Stonehenge!

Finally got connected via dial-up... here's the promised Stonehenge post.

It was really nice having the day off today - pity I have to go back to work tomorrow, though.

Since it was a 3 day weekend, I went off to Stonehenge yesterday (a 2 day weekend is really too short - Saturday you're too tired from working all week to do much, and then Sunday you don't want to do too much and tire yourself out for the coming week).

It was quite a cool trip, although Stonehenge itself was somewhat... unimpressive. I think it gets so built up in the media that you end up expecting something more than it actually is. The stones are big, but not all that big... but big enough when you consider where they came from and how they were dragged into position and all that, and considering the tools they had to work with. But the whole thing is just on a much smaller scale than I would have thought - the circles of stones are much closer together than I thought they would be, as well.

But I'll start from the beginning... I did the SouthWest Trains special, which was included the train tickets, and a guided bus tour of Salisbury and Stonehenge. The train trip was nice, I always enjoy travelling by train, and it was great to see lots of greenery and trees (although you don't get much of a view, since they seem to have screened off the railway lines with trees - which must be nice for the people living nearby, but not so exciting for the people on the train).
The bus tour of Salisbury was not so much a tour as having some of the main attractions pointed on the way out of the town to Stonehenge; the commentary was uninspired, especially considering how everyone always makes Stonehenge so mysterious, but I guess I did learn some things I didn't know before... We went past Old Sarum on the way, which was interesting too. We saw Salisbury Plain as well, of course, although it's the hilliest place I've seen in England yet. Oh, and they pointed out the abbey at Avebury where, supposedly, King Arthur exiled Queen Guinevere after finding out about her and Lancelot, which was kinda cool.

On to Stonehenge, then - lots of burial mounds in the area, which were interesting to see. I read a book about them once when I was at school (a very basic book, since it was one of those "for early reader" type books), and they've fascinated me ever since). And for those of you who've read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, it was cool to see that this was clearly Chalk country, and I even tried to take a photo of an area where the chalk is exposed, although it didn't come out very well :-) Stonehenge itself is very photogenic - you just can't help taking a photo every couple of steps round the circle, and they all come out really well, which means you end up having (and I'm not exaggerating) 50 photos of the stones. I've put some of the best below - my camera has a really cool "panorama assist" mode, where you take a photo, then it ghosts that on top of the viewfinder for the next photo, so you can get them all lined up nicely; then an app on your PC stitches them up nicely for you into a wide panorama shot.

The best part about Stonehenge was the contrast to London. Just wide open spaces, for as far as you can see... it was windy (haven't felt wind like that since Cape Town!) and the air was fresh. And there were sheep! I realised then that I haven't really seen any animals, barring a dog or two, since I came to London. So I took a bunch of photos of sheep as well :-) Just wandering around the grass in the quiet, peaceful, open air was the best part of the trip.

Then the tour bus went back to Salisbury; I wandered around a bit, saw the house where they filmed Sense & Sensiblity (although you have to pay to go in). I spent about 5 minutes wandering around Salisbury Cathedral; it's very impressive from the outside, but inside it's just kinda overwhelming. There are tons of tombs, which are interesting at first but after you've seen one medieval tomb you've seen them all... the stained glass windows were impressive, but too big to really appreciate (it sounds odd, but I can't describe it better). I had lunch in the refectory, which was really nice, since it opens onto a little garden (with yet more tombstones, of course). Then I wandered off the Salisbury museum, but didn't go in since by that time I was a bit bored of looking at ancient things (there's only so much you can take in in one day). What I found funny was how the Salisbury museum had signs all over the place, quoting Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island (which I just read last week) where he says "The Salisbury Museum is outstanding and I urge you to go there at once", but they don't quote any of the bits where he says how the cathedral is the most money-keen of English cathedrals, or wonders how long it will be till you are "whirred through the 'Salisbury Cathedral Experience' complete with animatronic stonemasons and monks like Friar Tuck" ;-) I wandered back through Salisbury to the train station, and it really is a nice place, with a real English village sort of feeling to it. Then I spent 45 minutes at the train station, since trains to Waterloo only run every hour :-(

So even though I was mildly disappointed by Stonehenge and spent a lot of time hanging around train stations (I got to Waterloo an hour early on the way there, too), it was a really great day and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

I know this has been a really long post already, but just a couple of things:
- tiscali dial-up sucks, and is really unreliable (or maybe it's just me, or maybe they're having a problem this weekend - either way, it sucks and I really hope their broadband is more reliable). It connects, but nothing actually loads... very annoying.
- I went to see The Breakup today, and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's one of those dumb comedies, but it was good fun
- in the continuing saga of things going wrong, two lightbulbs blew last night and tripped the light circuit, leaving me totally in the dark. I replace the bulbs today, but one of them still doesn't work, which means the light fitting itself has a problem and now I'll have to get of the landlady, and she'll have to send an electrician out, which means I'll have to be here, which means, again, either postponing my weekend plans (if they'll even come out on weekends), or taking time off work. Unless she can be here instead, which I hope, but doubt, she will. And she doesn't have email, which means I have to phone her... and I REALLY hate phoning people :-(

Can anyone recommend...

