No Stone Unthrown

Our office borders on to a local council estate. Along the boundary wall on the council estate side there is a green area which is something like 40-50 yds long. On our office side there are car parking spaces. The office building is maybe 10-20 yds away from the boundary wall.

There have been recent incidents of people throwing (or otherwise propelling) golf balls at the office windows directly parallel to the green area. Nobody knows who is breaking the windows, but it would not be unreasonable to at least suspect that some of the vandals might, perhaps, be residents of the council estate (all those qualifications...).

Yesterday, at work, one of the lads in the office mentioned that there were kids throwing stones at the cars parked in the spaces along the boundary wall. I decided to do a bit of discreet investigation, so I went to the gents' convenience which overlooks the boundary wall.

Looking out the window, there was little to be seen initially. There was some bits and pieces of assorted junk in the green area and what looked like a young tree which had been knocked over or cut down. Within a minute or so, this young boy, possibly 9 or 10 years old, light hair and wearing a purplish hoody, strolled onto the green area, followed quickly thereafter by another young boy with a light blue T-shirt and dark hair. He was probably around the same age as Hoody. The last of the trio to appear was a little girl with long blonde hair, tied back in a pony-tail. She was 5 or 6 years old max.

Suspecting that something was about to happen, I opened the convenience window a crack more to get a better view. Within a minute, Hoody had hauled himself up the boundary wall and was (for want of a better expression) draped over it. Next thing, he starts throwing small pebbles at the windscreen of a Citroen Xsara Picasso that was directly in front of him. After another minute, he progressed to pouring gravel onto the bonnet of the car from some form of container like a cocoa tin.

At this point, I decided to ring our building managers to advise them of the situation.

Bad and all as Hoody had been up to this stage, he really stepped over the line when he started dropping rocks onto the bonnet of the Citroen. Whatever damage the pebbles and gravel might have done, there was no doubt that the rocks were doing serious harm.

I got out my camera phone and tried to take some photos of the carry-on, but I was not at all confident that they would come out OK. So I decided to shout out the window at Hoody, who by this stage had slid down from the wall and was ambling around the green area.

"Hoi", I shouted, "I've got your picture on my camera!".

Hoody merely pulled his hood over his head, covered his face with his hand á la Martin Cahill and flipped me the bird.

While all this was going on, little Blondey was running around the green area having a great time. When I shouted at her that I was going to take her picture, she shouted back to me "I don't give TWO SHITS!"

All three kids then proceeded to hide behind the felled tree.

When I was kid (and up to divilment as was my wont from time to time), I'd practically crap meself if some adult caught me in the act and shouted at me. But now...

Well, you know, at this stage, there really wasn't much point doing anymore about this. The appropriate authorities had been informed, so I want back to my desk and discussed the issue with my colleagues.

Apparently the cops turned up to hunt the kids away, but they came back within minutes.

I don't know what the fallout of this will be. I don't know if the kids were local to the estate, and I'm not saying that they are, but it would not be unreasonable to at least suspect...

Regards,


djp

Warning!!!

...and speaking of iPods...

Do NOT download/install Version 7.3.2.6 of iTunes. It totally screwed up my iPod, requiring me to "restore" the device and re-load my tunes, which was a real pain in the bum as I had more tunes archived than I have capacity to play on the iPod, so I had to go through the archive and select tracks individually. I almost got RSI as a result.

And of course, playlists and count info were lost as a result. Bum-mer.

Essentially, iTunes would not eject the iPod properly, so any changes would not be saved. After much to-ing and fro-ing (incl. several deletions/reloads of iTunes), I finally got the software to work using Version 7.2. Everything is tickety-boo on a going forward basis.

Seems there's a lot of grief on the Apple forums in relation to V.7.3.2.6 and Apple appear to be less than helpful in their responses ("OK, is the iPod connected? OK, are you wearing odd socks?").

It's always useful to keep things in perspective and my tribulations with iTunes are as nothing when compared to the plight of those poor souls in Darfur, but I really hate it when shit I've paid for doesn't work.

Speaking of which, my Canon printer is on the blink. Always happens when I change cartridges...

Regards,


djp

A close shave

I suppose I can count this as a lucky escape...

I have been an enthusiastic user of most aspects of the internet since 1996, and although I've had a few "moments" online (principally, the occasional "flame war" between various people who, like me, really had too much time on their hands and should have been living in the real world for a change), I've never really had a serious problem to date.

Until this week, that is...

...it all started with my damn iPod. It's only (listen to him - "only") a 30 Gb model and I have maxed it out on a number of occasions, so a half-notion was half-forming in my head that maybe I should trade up to a larger model. And everything would've been fine if that half-notion had remained in its incomplete state and locked away in the old noodle...

...unfortunately, last Sunday, after a nice trip to the local pizzeria where a rather lovely pepperoni pizza was washed down by a rather fine South African Merlot, to be followed by more than one digestif in the local boozer, I arrived home after midnight, feeling nicely anaesthetised. And instead of doing the right thing (i.e. going straight to bed and having a nice little kip for meself) what did I do but log onto Ebay.

Now, I'm a great lad for setting retroactive rules and breaking them proactively. And the greatest (and most broken) of all these rules is "Never Go Online Drunk". How do you think all those "flame wars" mentioned above started? Normally I'm a quiet, reserved individual with little to say for myself and with a deep respect for the opinions of my fellow human beings. But after a few beers, I can get a little...er...assertive. Always, in retrospect, I chide myself most severely for the stupidity of my actions which are utterly predictable and totally avoidable. But how quickly we forget.

Anyway, I think you can see how this tale is developing:-

1. - perceived need for a new iPod
2. - rather a lot of liquid ballast on board
3. - Ebay

In the space of about ten minutes, I was "inspired" to put bids on 8 separate 80Gb iPods. Now, in fairness to me, the maximum bid I put on each of the iPods was significantly less than what I expected the yokes to go for in auction. But that's not the point - worst case scenario, if each of those bids had, for whatever reason, been successful, I would have been the befuddled owner of 8 iPods at a cost to the exchequer of about €1,800.

OK, I would probably would have been able to move my surplus on through Ebay, but how long would it take to do that? And would I make my money back?

So, you can understand how I felt on Monday morning when I'd realised what I'd done ("blind panic" would be a pretty good description) . I logged onto Ebay to see how things were going, and realised with horror that I was the top bidder for all 8 iPods. Now, all of the auctions had different finishing times, so in one sense the potential financial calamity I faced was somewhat diluted. Having said that, the agony was also prolonged, in that it would take a number of days for all the auctions to work through the system.

You must understand that it's not as if I've never been on Ebay before. I know how these auctions work - long periods of relative inactivity, and then a flurry of bidding and counter-bidding as the auction comes to a close. So logic told me that there really was no problem - I'd be outbid in all auctions and I'd live to tell this as an amusing tale to the lads in the tea-break next week. But logic is a poor friend to have when you're looking at the auctions regularly and seeing little sign of being outbid.

Of course, the story ends well. I was outbid on all 8 auctions, so I have come through the experience with my finances intact, my slack ways identified and a strict vow of sobriety online proposed (again).

I could still do with a bigger iPod though...:-)

Regards,

djp