Category: Personal

Unlucky

Shite. I missed posting on 07/07/07 which no doubt means I’m cursed for the rest of my life. Probably explains the sore head for most of today (sorry Shak) but at least we’ve had two dry days in a row AND at the weekend. I’m currently sitting in the back garden enjoying the lovely summers evening and surfing like a demon. Bliss. I know it’s too much to ask but more dry days please. Is anyone listening? Thought not.

One last comment – tennis was rather splendid over the weekend with an amazing men’s singles final today. Well done to Jamie Murray too – who’d have thought he’d be the first Murray to win a Wimbledon title.

Did I say that was the last comment? Forza 2 is an immense game. It’s not only racers that are getting their kicks as anyone into customising cars can use the auction house to sell their wares. So well done Robert (or Foe Real as he’s known to some) for selling his second design for 5 million credits. That’s just one car. I think he’s totalling around 9 million now which is over ten times the money I’ve earned from racing only. Swine.

Bernabeu

Bernabeu StandOn my last trip to Madrid (two weeks ago now) I managed to squeeze in a stadium tour at the Bernabeu. It’s a magnificent stadium, very compact and the tour is only 10 Euro’s and is a bit of a bargain.

While there are no guides to tell you about the place you are allowed to walk round at your own pace and get to see views from many parts of the stadium, a small museum full of trophies and detail on Real Madrid’s history and then a walk down on to the pitchside and the dug out. You finish off in the away dressing room and press room before finally reaching the shop. The shop is actually the most disappointing part of the whole tour.

The weather in Madrid was fantastic although a bit too hot for me. Again the food was great and I tried Octopus for the first time – very nice. However trawling through the photo’s has been annoying. The camera has 4 or 5 dead pixels now on the sensor, a couple looking like a small cluster meaning each photo needs touched up. On individual photo’s it’s not bad but when you’ve a large batch to process it’s nothing but a pain in the arse. Looks like it’s time for a new camera. Yep, it’s a great excuse. Anyway, the full Flickr set is available here.

In the dug out

Customer Service

It’s been one of those days for me. Great customer service x3.

1. Cars in the garage – air con is broke. I phoned on Monday and they said bring it in anytime. How does Wednesday morning sound? No problem sir. Cool – I’ll drop it off around 7:00 if thats ok. Sure – someone will be here to take your keys. Excellent.

Roll on to today. By 12 I hadn’t heard from the garage. I phoned their new service department number – unobtainable. Strange – used that number on Monday. Turns out that from any mobile network the number doesn’t work. Tried from my work phone – after 2 mins of no-one picking up I put the phone down. Tried the number another couple of times but no answer. No other phone number on their website but Yell had another number. This got answered and I was transferred through to the service department. After a couple of minutes of no answer I gave up.

Tried 4 or 5 times before eventually getting through to service department at 14:00. Cars getting looked at right now. Ok, they’ll phone back soon. Roll on to 16:30. Still heard nothing and struggling again to get in touch with them. Got hold off them around 16:40…yes sir, we’re looking at the car just now. We’ll be able to give you an update in 20 mins. AGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I complained, moaned but I got the excuse it must have been the wrong car earlier and they apologized. 30 mins later and I get the call – they might be able to fix it tomorrow, it may cost around £300 but it could be less, could be more. Rest assured however, we’ll keep you informed at all times. Yeah – right.

Continue reading “Customer Service”

Back to the grind

Well after a great week off it’s back to work tomorrow. Got lot’s of outdoor work done this week which was good. The weather has been great for April – yet more freaky weather! Also got chance to enjoy the PS3 a bit more, catch up on some movies and also some TV. Sky+ is great but I can never keep up with all that I record. That meant I had over 3 weeks of some series to watch but then I can at least skip the adverts.

Also starting to get my act together with the two Macs and also thinking about off-site backup (paranoia is rife at the moment). I hadn’t really got the laptop and desktop working well together yet. The NAS drive I’ve got is good but gets noisy, so much so that I’ll be picking up an alternative or at least busting it open and replacing the fan with a larger, slower, quieter one. I’ve got the mail sorted by switching to IMAP so that all my e-mail (dating back to 98) is available on the server so from either Mac or on the web I can see it all. Next is the sharing of data between calendars, address books and a few applications I use. I’ve got a couple of options. Sign up to .Mac which is £70 a year for syncing and access to a 1 Gig iDisk. There’s other benefits but none that I would use. Alternatively I could sign up to something like Dreamhost and use it for the sole purpose of remote backup and synchronisation, making use of Transmit to keep folders in sync. Dreamhost would give me 160Gig with Webdav support for £60 a year. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, back to watching Lost. The last three episodes have been great!

