Monday, March 07, 2005
Adventure 13: 7th March 2005
"size 11 boots ? I should coco"...Afternoon all. Well it's another one of those days at work. MONDAY!, I don't like mondays, I'm gonna shoot the whole day down, cuh, should turn that in to a song and make a fortune I reckon..
Well what's been happening, well not much but here from dim and distant memory...
Saturday: 00:00: On the net doing some stuff, downloading some stuff and yes my 1mb connection is absolutely flying....at 4k a second, I toy with the idea of shocking the support guys at Noconnection (my ISP) from their slumber / game of halflife, but think better of it (you never get any sense out of them at that time anyhow), I'll leave it until the morning, still I've got games of Fifa to get done!
Saturday 5th March
09:45: Gotta take Ryan to stage school and he's naturally up and ready and raring to go, NOT !
Make the customary cup of tea for the wife and see if I can go and unweld him from his bed, given that he's got about 5 minutes to get ready and get out, that should be really easy. On my way back upstairs I notice a PC sat in the hallway. This can mean only one thing. One of my relatives has a problem and want me to look in to their PC problems.
10:15: Managed to get Ryan to stage school, albeit 5 minutes late, and I raise the issue of the PC with the wife who has the low down. "Leanne, has installed an "update", and since then the machine won't boot", "groovy" I think. Now then my brother in law has a problem with AVG and Inlook, my Mum has the same problem and now this one, don't ya just love having a skill, it must be the same for electricians or plumbers....
10:30: Check my internet connection, 4k a second grrr...so I'm on the blower to my ISP, "hillo, Abdul speking, crackle,crackle,hissss" I explain my problem, "ok, crackle, his, can you go to www.BloodyTerrible.com/speedtestoryourlife and run their speed test thing, crackle, hiss", "Ok" I say and quick as a flash I'm there at the site punching in my telephone number, I hit the by now infamous "Go" button (which is always a mistake as it does anything but Go! in my experience) and my PC sits there for about 2 hours doing the odd flash flash on the network connections screen.
11:00: Surely I can drag this out until lunch, but the natives are getting restless, and those doors just aren't going to make themselves...Out come the doors, resembling a bad DIY SOS television programme at present, nails sticking out of them and an overrun of glue that could frankly hold the forth bridge up and then I get, "err well I was wondering if you'd do my blind first...", "of course I will", I said, that wasn't what I was thinking but hey it all needs doing.
11:15: The blind is two inches too big...why can't they make windows or blinds the right bloody size ? This being a dark wood venetian blind means I have to break open the "How to narrow a dark wood venetian blind" toolking or my benchsaw as it's better known. The procedure is quite simple;
1. Unthread the 28 billion slats from the blind (this blind seems to have a 5 ft drop, anyone know of a window that is 3ft wide by 5ft long that's not stained glass ?
2. Remeberring to keep the slats the same way up as they were taken off (DOH !!!!) and using the universal sticks to nothing, except the stuff you don't want it to and itself, masking tape (that'll teach you to buy the really cheap stuff!!), bind the afore mentioned slats together so that the ends are all the same length (yeah right like that's just sooo easy)
3. Measure (with a tape measure not a bit of wood you had lying around!) the correct distance in from both sides, place a mark at the relevant place (nowhere near where it should be), then using a square or other straight edge, draw a line the correct distance in from each side (so that you can completely ignore it and cut far too much off)
4. Take afore said bound (and gagged wife) blind, to the garage and......
WATCH AS YOUR BLOODY MITRE SAW SHREDS THE POXY THING INTO MATCH STICKS !!!!!
5. Cut gently with a hand saw (that'll be where I'm going wrong !!)
6. Reassembly of blind is reverse of disassebly procedure....(aaagghhh) or....
7. Sit on the front room mat with your wife and thread the slats back on to the blind rememberring to point out that she's being really slow.
8. Wait until the last slat is being inserted, and comment that had she (your wife / partner) put the ladder inside the string it wouldn't fall off as soon as you try and move the blind (that one really got her ;-))
9. Screw unscrewable screws into double glazing unit, rendering it's draft proofing capability completlely useless, rememberring that the rawl plugs that come with things like this, even though they cost you 60 bleeding quid, cost about 1/2p to make and are consequently useless, especially since some nice builder ensured that there is a huge lump of metal just where you want to screw the bracket to.
