Rolodex propaganda

‘I sit at my table, and wage war upon myself’ REM – World Leader Pretend

After swearing that we would no longer go to gigs without seating and much stricter door policies, this morning we allowed Mary to book us two standing tickets for Green Day in the summer. Go figure.

The last few days have been computer hell. I feel like we have spoken to just about anyone with any knowledge (however basic) about computers and still had to solve everything ourselves. The story is as follows. We used to have Tiny as our isp, mainly because it came loaded on the pc & we could pay by direct debit. All was fine, I could even stand the huge f*ck up that was their billing service. Then at the end of February our browser crashed. We could connect to the server and the modem was fine, but we couldn’t load a web page, not a single one. I spent a good hour on the phone to various Tiny numbers (all costing a fortune) and discovered, eventually that it was a server problem. *phew* Two weeks later and still no connection we decided enough was enough and cancelled it & called AOL. We’ve used aol fine until, well Wednesday this week and suddenly the same thing happened. Connecting fine, but no web pages. Aol said it was Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft said it was Tiny, Tiny said it was aol. It was a never ending circle. We tried to upgrade our explorer, but that didn’t fix it either. After another, slightly abusive call to Tiny last night we decided there was only one solution. Save everything we needed and restore the hard drive. So this morning we put in the ‘restore system discs’ and hoped for the best. *touch wood* it’s all working again. But this means I now have to reinstall everything again and I don’t know if I can be arsed to install things like icq and msn messenger as we barely use them. Fingers crossed that it is all working fine and for good now (and thanks to Sapphire for saving my FreeOD from deletion – I don’t feel quite ready to say godbye just yet)

I did, however, say goodbye to my car this week. After being sat on the road for almost six months I arranged to have some scrap car people come and tow it away. Most disturbing thing about this was that they didn’t even find the right house to begin with and Duncan spotted them round the car, which meant he could go out and give them the necessary papers. It appeared that they would have taken the car without them, which I’m quite sure isn’t legal.

Still no word on the writing job. I have to say it doesn’t look good. Maybe the other one (researcher/writer) will be a better prospect. Of things I have to look forward to this week: one of the meter reader team leaders that I deal with in London is coming to Newcastle for two days and we have to take him out on wednesday night. It will be interesting to put a face to the voice, but I am definitely feeling like I am being sucked deeper in. It’s like quicksand. The more I struggle and try to escape, the deeper it pulls me under. I have to admit the strength to escape is fading. I know that if I stick out another 3/4 months I’ll have a permanent contract, a bit more money and the chance to apply for a team leader position. Hardly what I had in mind, but at least it’s money right? So what if I spend the rest of the time there feeling like I’ve achieved nothing and wasted my degree? At least I’ll have a job. Woo hoo.

Until there is a next time…

xx