... a good online computer shop?

I'm trying to buy my wireless router, but it's surprisingly difficult.
Most shops (like eBuyer) will only ship to your billing address, and
while I understand that makes sense from a fraud prevention point of
view, it doesn't make sense for someone who works all day. So many
companies in this country assume that you or someone in your family is
at home during the day... it's really odd, because I'm _sure_ most
people work (well, most people ordering expensive gadgets, anyway).

So it's a bit frustrating. I can either find an online store that
will ship to my work address and that is reasonably trustworthy, or I
have to find a physical store that has the router I want and that I
can get to fairly easily.

Any recommendations?

Dialup Issues

I was going to post about my trip to Stonehenge, and I typed up the
whole post on my laptop, but my Tiscali dialup connection just sucks,
so effectively I'm limited to internet access via my mobile again.

Hopefully they're just having a problem this weekend, because it did
work okay the other day; if not, I'll just have to wait until I have
my broadband set up before I can post (it's got photos and all!).

And I really hope their broadband is better than their dialup and
their customer service.

The End. (Hopefully)

So this is hopefully the last installment of the TV saga. I figured there was no way to get the TVs back to Argos other than to lug them all the way down the road (luckily it's only 10 minutes away), so I carried the one all the way there, and confused the guy working there - at least he agreed that the whole situation was totally ridiculous! Of course, they couldn't give me a refund until I brought the 2nd one back as well... But I went across to Currys.Digital, or whatever they're called, and bought a 20.1" Humax TV from them. Carried that all the way home, then took the 2nd broken one back to Argos. In total, if you're counting, 3 one way trips between my house and central Wimbledon.

So my arms have had a thorough workout today (who needs to go to gym!) and they ache from my shoulders all the way down to my wrists, but at least Argos have 2 broken TVs, and I have a refund from them and a working TV (although I didn't plug it in when I got home - I just didn't think I would be able to handle it if it didn't work, and I'd probably end up having a nervous breakdown - but I set it up about 10 minutes ago, and it seems to still be working. So far, anyway).

But honestly, the Humax (LEU-20A, if anyone's googling for that) is not as good as the Mikomi. Well, obviously it's better, because it switches on AND displays all 3 primary colours, but it's not as good as the first Mikomi during the first few days I had it. There's nothing wrong with it, as such, but it just doesn't seem as sharp and the colour isn't quite as good. I've tried fiddling around with the settings, but there isn't much you can set up yourself. At the moment it _feels_ like I'm watching TV on a PC monitor, which is somewhat disappointing. If I'd had this first, I'd probably just have thought that's what a LCD TV is like, but the Mikomi was better, if only briefly.

I'm trying to figure out if it's the TV itself, or the signal coming in - what with swapping TVs in and out, I have moved the aerial and I guess that could be having an effect on the signal. The program guide banner isn't very sharp at all, though, and I don't know if that would be affected by the signal. And I'm probably being overly cynical, but the scart lead came from Argos too, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's now not working 100% either (okay, I doubt that could be the problem, but I don't trust anything from Argos any more). What I'll do is wait until Friends comes on, because that's one program where I know what it normally looks like - how sharp, what the colours are like, etc. No point judging by, say, one of those old war movies, because those would look terrible on the best TV. And some adverts do look really sharp and good, so that would suggest that the TV is capable, and it's the signal or the broadcast that's at fault - the sound, at least, is perfectly fine.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone's sick and tired of hearing about my TV by now - I know I am, and I guess if I have a TV that switches on, displays R, G and B, has audio, and can actually display the broadcast, I'm doing pretty well and shouldn't complain. Tomorrow is Stonehenge, and so hopefully I'll be able to post a more upbeat account of my day tomorrow (including photos, if you ask nicely).

But wait! It gets worse!

A quick recap for those who haven't been following the saga, or who came across this page while searching for something like "Mikomi LCD TV" or "Mikomi LCD2008" or "Argos" or even better, "Argos customer service sucks".

