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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The world's a strange place, Brendan...

It certainly is...

  1. The replacement for my old (now dead) iPod was delivered - twice. Mind you, the first time they sent me an 8Gb iPod Nano instead of the 120Gb iPod Classic. That had to be collected by the courier and then delivered to the lady in the Netherlands who was expecting it. Got the "proper" iPod yesterday, and it's grand. Normal service is resumed. Just expect that the Top 10 iPod tracks for this month will be, like, totally, different from last month's...
  2. In renovating our new home, we had to cut off the electricity supply in order to facilitate all the building work. A few weeks ago, the builder suggested that we really needed to get the electricity supply reconnected. In the meantime, building work would be pretty much suspended on the house. We contacted the electricity company and were told that we had to submit a certificate from the electrical contractor to state that the electrical works had been carried out to a certain standard before the electricity company would consider reconnection. We checked with the builder, who told us that the cert had been submitted weeks ago. In the meantime, a van from the electricity company was seen outside the house. We checked with the electricity company later, and were told that since it had now been confirmed that the electricity meter had been moved as a result of the renovation works, this was no longer merely a reconnection - this effectively was a new installation and we would have to get a cert from the electrical contractor...not only that, but the cost of the installation would have to be paid upfront - we'd have to wait for an invoice, send a cheque and then wait for 10 working days after the cheque had cleared before the electricity company would come out to connect us to the mains. Subsequently, they relented and said that the existing cert from the electrical contractor would suffice. On Monday, I had intended to tell the builder that it was likely to take another three weeks before we'd have the lecky at the house, but pressure of work prevented me from making that call. When I got home that evening, Mrs. P told me that Younger Daughter had told her that another van from the electricity company had been seen outside the house. Later that evening, I went over to the house to see what the story was. I found the box for the electricity meter, opened it, and there it was, a brand spanking new electricity meter waiting to be connected to the mains. We still haven't received the invoice to start the process of reconnection, and yet the process is almost complete...
  3. Today I got an e-mail from my ISP to say that the debit card which I use to pay my phone/internet bill had expired - 34 months ago... I was invited to update my card details online, but suspecting a possible phishing expedition, I rang my ISP to confirm the position. I was told that my card had indeed expired almost three years ago, but that the bank had kindly honoured the requests from the ISP to make deductions from my bank account. On an expired card. For three years...

What the hell is going on out there...???

Regards,


djp

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Good news/bad news/good news?

Last night I went to see Munster play Glasgow Warriors at the newly-developed Thomond Park in Limerick. It was a great game - Munster won 25-17 in a tight match. The new stadium is good, although I was a little bit disappointed that the areas under the stands are just bare concrete. A lick of paint wouldn't have gone amiss.

But boy was it raining. It came down in buckets. And as a consequence, it seems as if my iPod has got waterlogged. I have it in the hot press ("airing cupboard" to my non-Irish readers) at the moment to see if it will dry out. If it doesn't (bad news), then the cash I have spent on buying a new 120 Gb iPod will not have been wasted (I was thinking of getting a bigger iPod anyway). If it does dry out (good news), then I might use the old iPod in the car.

It's not really a question of winning or losing - it's more a question of interpreting a defeat as a victory.

We'll see how things pan out...

Regards,


djp

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

My Top 10 iPod tracks - 01/10/2008

  1. (-) - Camera - Wilco
  2. (-) - Bruckner - Symphony No. 7 - 1 - Allegro moderato - Chicago Symphony Orchestra
  3. (-) - Sunsquashed - Yo La Tengo
  4. (-) - The Frozen Lake - Mental Anguish
  5. (-) - The Mystery Of Twilight Part 1 (live) - Jah Wobble's Solaris
  6. (-) - Kluba Cupol - Cupol
  7. (1) - Better Things - The Kinks
  8. (2) - No Way Of Knowing - A. Tent
  9. (3) - From Me To You - The Beatles
  10. (4) - The Ballad Of John & Yoko - The Beatles

Regards,


djp