Two questions of earth shattering importance
Answers:
06:55 Bin day. Dustbins out (from Web)
06:57 Fortnightly recycling day. Grolsch cans and newspapers out (from txt)
07:04 Radio 5 on (from ear)
07:07 Grapefruit juice. Lovely. (from tongue)
07:12 Poltergeist has re-assembled furniture in lounge (from brain)
07:17 Quick shower (from bathroom)
07:25 Twitter about twitter (from recursion)
07:34 Oh no. I feel a cold coming on. Please excuse me from gym (from Mummy)
The new machine from Dell duly arrived yesterday so I hid it safely away in a tall cupboard.
This morning, when no-one was looking, I surreptitiously retrieved the boxes out of the tall cupboard and carefully cut the boxes open.
Then I quickly hooked up the new PC to my existing keyboard, mouse and monitor and power cable.
I had a sneak peek at Windows Vista and it looked pretty nice (IE7, integrated desktop search, media player, shiny new interface).
Then I carefully packed the computer away, taped the boxes up and put them all back into the tall cupboard.
What am I ?
I currently pay £92 per month to Virgin Media:
I just called Customer Retentions on 0800 0730591 (not 150) to try to renegotiate my package after the recent loss of Sky One. It took a while (15 mins) to get through on the Freephone number but it was worth it.
Without much pushing, the gentleman kindly summarised Wednesday night's episode of 'Lost' and then offered me:
As my mum used to say, 'If you don't ask, you don't get.'
Patrick Stuebing from Leipzig (near Germany) has a few issues
And I thought I had problems.
I celebrated my recent promotion (to BMI Silver) by ordering a brand new Dell computer running Windows Vista (Premium) and proudly attaching the tag to my suitcase.
I then spent hours ensuring I had secured the cheapest price possible and placed the order at 23:12 on Sunday night. Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from Dell confirming delivery for Thursday (at an unspecified time somewhere in a 10 hour window between 08:00 and 18:00).
So it appears that the assembly line at Dell is either very efficient or currently has spare capacity. If you hold stock in Dell and are hoping for better results this quarter, don't hold your breath.
Reminds me of the old joke about the Manchester City fan who calls Maine Road
'Eh mate. What time's kick-off tonight ?'
'Dunno - what time do you think you can get down here ?'.
Good evening. Blueyond - sorry - Virgin Media Customer Services. Carol speaking. How may I help you ?
Slight problem. I cant get Sky One any more.
'Yes, Sir. I know [sighs inwardly 'Oh God please not another one']. Those nasty people from Sky increased the prices and Sir Richard called their bluff. Unfortunately, a horrid Australian man called Rupert then called his bluff back so we can't show it any more.'
'But isn't that a prime example of the free market and competition in operation that Richard keeps telling us about ?'
'Oh no, Sir. This is a virtual monopoly that presents a real danger to the media industry worldwide and all our valuable subscribers. Well those that are left, anyway.'
'Well, why doesn't Richard retaliate by charging Rupert 10 times more for Living TV and Bravo+1 ?'
'Sorry, Sir. We did look into that option but it turns there are only 23 people on Sky who regularly watch those channels.'
'But you can't do that. I spend my life nagging my kids to stop watching 'The Simpsons' and knuckle down to their homework. What am I supposed to do now ?'
'I know, Sir. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and upset caused.'
'Never mind that. Don't you realise we are halfway through a series of Lost ?'
'Yes. I know, Sir. I also enjoy that never ending, inane, tedious, frustrating and yet somehow compelling series. If it's any consolation, I will now have to go round our Shirley's in St Helens every Wednesday night and make smalltalk with her idiotic husband just to get my weekly fix. Come to think of it, I might move to Sky.'
'How much refund will I get for the loss of the Sky channels ?'
'Refund, Sir ? Err, well I'm not sure about that, Sir. You see, we really didn't expect it to come to this. However you can always watch 'Little Britain' and 'Spooks' on the newly launched Video On Demand. The marketing lady thinks you might like to call it VOD.'
'Sod VOD. I'm sorry but that's simply not good enough. Please may I speak to Richard Branston ?'
'Sorry - do you mean Richard Branson ?'
'Yeah. That's him. The chap in a white wedding dress with a silly beard.'
'I'm sorry. That won't be possible. Maybe I can help ?'
'Can you get a message to Richard ?'
'Err, well, I'll try, Sir.'
'Has he got Sky One in his palatial Oxford mansion ?'
'Of course. I went there on my induction week. He's also got Sky Plus and a dodgy descrambler from eBay hooked up to receive satellite channels to follow the South American Ballooning Championships.'
'Can you ask him whether I would be breaching the Terms and Conditions by using a BitTorrent client to download the remaining episodes of 'Lost' ?'
'Certainly, Sir. Anything else I can help you with regarding your drastically reduced Virgin Media services tonight ? Perhaps you would like to downgrade your Internet connection to 56K dialup (free modem) for the same money. Or maybe I can tempt with with increased telephone charges to mobile numbers ?'
'Yeah, well actually there is something. Please can I speak to Uma ?'
'Sorry, Sir. Do you have a surname with that ?'
'Thurman. Uma Thurman.'
Stuart Brown from the excellent Modern Life asks Why is RSS adoption so abysmal amongst UK newspapers online ?' with some interesting analysis including the staggering fact (to me at least) that Modern Life has more Bloglines subscribers than The Daily Torygraph.
The detailed analysis in this article interested me. I (delude myself that I) am technically literate. I subscribe to around 100 varied feeds and am very lazy. I live in the UK and am interested in News, Sport and Technology.
