any that you like as long as you know the URL for the data feed (usually an XML file).

Enough geekery. Off for breakfast and painkillers.

I’ll be brief and factual instead of ranting:

16/02/04 – Ordered Fear Factory DVD

16/02/04 – Money debited from my credit card and order status on site set to “being processed”

23/02/04 – Email sent via web page logging thing querying order status as it hadn’t changed

02/03/04 – No reply, so another email sent via normal email, using address at the bottom of my order confirmation. Auto-reply tells me to use the web page thingy.

02/03/04 – Called their phone line

02/03/04 – Gave up after 15 mins and going 2 places up the queue

02/03/04 – Used web page thingy to cancel order

02/03/04 – Within an hour order cancelled, though order status on the same page says that one item has been shipped. I have been told, however, that I’ll have a full refund within 3-5 working days. Hmmm…

I await the outcome. But, frankly, if a company ignores emails and can’t keep a simply order status page up to date then it’s not getting my cash. The annoying thing now is I don’t know if they’ve screwed up and the DVD’s actually on it’s way or not. If it is – yay me. In the meantime, though, I can’t order it from elesewhere in case I get a duplicate.

This is turning into a whingy start to the week…

OK, For those who don’t know, I have a recurring chest problem. Nothing too icky, phlegmy or spluttery thankfully. It’s a pulled or torn muscle that never seems to quite heal and (more and more frequently at the moment) decides to let itself be known by causing me extreme pain and stopping me moving very freely.

I got back from Poole very late last night and popped online to check my mail and stuff. Wasn’t on that long, but got up to go to bed aroud 3am and *poink*. I think it was probably the worst it’s ever been. I barely got a wink of sleep, clambering out of bed at around 8:30 this morning. Every time I breathed too deeply or moved in my sleep, the pain woke me up.

As usual, trying to make a doctor’s appointment wasn’t too much help, though I’m not having a go at them. I did get a space at 4:30 this afternoon, but I was in pain dammit! I decided to head to casualty as I knew I’d get seen quickly.

Now, to sidetrack. About 3 weeks ago, I got a letter from the Post Office (I think everyone in the country did) saying that they had scrapped the second post and I would now only get one delivery a day, sometime before 12:30. A surprise to me as, to the best of my knowledge, I’ve only ever had one second post in almost 4 years. Though I have noticed that my mail’s arriving later and later every day. Except, of course, on a Saturday morning when the doorbell usually goes at 7:30. Thanks for that.

I decided to wait for the post before I left for the hospital because I’m awaiting delivery of M*A*S*H Season 1 from Play and it won’t fit through the letterbox. Around 10:20, the postie appeared, and no package. Not a problem.

Off to casualty, very helpful staff, got my prescription-strength anti-inflammatories and painkillers and came home. To find two packages and a “we tried to deliver…” note shoved through the door.

So after telling me I’d only get one delivery a day, they try to give me two. They also deliver the large stuff later in the day so that you’ve left the house on the false pretense that your package isn’t arriving. I now have to traipse down to the sorting office tomorrow morning around 7am otherwise I have to wait until the weekend to collect my package – they only open from 6:45am – 12:30pm.

I’d be as well getting a PO Box somewhere and just picking up my bloody mail. Maybe that’s the idea. Grr.

I just don’t get computers. How come a file that was 92Mb takes 10 minutes to copy over a network, then another one at 150Mb takes 75 minutes to copy the other direction? Mathematically and logically, that doesn’t make sense.

According to Sod’s Law, however, it does add up. Because it’s about the last thing I have to do on site before I can go home. Therefore it should take blooming ages so I’m stuck here till rush hour. Actually, at this rate I may be here after rush hour. This is not a good thing.

There should be a law stating that every one of our customers should be running Windows 2000 Server or better, so that I can just jam a USB key into the back of them instead of relying on cruddy 10Mb networks to copy files. It’s dodgy, slow Windows XP laptops that seem to be causing me all these problems.

At least the weather’s nice. And I found a KFC for lunch. Sadly, I think it would be pushing it a bit to sit in their office and start reading this month’s Bizarre.

First of all, congratulations Middlesbrough. The game pretty much decided in the first few minutes after one goal from open play and a (genuine) penalty. With any luck we’ll still be in the Champion’s League next season, though!

As for our league match… This has to be some kind of record. Another 1-1 away draw. And, frankly, I’m doubtful that we deserve that.

We played sloppily, certainly not to the standard of a team looking to enter the top-level European tournament next season. Portsmouth were determined and gritty, pretty much on a level with us.

The support, though. That’s a different story. Portsmouth have one of the noisiest travelling groups of the lot, a fact emphasised by some willock on a bugle (or trumpet or horn or something), and another with a drum. At Fratton Park, the brass instrument is still audible is is some form of percussion. It did sound more like two pieces of scaffolding being bashed together, however. Of three sides of the ground filled with home fans, one made a tremendous amount of noise (the TY European Stand, opposite us visitors).

We put up a bloody poor show. I’ve been to a fair number of away matches, and the crowd at Portsmouth were, frankly, ****. Barely a full chorus of any song, and even then I’d say no more than 10% of the fans joined in. What a disgrace. I know the team weren’t up to much and that both televised games today (the cup final and Leeds v Liverpool) were more entertaining, but we’re supposed to be supporters. I don’t think we could have supported a small balsa-wood sculpture today. Bloody awful.

I think Portsmouth deserve a re-wording of a classic football chant:

**** ground, great fans.

Well, let’s face it. Four portaloos (2 each, male and female) does not a great welcome make. Good luck staying up, Pompey!