10. Put up blind on fixings, ensuring to do this at arms length so that if it falls it won't kill you.
11. Before doing 10 ensure that all breakables are removed from the window sill below the blind, otherwise a lot of shouting and "why didn't you move them" cannot be avoided.
12. Invite wife / partner to comment on the loveliness of the new blind that cost you 60 quid, with comments such as "I'm not sure I like it now..." and other helpful comments.
13. Bite tongue, be calm and agree to anything she now wants to do.....
12:30: Lunch, Ryan "The Ac-tor" is back, me having picked him up, gone to homebase for some hinges for my doors (I am determined to get these done today), lunch ensues with both me and Ryan flicking furiously through the channels only to discover that the only TV programme worth any of us watching is in fact Football focus tch such a shame.
13:00: Lunch over back to the doors...Some wise old carpenter once taught me that if you're going to do hinges you need good sharp chisels, HAH, fat chance ! So the stanley knife comes out which isn't half bad you know. I only nearly took the skin off 3 knuckles which considering my chisels are about as dangerous as my nan and she's been dead for at least 5 years, is pretty lame. Thanks to the wife for that (wasn't all her fault, I had to scrape floor leveling compound off the kitchen floor with something and the bone handled knife had butter on it at the time !!).
14:00: Hinges are nearly on the doors....
15:00: No swimming today as POD is going to a fellow demon's so there's a least some peace, only shattered by Ryan's "shtupid bloody game" and lots of thumping.
16:00: Hinges are on the doors now just have to fix them to the cabinet.
16:30: Afixed the hinges to the cabinet. Good old CashBase, nice and straight NAAATTT!! So I fix them in place with their closers and hope that the passage of time straightens them out.
17:00: Checking my internet connection, and it's still bad, so I phone up Notonyourlife Internet services, and ask politely why it's not fixed. "ah, what's your reference number", "62941" I reply, "ah..." (much scurrying and rustling of paper), "what I need you to do is go to Bloody Terrible.com/speetest", "hang on a minute", I say, "I've sent this to you before why are we doing it again ?", "because the guy you spoke to last time didn't take down all the details", stifling my annoyance at this point, "try this address speedtests.speedtest.com/speedtest", I run up my browser and type in the address, then hit the "GO!" button (grr), 10 minutes later it comes back "4k a second" I reply, "and what makes you think this is slow ?" by now I'm gathering that the "support" guy is actually the tea boy and has only answerred the phone becasue they're at a critical point in their half life tornament... "because a 1mbps link should give me about 960kbps", "about 512kbps is normal", "eh?" I say, "about 512kbps is normal for a 1mbps link", "isn't that a 512kbps link" I say pretending to be really stupid, "no, 512kbps is much less than that, about 300kbps in reality"...ok I'm really not getting this....512 = 1mb hmmm...note to self, only pay them half this month... "it's the average" he explains, "ahhh now I understand, coz I normally get at least 900kbps", "yeah you will", "no not today or last night" I say,"this is how I know it's slow" I explain in words of one syllable..."please fix, let me know when it's fixed", "oh yeah ok, but we need you to send a screen shot in", "a screen shot ?" I say "of what?", "of your speed test", "you're joking aren't you?", "no Bloody Terrible won't talk to us unless we've done a speed test, "but it takes about 2 hours to run and I don't know if I'll be able to send it to you, given my problem", "try sending it from a friends PC"...erm yeah right like I know anyone else with broadband that lives say within a 5 minute walk of my house.
Fortuantely the email did go seems my problems are only one way.
SUNDAY 6th March 2005: MOTHERS DAY
09:30: Woken up, brought the wife her customary cup of tea that she won't drink because in half an hour it'll be cold!! Note to self, remember to look up superheating water on the net.
10:00: Kids come in and pretend to be interested in Mum opening her mothers day card which they didn't buy, to be fair POD has sketched his interpretation of armageddon on the back of the envelope which is nice....
11:00: Over to the mother in law's for tea and buns, she can't help herself she really can't.
13:00: Over to my mums for dinner (and to fix her PC).
17:00: Back home, checked my connectivity and low and behold all is now working again. No message, no email, just working...ah well you can't have everything you know.