I bought a bunch of stuff from Argos, including a Mikomi 20" LCD TV, and a Sagem freeview box. The freeview box didn't work, and I had to take it back for new one (which amazingly, considering the rest of my story below and here, did work). After a week, though, the TV stopped working - the power switch just wouldn't switch the TV on. So I arranged with Argos to deliver a new one the next Saturday, since I work during the week, even though this would leave me without a TV for an entire week. Then on the Friday, I get a slip under my door saying that they couldn't collect the old TV, since I wasn't home (see my last post for more on just exactly how ridiculous this is). I phoned customer support, and got exactly nowhere. They will not collect over weekends or after hours. But I can't return a 13kg 20" TV to my local store, since I don't have a car. But they didn't care; they have my money, after all.

So today, the Saturday they're supposed to deliver the new TV, it actually arrives at 8:15 in the morning, which was a pleasant surprise. But after unpacking it (and getting yet more polystyrene all over everything in the process), I found that everything on TV is in yellow this morning. The only way to get rid of the yellow is to turn the colour saturation right down so it's practically black and white. Which isn't exactly what I paid for.

So I phoned customer support again. No apologies from them this time; I said I just want my money back. Okay, they said, we just have to collect the two (two! can you believe it!) broken TVs first, then they can organise a refund. But they won't collect during the weekend, I can't be home during the week, I can't return them to my local store... the whole saga all over again.

So now I have two broken TVs; 0 working TVs, and am out the price of 1 TV.

I'm definitely not buying from them again. Ever. No question about that.

But the question now is: do I just go buy a new TV from somewhere else, and then try to get my money back from Argos later? Or should I try to get my money back first? And if I buy a TV from somewhere else, I'll have to pay another delivery fee... and unless they deliver this afternoon, they'll have to deliver next Saturday, which means another week without a TV and another Saturday's plans ruined. And how the @#!@%#@ do I get TWO huge, heavy TVs back to Argos? I can't take a day off work, since I'm pretty busy at the moment; I can't take it to my local store; and, despite their very helpful but somewhat shortsighted suggestion, no, it wouldn't help if they could collect from my place of work since I'd then have to find a way to get two huge, heavy TVs to work. Really, it was bad enough when I had to try to get one back to them; now I've got to get two back to them!

Really, there are two issues here:
1) The Mikomi 20" LCD TV (LCD2008) from Argos sucks, since 2 out of 2 haven't worked;
2) Argos Customer Support sucks

I don't really believe in fate and destiny and all that; but even I'm starting to take a hint. I'd guess I'm not meant to have a TV, broadband, or a bike :'(

Yet more struggles...

For those of who've been waiting with bated breath, here's the next installment of the Phone And Broadband Saga - as an additional extra, for subscribers only, at NO additional cost and only if you sign up today - an extra (and still not final!) chapter in the TV saga! And if you order in the next five minutes, you can get a free atom feed so that you won't miss a single installment of these exciting dramas...

Sorry, I'm feeling a bit facetious tonight. Actuallly, I want to apologise - I know I've been complaining a lot the last few posts, and the worst part is that it isn't just me being picky - a lot has been going wrong lately. But to put it in perspective (although I don't really _feel_ like being reasonable), it's not really all that major. I can live without broadband, and without tv, and it's not like I don't have water or electricity. But still, it's irritating, and blogging helps me get it out of my system. There will be some more upbeat posts coming - I'm going to Stonehenge on Sunday, and ZimFest and bike shopping next weekend, so I'll post a report on those (maybe even with photos! I'm sure you can't wait).

But now, on with the latest chapter in the phone saga. Last time I posted, the one socket upstairs was working, but the other one upstairs and the one downstairs were still giving me that "The number you have dialled has not been recognised" message. So, with no help from BT, but a lot of helpful from the useful people over at uk.telecom, I've managed to figure out that there are 2 lines coming into the flat. One comes into the one socket upstairs, and the other comes into the other socket which has the downstairs extension connected to it. Typically, it seems that BT activated one of the two lines - the one without the extension. (Why they didn't tell me there were two lines when I ordered, I don't know). And since I very much doubt that I could get BT to connect the other line instead - how would I specify which one I meant, and probably it would take another two weeks, plus the couple of days head start I've had on the broadband provisioning, and my number would change, and then they'd probably charge me for it and reconnect the same line again anyway - my options are rather limited. I'll have to put a splitter on the single working socket, and plug the phone into one side and leave the phone upstairs (not really a hardship, I guess, since no-one will ever phone on my landline anyway). Then I can run an RJ11 cable all the way downstairs, or I can spend yet another £70 and get a wireless router and hope that it works better than the one in my old flat, and that I'll actually be able to get a signal downstairs if the router lives upstairs. Not much of a choice, but better than no broadband at all.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm calm enough for this yet, but here's what's happening with the TV saga. Quick catch-up: after getting a standalone aerial since the flat aerial didn't work, and then getting a new freeview box because the original one didn't work, my TV's power button stopped working after a week (a Mikomi 20" LCD, model LCD2008, from Argos, in case anyone wants to avoid it - although to be fair, the picture quality and viewing angles were very good when it used to switch on). So I contacted Argos, they were very apologetic, and arranged for a new TV to be delivered on Saturday since I'm at work all day during the week.