I always buy a newspaper whenever I commute on a train and every Saturday (to avoid DIY). And yet, curiously, I do not subscribe to any RSS feeds from any UK newspapers (well apart from The Sun's excellent 'Unders The Covers With Page 3 Babes' podcast).
So I just visited the Web sites of the main broadsheets (Times, Torygraph, Independent and Grauniad) to try to determine whether I am missing out.
The Times recently relaunched the TimesOnline site so it will be interesting to see what RSS support is on offer.
Not a good start - no familiar orange RSS icon in the Firefox address bar. No obvious subscription options is visible. Sure enough, the 'Newsfeeds' information is buried down at the bottom of the page as an afterthought.
The Times offers a narrow choice of News (UK and World), Business, Sport, Tech and the ever popular Law. There is no specific feed for 'Football' so I am obliged to take an interest in horse racing, darts and snooker. No thanks.
As Andy Piper noted, the title of the Sports feed is imaginatively titled 'TimesOnline:rss'. Like most UK media providers, The Times provides a partial feed. Sigh.
A promising start. Automatic subscription option available from Firefox to 'Breaking News' and almost every area of the site. There are specific feeds for individual sports and the Football feed is sensibly called 'Telegraph Sport | Football'.
There is a useful help page describing the various subscription options which is useful for newcomers (including a NetVibes module). There is support for Blackberry and a mobile service for registered users (free subscription).
Like The Times, The Independent does not offer automatic RSS and hides subscription information at the bottom of the page. Range of subscription options but I completely turn off when asked to select the section(s) and then get presented with a feed URL to paste into my RSS reader !
Reluctantly, paste the URL into Google Reader. Again, The Independent offers partial feeds with a headline teaser to lure you to the main site.
As Modern Life reported, The Guardian is the longest established and arguably most successful (in terms of the number of online subscribers) of the UK 'quality' press. Automatic feeds are available from each section and the normal range of devices (phone/PDA) are supported with news alerts (free) and a digital edition (softcopy version of the print edition available for paid subscription).
Mini-newspapers are also available for free download in PDF format. I presume this is for transfer to a phone/PDA to read on the train. Howver, I think I would rather shell out for the print edition rather than waste 12 minutes and miss the 07:58 but this is a different format from the competition.
Interestingly, like the New York Times, The Guardian also offers its own newsreader, Newspoint, which seems to defeat the point of RSS but may be helpful for newcomers (or confused readers fed up with trying to subscribe to The Independent).
This sign in my hotel room intrigued me. Every time I entered the bathroom, I gazed at the sign. I found myself entering the bathroom to study the sign when I didnt actually need to use the bathroom.
Was the pipe hot or not ? Unfortunately, this towel rail wasn't listed anywhere on this site. Could the temperature really be as high as 140' F ? How hot is 140' F ?
Finally, just before I checked out, I gave in to temptation, removed the towels and grabbed the silver rail with my right hand.
The appliance was indeed hot, very hot, dangerously hot. Scaldingly hot, in fact.
I stretched my left arm to reach outside the bathroom door around to my laptop on the desk. I then somehow managed to type with my left hand and agonisingly Googled to find out how exactly long I could endure this torture before incurring a third degree burn.
The answer - 6 seconds. Unfortunately, thanks to my restricted movement and the agonising pain, it took me a full 45 seconds to discover this vital fact.
Finally, I could bear it no longer so I released my right hand and sunk it under the blissful sanctuary of the cold water tap at full blast.
I slowly gathered my bags, proceeded to check out (left handed) and told the receptionist that my lawyers would be in touch.
When I returned from evensong last night, after I had ironed five shirts and read a bedtime story to my loving (but strangely uncommunicative) teddy bears, I sat down with a hot cup of Horlicks to enjoy two hours of high quality Sunday night viewing.
I don't know why but I have always had an interest in 'conspiracy theories'. When I was a lad, I was convinced that
Of course, that was then. This is now. Back then I was a boy. Now I am a man (sort of). With the passing years, I have matured and changed my beliefs accordingly.
Imagine my horror, when last night's BBC Conspiracy Files tells me that 9/11 was the work of Al Qaeda terrorist cells coupled with failings by the US intelligence services.
This revelation shocked me. I was stunned. I was struggling to assimilate this bombshell which opened to question so many of my dearly held beliefs. To ease the pain, I poured the Horlicks down the sink and cracked open a Grolsch.
I quickly switched channels to FA Cup Match of The Day in an effort to restore a sense of normality. Another conspiracy - Manchester City had avoided an FA Cup giant-killing and beaten Preston.
That's it. I can't take any more. I am going to bed. Only I couldn't. I had to stay up to watch another deep, probing, investigative BBC program to finally which would surely prove that I am not clinically insane and confirm (or at least keep faintly alive) just one of my conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately,'The last 48 hours of Kurt Cobain' proposed the ridiculous assertion that Kurt Cobain was a manic depressive, heroin addict in denial with wild mood swings, depressed at his sought after fame and cult status, desperate to escape an unhappy marriage but simultaneously petrified of being denied access to his two year old daughter.
After another brief and unsuccessful attempt in rehab, Cobain embarked on yet another drug binge in Seattle before penning a suicide note and shooting himself in the head with a shotgun.
So the fact that Cobain's body had massive amounts of heroin that would have rendered him incapable of pulling the trigger, the fact that another hand wrote the closing line 'Please keep going Courtney, for Frances' and the curious fact that Cobain carefully tidied away his drug paraphernalia when dead are all just examples of yet another conspiracy theory.