19:00: The wife is stood staring in to the downstairs loo, "use it", I say, "it'll be fine", "no it's the blind" she says, "I'm still trying to decide if I like the colour...."
click......bang!.....
Well what's been happening, well not much but here from dim and distant memory...
Saturday: 00:00: On the net doing some stuff, downloading some stuff and yes my 1mb connection is absolutely flying....at 4k a second, I toy with the idea of shocking the support guys at Noconnection (my ISP) from their slumber / game of halflife, but think better of it (you never get any sense out of them at that time anyhow), I'll leave it until the morning, still I've got games of Fifa to get done!
Saturday 5th March
09:45: Gotta take Ryan to stage school and he's naturally up and ready and raring to go, NOT !
Make the customary cup of tea for the wife and see if I can go and unweld him from his bed, given that he's got about 5 minutes to get ready and get out, that should be really easy. On my way back upstairs I notice a PC sat in the hallway. This can mean only one thing. One of my relatives has a problem and want me to look in to their PC problems.
10:15: Managed to get Ryan to stage school, albeit 5 minutes late, and I raise the issue of the PC with the wife who has the low down. "Leanne, has installed an "update", and since then the machine won't boot", "groovy" I think. Now then my brother in law has a problem with AVG and Inlook, my Mum has the same problem and now this one, don't ya just love having a skill, it must be the same for electricians or plumbers....
10:30: Check my internet connection, 4k a second grrr...so I'm on the blower to my ISP, "hillo, Abdul speking, crackle,crackle,hissss" I explain my problem, "ok, crackle, his, can you go to www.BloodyTerrible.com/speedtestoryourlife and run their speed test thing, crackle, hiss", "Ok" I say and quick as a flash I'm there at the site punching in my telephone number, I hit the by now infamous "Go" button (which is always a mistake as it does anything but Go! in my experience) and my PC sits there for about 2 hours doing the odd flash flash on the network connections screen.
11:00: Surely I can drag this out until lunch, but the natives are getting restless, and those doors just aren't going to make themselves...Out come the doors, resembling a bad DIY SOS television programme at present, nails sticking out of them and an overrun of glue that could frankly hold the forth bridge up and then I get, "err well I was wondering if you'd do my blind first...", "of course I will", I said, that wasn't what I was thinking but hey it all needs doing.
11:15: The blind is two inches too big...why can't they make windows or blinds the right bloody size ? This being a dark wood venetian blind means I have to break open the "How to narrow a dark wood venetian blind" toolking or my benchsaw as it's better known. The procedure is quite simple;
1. Unthread the 28 billion slats from the blind (this blind seems to have a 5 ft drop, anyone know of a window that is 3ft wide by 5ft long that's not stained glass ?
2. Remeberring to keep the slats the same way up as they were taken off (DOH !!!!) and using the universal sticks to nothing, except the stuff you don't want it to and itself, masking tape (that'll teach you to buy the really cheap stuff!!), bind the afore mentioned slats together so that the ends are all the same length (yeah right like that's just sooo easy)
3. Measure (with a tape measure not a bit of wood you had lying around!) the correct distance in from both sides, place a mark at the relevant place (nowhere near where it should be), then using a square or other straight edge, draw a line the correct distance in from each side (so that you can completely ignore it and cut far too much off)
4. Take afore said bound (and gagged wife) blind, to the garage and......
WATCH AS YOUR BLOODY MITRE SAW SHREDS THE POXY THING INTO MATCH STICKS !!!!!
5. Cut gently with a hand saw (that'll be where I'm going wrong !!)
6. Reassembly of blind is reverse of disassebly procedure....(aaagghhh) or....
7. Sit on the front room mat with your wife and thread the slats back on to the blind rememberring to point out that she's being really slow.
8. Wait until the last slat is being inserted, and comment that had she (your wife / partner) put the ladder inside the string it wouldn't fall off as soon as you try and move the blind (that one really got her ;-))
9. Screw unscrewable screws into double glazing unit, rendering it's draft proofing capability completlely useless, rememberring that the rawl plugs that come with things like this, even though they cost you 60 bleeding quid, cost about 1/2p to make and are consequently useless, especially since some nice builder ensured that there is a huge lump of metal just where you want to screw the bracket to.