So imagine my surprise when I came home only to discover a "we called to collect" note under my door (under my flat door, btw, which means they rang someone else's bell and disturbed them to be allowed into the house). So I phoned up the Argos helpline, and was told that their collection people only work during the week. And that my only options are to take it back to my local store myself, or have it collected at a different address. And that a manager would not be able to help me.

Now there are so many problems with this, I barely know where to start - but don't worry, start I will.

They didn't let me know they were coming today, or what time. Do they expect people to just be at home all day every day?

They didn't tell me, when I reported the problem, that they can only collect during the week.

When I told them that I had to have the new TV delivered on a Saturday, despite the fact that I would have to sit without a TV all week, it didn't occur to them that I therefore wouldn't be at home during the week.

Surely most people work during the week? When are working people supposed to have fault goods collected?

If I could get it to my local store, why would I have had it delivered in the first place?

If I can't get it to my local store, what are the odds that I can take it to another address to have it collected there?

It's their product that's faulty (and in fact, there were 2 faulty items in the one delivery) - why must I struggle to find a way to get it back to them? Especially when someone is coming here tomorrow any way to drop off the new TV.

Isn't it very inefficient and expensive to have someone come out on Friday to collect a TV, and then have someone else come out on Saturday to deliver a TV? Isn't there a slightly obvious optimisation there?

If they can't collect it, and I can't return it, what happens? (I believe the technical term is "impasse"). At the moment, it's my problem since they have my money and I don't have a working TV. Tomorrow, it's their problem, since I'll have a working TV and a broken TV, and they only have one set of money.


This is similar to the problem I'm having trying to dispose of the packaging from the other stuff I bought. The boxes are too big to fit in the dirtbins, even if I didn't mind hogging them all with my rubbish and not leaving any space for the other residents. The garbage collectors apparently won't collect anything not in a bin. The recycling people won't take packaging boxes. The nearest dump is miles away, and I don't have a car. So effectively there's no way for me to get rid of these boxes. As the Merton Council person I emailed pointed out, I can either cut the boxes up into pieces so that they do fit in the bin (which doesn't solve the hogging problem, and means that I might be rid of some of them by Christmas), I can pay the council £15 to come and collect them. Which seems a bit extreme. Maybe I could drape a throw or something over them and use them as a makeshift table...

And don't even mention Tiscali's customer support... that's a rant and a half on it's own.

(On the good side, at least I do have dialup. So I could type this up on a decent keyboard, and post it, and even maybe add in some links. So while a lot of things are really trying my patience, life's not all bad.)

Yay! I'm online again! (Kinda)

So it's dialup (and I'd forgotten how slow that is), and it only works from the phone socket upstairs and not the one downstairs, but I'm online and typing on a big keyboard!

Turns out that the line was working - but there are 3 phone sockets in the flat, and the main one is upstairs and not the one I was trying downstairs. So not BT's fault.

Now I'm not sure how to get the downstairs socket working - that's the one that would be most useful to me. I'm still gettting that "the number you have dialled has not been recognised" message if I use that socket; I'm hoping that's just because I don't have anything plugged into the main socket. I don't have another phone cable to test with unfortunately, but tomorrow I'll get a cable (or it'll probably be just as cheap to get another phone), plug the phone into the upstairs socket and my laptop into the downstairs one, and see if it connects. Holding thumbs!

Break Stuff

Never mind collapsing in a heap, this time I definitely want to break stuff...

I was going to post about how BT actually got my phone line up and
running without me having to be there, and how I ordered my broadband
today, and how I hope I did the right thing going with Tiscali, since
their customer service and website are both rubbish, and how even
though it will take another 2 or 3 weeks to get broadband, at least I
can now use dialup in the meantime... only to arrive home and find
that first point (and therefore the last point, too) is not, in fact,
true. Despite the fact that I ordered broadband on this line, I can't
dial out on it.

And my t-mobile allowance should have been reset today, but it hasn't
been. So I have no cheap way of contacting my family back in SA.

I'm trying really hard not to swear, here.

And as usual, things were picking up towards the end of the day -
lunchtime-ish onwards. I was actually happy walking home - didn't
even catch the bus. Only to be derailed, again.