Doorstep

Shakeel was up visiting so we took advantage of some nice weather on Saturday to plod round Glasgow and try out his new camera. It will take a few days for his pictures to appear but I’ve thrown up some that I took.

Glasgow Harbour
Clyde
Kelvingrove Art Gallery
Glasgow University

It’s a bit annoying that I don’t get out and about photographing more as there’s some great spots in Glasgow. That was the first time I’d visited Kelvingrove since it had re-opened too. In fact it’s the first time I’d visited since I was a kid and thats shocking as I used to only stay a few hundred yards away. The interior looks magnificent now but it still had the same smell that I remember from all those years ago. However I only scratched the surface while I was there – I’ll definitely be back soon as it’s wonderful.

Something that hadn’t changed was Glasgow Uni. It’s been over 12 years since I left but walking round the quadrangles and seeing the exam desks – it was as if nothing had changed. Apart from my weight. Still – really nice day that made a change from buying more gadgets! Must do more often.

Packaging and other rambles

I’ve always had a thing for nice packaging. The Apple packaging is hard to beat and gives you a great impression of the product you’ve bought before you’ve even switched it on. Likewise a great CD case (Thom Yorke, Lemon Jelly) has always given the CD a greater worth. All in the head as it doesn’t change the music, but there you go. My first Blu-Ray movies have now arrived and again the packaging is interesting. The cases are smaller than DVD, nicely rounded, slightly transparent and just feel better quality than a DVD. Which ties in with the fact it should be of better quality. All in the head but I like it.

Thats why I’ve always liked Japanese game packaging. Far smaller than western equivalents and to be honest far better. I look at my DVD collection – it could take up a quarter of the room that it currently does. Nevermind.

Speaking of room, I’m still tempted to ditch all my cd’s as I have them all digitally available. I would probably re-encode some of the disks at a higher rate but apart from that I have no need for the physical disks. Apart from the nice packaging that in my head adds value. Doh. So do I dump the disks and save room or not?

Finally, a quick bit on the Blu-Ray disks. I imported them from the states using DVDWorldUSA. They delivered within 7 days and there was no import duties to pay. They also guarantee to pay import duties if you do have the misfortune to get caught. It’s a long time since I imported and I was a bit worried about region playback issues. However this site lists the region free or restricted titles released so far. Very handy. Just need the player now.

Blu-Ray

Shopping

Just back from Braehead – what a miserable day it is out there. Amongst the Mothers Day shopping I couldn’t help notice that the PS3 isn’t sold out. Anywhere. HMV and Game are still taking pre-orders. In fact HMV were sure that you could stroll in next Friday and pick up a PS3 without pre-ordering as demand is pretty slow. Coupled with the Game announcement that only 2/3’s of their pre-order allocation has been bought should hopefully put a stop to any hopes of the eBay sellers hoping to ‘double their money’. Makes you wonder how many will actually sell as no doubt there are many that have bought two or more just to sell one on eBay.

In preparation for the PS3 I’ve ordered a couple of Blu-Ray titles – MI3 and The Departed. Both films have reportedly excellent video quality and I’m looking forward to watching them on the PS3. Thats as long as they work as they are American imports. I’ve also picked up a Bluetooth headset for the PS3 as it doesn’t come with one as standard and I don’t want a wired one plugged into the PS3.

Final bit of shopping news is regarding my Edge subscription. With all the money hassle recently there was a direct debit problem. One phone call later and it was all sorted…or so I thought. This months hasn’t appeared and on calling the subscription team the next direct debit isn’t until May. SO no issues this month or next month. Doh! They could have at least explained that at the time. I’ve now had to make do with a shop soiled copy. Nevermind…only one week until PS3 arrives.

3…2…1…Aggggghhhhhhhh

3…Wake up feeling a bit warm but nothing unusual there

2…Grabbing some breakfast, watching a bit of news and notice ‘the line’. This is a bad sign. The line I notice is horizontal, moves up my eye over a period of 20 minutes, makes it difficult to focus on text etc and is a sure sign that a migraine is on the way. Two pink migraleve and it’s back to bed. Maybe I can stop it before it starts.

1…The calm before the storm? Have I stopped it? Maybe it wasn’t a migraine. Maybe I could travel down to Barrow?

Aggggggghhhhhhhh

No such luck. Pain kicks in. Vomiting ensues. I ain’t traveling nowhere. Maybe it will clear quickly. 6 hours later without much improvement I come to the conclusion it won’t. I hate migraines. I hate Mondays. Yesterday was one of the few days where I could say that I would have rather been in Barrow. Yesterday was also one of my strongest migraines in the last couple of years. Thankfully cleared today but still feeling sorry for myself.

Never mind – almost got my identity back. Just not too sure who else has got a claim on it though.