10. Put up blind on fixings, ensuring to do this at arms length so that if it falls it won't kill you.
11. Before doing 10 ensure that all breakables are removed from the window sill below the blind, otherwise a lot of shouting and "why didn't you move them" cannot be avoided.
12. Invite wife / partner to comment on the loveliness of the new blind that cost you 60 quid, with comments such as "I'm not sure I like it now..." and other helpful comments.
13. Bite tongue, be calm and agree to anything she now wants to do.....
12:30: Lunch, Ryan "The Ac-tor" is back, me having picked him up, gone to homebase for some hinges for my doors (I am determined to get these done today), lunch ensues with both me and Ryan flicking furiously through the channels only to discover that the only TV programme worth any of us watching is in fact Football focus tch such a shame.
13:00: Lunch over back to the doors...Some wise old carpenter once taught me that if you're going to do hinges you need good sharp chisels, HAH, fat chance ! So the stanley knife comes out which isn't half bad you know. I only nearly took the skin off 3 knuckles which considering my chisels are about as dangerous as my nan and she's been dead for at least 5 years, is pretty lame. Thanks to the wife for that (wasn't all her fault, I had to scrape floor leveling compound off the kitchen floor with something and the bone handled knife had butter on it at the time !!).
14:00: Hinges are nearly on the doors....
15:00: No swimming today as POD is going to a fellow demon's so there's a least some peace, only shattered by Ryan's "shtupid bloody game" and lots of thumping.
16:00: Hinges are on the doors now just have to fix them to the cabinet.
16:30: Afixed the hinges to the cabinet. Good old CashBase, nice and straight NAAATTT!! So I fix them in place with their closers and hope that the passage of time straightens them out.
17:00: Checking my internet connection, and it's still bad, so I phone up Notonyourlife Internet services, and ask politely why it's not fixed. "ah, what's your reference number", "62941" I reply, "ah..." (much scurrying and rustling of paper), "what I need you to do is go to Bloody Terrible.com/speetest", "hang on a minute", I say, "I've sent this to you before why are we doing it again ?", "because the guy you spoke to last time didn't take down all the details", stifling my annoyance at this point, "try this address speedtests.speedtest.com/speedtest", I run up my browser and type in the address, then hit the "GO!" button (grr), 10 minutes later it comes back "4k a second" I reply, "and what makes you think this is slow ?" by now I'm gathering that the "support" guy is actually the tea boy and has only answerred the phone becasue they're at a critical point in their half life tornament... "because a 1mbps link should give me about 960kbps", "about 512kbps is normal", "eh?" I say, "about 512kbps is normal for a 1mbps link", "isn't that a 512kbps link" I say pretending to be really stupid, "no, 512kbps is much less than that, about 300kbps in reality"...ok I'm really not getting this....512 = 1mb hmmm...note to self, only pay them half this month... "it's the average" he explains, "ahhh now I understand, coz I normally get at least 900kbps", "yeah you will", "no not today or last night" I say,"this is how I know it's slow" I explain in words of one syllable..."please fix, let me know when it's fixed", "oh yeah ok, but we need you to send a screen shot in", "a screen shot ?" I say "of what?", "of your speed test", "you're joking aren't you?", "no Bloody Terrible won't talk to us unless we've done a speed test, "but it takes about 2 hours to run and I don't know if I'll be able to send it to you, given my problem", "try sending it from a friends PC"...erm yeah right like I know anyone else with broadband that lives say within a 5 minute walk of my house.
Fortuantely the email did go seems my problems are only one way.
SUNDAY 6th March 2005: MOTHERS DAY
09:30: Woken up, brought the wife her customary cup of tea that she won't drink because in half an hour it'll be cold!! Note to self, remember to look up superheating water on the net.
10:00: Kids come in and pretend to be interested in Mum opening her mothers day card which they didn't buy, to be fair POD has sketched his interpretation of armageddon on the back of the envelope which is nice....
11:00: Over to the mother in law's for tea and buns, she can't help herself she really can't.
13:00: Over to my mums for dinner (and to fix her PC).
17:00: Back home, checked my connectivity and low and behold all is now working again. No message, no email, just working...ah well you can't have everything you know.
19:00: The wife is stood staring in to the downstairs loo, "use it", I say, "it'll be fine", "no it's the blind" she says, "I'm still trying to decide if I like the colour...."
click......bang!.....
# posted by cre8 @ 4:06 AM 