I'm back to where I was when I moved in - no phone, no internet, no
tv; except that I don't have my mobile for cheap calls either. And to
think I _almost_ had all of them at the same time :( I wish the
universe/fate/deity of your choice would stop messing with me!

I just don't believe it

And not in a good way...

My tv has just stopped working. After all the saga last weekend, I
just can't believe it. This time the problem seems to be with the tv
itself - it just won't switch on. (and yes, it is plugged in).

I just... I'm speechless. I don't know whether I want to throw
things at the damn tv, or just collapse in a heap and cry. Really,
out of the 3 elements needed for tv - aerial, tv, freeviw box - how
can all 3 be faulty?!!

Just my luck. And without decent internet, I can't really do much
troubleshooting or find out return policies, etc. And they'll need to
pick this one and send a replacement, which either means no tv for a
week or more time off work. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!

Wimbledon to The City

I know the last few posts have been very self-centric, but then,
that's implied by the blog title anyway. I do plan to do a couple of
techie posts - one on async programming, at least - but that's tricky
to do with a phone keyboard/email combination, so it'll probably have
to wait until I get full internet access again.

So this is going to be another Wimbledon post, although one that might
be useful to other people who need to travel into the city every day
(ok, probably not). It's difficult not to slide into a 'why I hate
the tube' post, but I'll do my best.

Going from Wimbledon to work, I have 3 options:
- first capital connect train to blackfriars
- district line to blackfriars
- southwest train to waterloo, and a bus the rest of the way

Now it turns out that the best way to get to work is not the best way
to get home from work. Going to work, the blackfriars train is best,
since it's fast, but it only runs every 20 minutes or so. So if I
just miss that one, the district line is my best option. The waterloo
train seems good, and it's fast, but the benefit is lost by having to
wait for ages to get a bus at waterloo. Even the district line isn't
quite as simple as I thought it would be, since there are a couple of
different destinations and either you have to pick the right train or
change later. And since it's the beginning of the line, each train
isn't necessarily leaving right away - they sometimes sit for 10
minutes. At least with the info boards you should be able to tell
which one is leaving first.

Coming home from work is, as I say, a different story. The district
line is fine, although again there are like 3 different destinations,
so you need to pick the right train or change later. The blackfriars
train is tricky - there are a lot of trains leaving from the same
platform, and very few of them go to wimbledon. Those are not very
frequent, and it seems that you need to take the one that goes to
Sutton, and oddly enough not the one that goes to Wimbledon, which
goes the long way round the loop and takes absolute ages to get there.
Since it's easy to catch a bus _to_ waterloo, the waterloo train is
the best option, although while there are a lot of trains to
wimbledon, it's not easy to tell which is leaving soonest, so you
might sit around on the train for 10 minutes or so before leaving (but
the trains do get pretty full, so at least that way it's easy to get a
seat).

So that's my guide to travelling from wimbledon to the city :-) At
least a lot of it's overground, so I can do stuff on the net during
the trip!

yay! TV's working!

Finally got my tv set up! Unbelievably, it turns out that the problem
was both with the aerial AND the freeview box. I bought an amplified
internal aerial, plugged it into the tv, and it picked up some
channels. Plugged it into the freeview box, and same as before: sagem
logo, but no welcome screen and no setup screen. So in desperation I
took the freeview box back to argos, and swapped it out for a new one;
plugged it in and yay! it worked :-)

So now I'm happy. Only about 85% unpacked still, but happy :-)

Frustrations

Damn, this is so frustrating.

I meant to blog sometime during the week about how I'm settling and
feeling more at home in my new flat, but never got around to it. And
just to illustrate that someone's more likely to complain than say
nice things, this is another complaining post.

I _am_ settling in, and making it my house - I bought a bunch of stuff
(and then went to ikea today, and bought even more stuff), and it's
starting to feel more mine. But I'm having a problem with my
TV/Freeview. Before I get into that, though, I need to complain about
the floor in the lounge: there's a noticeable slope towards the
window! My laptop fan gets a bit finicky about being perfectly level,
and when it's on the table in the lounge it starts making its
help-I'm-skew noise. In some places, you actually feel like you're
leaning sideways (I'm sure I'm not, but probably there are almost
subliminal visual cues that amplify the effect). I want to get a
spirit level and actually test it. Not that it's anything that anyone
can do anything about, but I can see it becoming highly annoying. And
the floor creaks; and it shakes/reverberates slightly when big trucks
come past! It's a bit worrying... I still think that landlords should
have to live in a property first, before they rent it out - then they
would be aware of all the structural defects.

So, to the TV. The flat didn't come with one, which I thought was odd
because I regard a TV as essential, but it seems that it's quite
normal. So I ordered one from Argos, along with a freeview box (and a
microwave, and some other stuff). Since some of us have to work, I
could only have it delivered today, which means a whole week without
any TV (which, when you're living by yourself and don't have broadband
yet - and more on that later - can be a bit lonely). But it arrived
today, yay! except that the aerial cable in the flat doesn't fit the
connector on the TV. So I speak to the guy at Currys, speak to my
dad, and eventually decide that half the connector on the cable is
missing, so the best thing to do is actually cut it off and put a new
connector on. Which I've never done before, but I do my best. Plug
it into the TV, and yay! it sees that there's an aerial, and does a
program scan. Not so yay, it only finds one channel and that one's
really snowy. Plug the aerial cable into the freeview box, and plug
that into the TV (using the cables that I had to go out and buy, since
they aren't included), and the freeview box acts like there's no
aerial. At least, I think that's the reason - it's supposed to show a
welcome and setup screen, which it doesn't. And it behaves the same
if I unplug the aerial cable completely. So I still can't watch TV,
and don't know where the problem is. It could be:
- I didn't put the new connector on properly
- the flat aerial is screwed
- the freebox/tv is screwed
I'm going to try to check the connector, maybe do it over since now
I've done it once before, whereas last time I did it I had no
experience, but I have no idea if that will fix it. Probably not. I
could go out tomorrow (yet more time) and buy a stand-alone aerial
(yet more money) and I don't know if that will fix it either. I am in
a freeview area, but maybe the signal's just crap in this particular
spot. But I can't not have TV. I refuse.

And speaking of things I refuse to not have, I did get hold of BT, and
they have to send an engineer out to do something to the line. I
don't know what, since there is a line, it's not like they have to
install it, but apparently either they can do it at the local exchange
or they might have to come into the premises. Which means I have to
be here. Which means I have to take more time off work. And the
soonest appointment is only on the 22nd (although they did say that
they'd fit me in if there were any cancellations). Which means
another week and a bit (over 2, in total) with no phone line. And
then, apparently, it can take another 2 weeks to get broadband
enabled. So that's a month without broadband! I've kinda made peace
with it, a bit, otherwise I'd have gone insane, but I'm not very happy
about it. Luckily I have gprs on my mobile, so I'm not totally cut
off from the rest of the world, but it's really not good.

It's been hard, doing this all by myself - sure, I've been in London a
couple of months, but still I don't know all the right things to do
when moving. I've got it all sorted, and I've managed, but it's been
stressful and difficult doing it all by myself without anyone to help.

I'm almost done, and it's just so frustrating to still be struggling
without broadband and without TV. And if I had broadband, I could
look up things and see, why is my freeview box not giving me a welcome
screen - maybe I could rule out the freeview box being screwed. But
that kind of surfing is very difficult to do on a mobile. My parents
have been helpful - they scanned a page out of a DIY manual and
emailed it to me, but even there I had to download it on my phone,
save it to my phone, then sync it to my pc so that I could view it.
It works, and at least there is a way to do it, but it's frustrating.
And like, now I have a bunch of boxes and packaging that I need to
throw out - but it won't fit in the bins, and the garbage guys
apparently won't take anything that isn't in a bin. So what do I do?
How do I get rid of these boxes?

But not everything's bad. I guess. The flat's not so sweltering hot
now, which is good. And I love Wimbledon itself, it's a great place
to live. And the walls are thick enough so that I don't hear noise
from the neighbours, which is great. But in the mornings the
birds/squirrels/foxes/whatever sound like they're having a party on my
roof, which isn't great.

And ikea is great. I went to the one in Croydon today, and apart from
the fact that they have really cool stuff and mostly at very good
prices, they're really well organised. If I bought a new house, I'd
go there to redecorate, it's such fun. And they have such a range of
space-saving stuff, I wish that whoever built my flat had used their
cupboards and drawers and wardrobes and stuff. But the store itself
is cool - they have maps of the shop all over the place, and it's
designed so that there's one trail through all the sections so you
don't miss anything and can't get lost (and there are shortcuts, if
you want to particularly skip out a section). Since I did my thesis
on navigation, I've become very aware of this sort of thing, and ikea
does it really well. (Of course, it's to their benefit if you go
through every section - you're more likely to pick up something that
you wouldn't have thought of buying if you hadn't seen it - and this
worked very well on me today!). And they have little shoppings lists,
and pencils for you to use, and even paper measuring tapes! That is
just so organised, and so customer-friendly, it's amazing.
Unfortunately, it somewhat falls apart at the checkout - the queues
were incredibly long, even though a lot of tills were closed. Same
with the restaurant - good deals, looked like great food, but very
tables that were all taken. Still a cool shop though, and I think if
I go again I either have to be prepared that I'm going to come home
with bags of stuff that wasn't on my list, or leave my debit card at
home and go with a limited amount of cash ;-)

Okay, time to sync this with my phone so that I can then email it off
to blogger. Again, sorry for the gumph at the bottom, I'll try to
clean it up sometime. Oh, and did I mention that I can only sync
once? If I want to sync again, I need to reboot both my phone and
laptop. That is so ridiculous, and yet entirely typical right now.

moving in, continued

It seems I don't have blogger set up to automatically publish posts
that I email in, so I'll have to try to login quicly from work to
change that and publish these two posts - won't have time to format
them, so again sorry about the poor formatting and sig at the end.

I'm kinda settling in to the new flat - got most of the accounts
chaned into my name; bought most of the household stuff that didn't
come with the flat (like a toaster, and an iron, and crockery and
cutlery), but I still have to get a microwave and tv and floor lamp.
I'll try to order those today and have them delivered on Saturday (no
way I'm even going to consider carrying all that home myself, even
though argos is just down the road).

I also need to find the best route to work - I can take the district
line, which is easy since there are no changes and no buses (unless I
catch the bus from my place to the station, which is minor). Or I can
take a SouthWest train to waterloo, and then catch a bus from there to
work. That'll be a lot quicker, but I need to find out which buses I
can take. So today I'm just taking the district line (and since most
of the first part is overland, I've already learned that the
west-facing side of the train is better, othrwise you have the sun in
your face, which is a bit bright for this time of the morning).

One of the most important things I need to sort out is the phone line
- BT said it would be working by 6 yesterday evening, but it wasn't.
They said that while 'the computer' said it would be, if it wasn't
they'd have to send out an engineer, which would only be on the 23rd!
And according to Tiscali it can take 15 days to get broadband set up
from when you apply! I can't go without internet for that long.
That'd be more than a month without decent internet access, and even
though I have my mobile's gprs connection, I just can't wait that
long. I can't! But I'm not going to panic (just keep saying that,
maybe it'll become true) - I'm going to phone bt this morning and find
out what the status is. Maybe someone just forgot to click OK or
something. Hopefully. Please.

Anyway, the flat's mostly nice, and it'll be better once I get
everything unpacked. There are a bunch of things I don't like, so in
my next post I'm going to list them all and maybe I'll see that most
of them either can be fixed or aren't that bad. Part of the problem
is that I'm comparing to my house back inj SA, rather than to the
shared flat I've just moved out of. No, it won't be perfect because
it's not mine; but it's better than where I was and while it's
slightly less temporary than that was, it's still not for ever. It's
not like I'm spending the rest of my life there!

Officially a Womble

Yay, found the cable to connect my mobile to my PC - thought I'd have
to write this entire post on my vario, and while it does have a qwerty
keyboard it would have been rather painful. As it is, I apologise for
the sig and stuff at the bottom - I'm emailing this directly to
blogger, rather than going through the blogger site as normal.

And the reason for that is that I'm now mostly moved in to my new
flat! I still have one load of stuff to bring from the old place, but
I'll do that tomorrow. Everything's still in boxes, but luckily I
manged to find the cable.

I'm exhausted. I've been moving stuff all day, and now I'm tired.
And of course, when you're tired everything just seems so
depressing... the flat itself is nice, small but nice and bright, and
very safe. But there's a bunch of stuff that I would have thought
would come with a furnished flat, but obviously doesn't: like a TV, a
kettle, iron, toaster, hopefully a microwave; some crockery, cutlery,
and even just a phone handset. None of it's really an issue, I can go
buy it all without a problem, but it's another thing I've got to get
done. There seems to be a lot less cupboard space than in my old
place, so even though I'm essentially moving from a room to an entire
flat, I think I'm going to struggle to find places to put everything.

So I want to start unpacking - I hate things being unsettled, and I'm
worried about the things in boxes getting squished - but I don't know
where to put things, so in a way I don't even want to start. And
while I'm sure the previous person did clean before they left, there
are some things that I'd prefer to clean myself first. I guess I've
made some progress; I've bought cleaning stuff and packed that away.
Maybe making a list of the things I need to do will help. But... I
dunno. It's not that I'm lonely, exactly, because I'm used to being
by myself and it's really nice to have the entire flat to myself. But
I don't have a TV, I don't really have anything to read, and I don't
have internet access yet (luckily I do via my mobile, otherwise I'd go
insane. But it's not much use for general browsing). So I feel a bit
disconnected... not that anyone's online to talk to anyway, because
I'm signed in on my mobile and I can see that no-one's there either on
google talk or msn (yeah, some people actually have a life on a
Saturday night!). And I'm tired, so everything seems worse... hence
this post, just to feel like there's some connection between me and
the outside world. I'll probably end up going to bed really early,
because otherwise the longer I sit here by myself not doing anything
the more likely I am to work myself into a desperately lonely state
where I'm just desperate to talk to someone, except that there's
no-one to talk to, so I get more lonely... it's a bad cycle, and I
don't want to get into it. I'm playing MP3s, just so it's not so
quiet, but even there I need to be careful what I listen to otherwise
it can also trigger the cycle.

Okay. So lets make a list of what I need to do. Not in any
particular order, because the prioritization of the list is an issue
in itself :-(
- decide how to arrange the furniture in the lounge
- move the non-unpacked boxes and stuff from the lounge into the bedroom
- buy a tv
- read through the argos catalog to get some idea of prices for the
stuff I need to buy
- phone bt to get my phoneline sorted
- organise internet access once the phoneline's working
- phone the gas, electricity, water people to change the accounts into my name
- switch the council tax into my name and apply for a single-occupant
discount online (can do this at work on Tuesday)
- phone the landlady about the gas bill that arrived today
- vacuum the lounge
- wipe down the kitchen countertops
- decide what kitchen stuff can be thrown out
- figure out how to use the washing machine
- clean the oven
- figure out how to use the shower (it's more complicated than it sounds)
- buy all the stuff I need but don't have (leaving out the things that
I might need, but might never actually use, like a kettle)

Now the difficult part: the bedroom.
- move the vacuum cleaner, ironing board and folding chairs currently
in the wardrobe to somewhere less in the way
- wipe down the one shelf in the wardrobe
- somehow clean the canvas hanging shelves in the wardrobe
- vacuum the bedroom floor
- pack away the stuff I emptied out of my suitcase onto the bed to go
back for another load
- pick a box and unpack it (remembering that I can always move things
around later if I want)
- pick another box and unpack it (and repeat until all boxes/suitcases
are unpacked)
- empty at least one box for the last load tomorrow
- pack all the stuff I can't throw away but don't want into another box
- wipe down the bookcase, bedside cupboard and cd racks
- pack stuff I'm not going to use anytime soon (like sleeping bag and
suitcases) into suitcase and store suitcase under bed
- wash clothes for work on tuesday
- be glad that I'm taking monday off
- wash bedding, etc
- get some sleep
- take library books back to old library
- sign up at new library

There, that sounds almost reasonable. It's not quite that simple of
course, but maybe for now I can fool myself that it is :-) I just
wish that someone was signed in to chat to. But then I'd have to stop
talking to them at some point anyway, I guess. But still. But I know
everything will seem better tomorrow when I'm not so tired, and I
really am glad that I have my own place. But I need a TV, and I need
proper internet access.

Okay, now I'm just going to start repeating myself. Let me transfer
this to my mobile and post it off, and then make a start on the
bedroom. If only so that it's ready to start unpacking clothes into
tomorrow.

(Not) Buying a Bike

I can't believe it's so difficult to buy a motorbike!

I really would love to get a Honda CBR600RR - but I tried one out at the British Motorshow (well, sat on it - they didn't have any available for test rides) and I could barely touch the ground. And looking at a photo of me on the bike, I look a bit silly. I'm just too small for it.

So I browsed around for bikes recommended for "vertically challenged" riders, and came up with three options: an Aprilia RS250, a Honda VFR400R, or a Kawasaki 250R Ninja. None of which are still made (or at least not imported into the UK), and none of which are for sale 2nd hand anywhere in London. It seems that very few manufacturers are making anything between a 125 and a 650, and while I have no objection to getting a 650 or an 800, they almost always have a much higher seat, and I just won't be able to handle them.

So unfortunately it seems as though there are 3 things I can do. Get a sportsbike 125cc replica, like the Honda CBR125, get a "delivery bike" like the Honda CBF500, or start looking around at cruisers. I've had a cruiser, it was cool, but I really don't want another one now. I thought the CBRs looked okay, but then I saw one outside work the other day, and it really did look like a delivery bike (although the delivery box mounted on the back might have had something to do with that impression). And while I look a bit silly on the CBR600RR, I suspect I'll look equally silly on the CBR125, just with the relative sizes reversed. (Note that not getting a bike is not listed as one of the options. I'm not even considering it. Just sitting on one again last week was great! But I just don't know what to get.)

I wanna cool sportsbike! :'(