Wadda Weekend!

Friday was a bit boring. I rang various companies and told them I had moved. There was much fun to be had spelling "Ty Gwerin" over the phone. I also told my previous landlord that I wanted to give notice that I was moving out. He didn't seem too impressed. As if I give a fuck that he has to find someone to replace me. There are always people looking for accommodation, so if they price the flat reasonably (which they don't, but that's their stupid problem) then they should have no trouble finding someone to move in.

After work I drove down to Liz's. I was followed by a Police car for a few miles at one point which was horrific. I hate Police cars, they instill a deep sickly fear in me. When I got to Newbury Liz answered the door sporting her stunning new hair-style. I freely admit that words failed me.

On Saturday we went for a walk to Thatcham and back, mainly to feed the Ducks/Ducklings that were to be found in abundance on the canal. We even got to witness 4 ducklings being led to water for, presumably, their first time. Nothing on this planet is more cute than a duckling jumping off a 1 foot high embankment into the water!

When we reached Thatcham we wandered down to the Nature Reserve and wandered around the lake. We went into the building to get an ice-cream and to try and find a particular species of water fowl. Having failed to identify said bird we then proceeded to begin walking back around the lake again, but paused to eat our ice-creams on a bench. Liz pointed out what was either a Rat or a Water Vole on the shore so we sat and watched it for a while. Eventually several others came out too so we threw them a load of bread. They too were ridiculously cute, especially when one was climbing on a bit of tree in the water and fell in.

Later that night we watched The Beach again. I'd not seen it in a while, and Liz fancied watching it again. It was then closely followed by one or two episodes of Futurama to relieve the depression The Beach left behind.

This morning wasn't quite so great. Long uninteresting story so I won't go into it. In the afternoon we walked to B&Q to get a pipe-fix kit for Liz's burst outdoor tap. Much umming and ahhhing over a kit that had bits missing we decided not to bother and instead get one online. Instead we got some swatches to try and decide some colours for Liz's new flat.

Time being short we didn't get to do much after that. I set off around 5pm. At 8:05pm the car overheated in the middle of nowhere (as usual). While I was waiting for it to cool down enough to put some water in, I decided to flick through the Hayne's manual to see what it had to say on the matter of overheating and to study the anatomy of the engine in closer detail. And then it struck me.

The water pump is driven by the timing belt. Therefore it has to be located at the bottom of the timing belt. While the Water Pump didn't seem to feature in the diagrams of the cooling system (god only knows why) I was eventually to locate it and confirm this. And there it was ... right above the Oil Sump. I'm now 95% certain it has to be the Water Pump that is leaking. I know for a fact that it is reasonably new (within the last year or so) and I know for a fact that the Garage it comes from has done some dodgy work on the car before (although my Mum will never admit this). So my thought is that the "O" ring on the water pump has perished and so, at certain temperatures/pressures it leaks.

After I filled the water up again I put the heaters on and opened a window so that as much heat as possible was drawn from the engine. I discovered that directing the air to the windscreen, and having the passenger window open allowed lots of heat to be drawn from the engine without burning the skin from my face, and so the rest of the way home like that. The car seemed to love it, it just wanted to go! The handling also seemed unusually good, but I don't know why that might be. I made it home only 15 minutes late, which is impressive considering I lost 30 minutes when the car overheated, and I was behind schedule because I had had to follow so many eejits that don't know where their accelerators are.

Managed to skid the rear of the car on a corner in Aberystwyth in true bad-boy racer stylee innit man it's whack bo. Wasn't even as if I was going all that fast - I attribute it to the strange mass of paint on the box junction there. It's just a good job there was no police around ;)

And now I am home and shattered and want to go to sleep.

THE END.

The Stupidest Error Message EVER?

What the hell am I supposed to make of that?! Sure made me laugh though.

That's bloody it

I'm not buying online anymore. It's such a fucking hassle. It's much easier to just go to the shops and buy the product by picking it up off the shelf, handing over my card, and walking away happy. If something goes wrong I can take it back, they can be apologetic, and I walk away happy with a replacement. Of course this isn't the case online. I tried to buy the Donnie Darko soundtrack from Play yesterday (I won't link to them - they don't deserve the increased link popularity) and they replied by email to tell me my address was wrong.

When I logged into Play it informed me my account had been declined because my address was wrong. I checked the details - no problems there. I rang the bank. They confirmed my address, as I knew they would. They send my god damned statements there so they HAD to have the address on record. So the problem was not with my bank as the email suggested. I've now emailed them back with an extremely angry email because I'm plain sick of all these stupid bastard online companies who are incapable of such complicated tasks as billing a debit card.

I think that succinctly sums up the way I feel about shopping online now. It's always fraught with problems. It's never as easy as "I want that, here is my card" which is how it is in a physical shop.

I am particularly proud of "I am stuck in the loop waiting for you people to pull your fingers out of your back-sides and push a button to take payment." ;)

About time I blogged I guess. It's been a while. The weekend wasn't particularly exciting so I had little to report during that time. All I did over the weekend was design my new website which doesn't make particularly exciting blogging news.

On Friday I hired Donnie Darko and had my brain severely messed with. I watched the film again on Saturday and it made a little more sense. At some point I will add my own analysis of the film to LoweyPages ... partly so that people who have watched the film and at the end have no idea what went on can get a rough idea, and partly so I can try and work it all out in my own head.

On Monday I had a meeting with Elaine Watkin at the Accommodation Office. She seemed fairly sympathetic of my situation which was good, and she found a place in Ty Gwerin that I can move into. My only gripe was that she seemed to talk down at me. She didn't talk to me, she talked at me. I filled out some paperwork and arranged to view the flat that evening. I was then sent down to the Student Financial Office because I told them I couldn't afford the £100 deposit until I got the deposit back from my current flat.

After I had been waiting for half an hour for the person who was already in the room when I arrived to leave I decided enough was enough. I could have been waiting there the rest of the day. I figured I could probably find the money from somewhere, whether it was borrowing from someone or whatever.

The room wasn't anything spectacular: Just a bog standard stundent halls room. Bed, desk, wardrobe, bedside cabinet. It was nice to see the network connection - high speed Internet connection here I come! The rest of the flat seemed alright, the kitchen was worryingly tidy. My only concern is that it might be noisey, but then considering I was up half the night last night because there was a collection of drunk bastards running up and down Portland Street yelling at the tops of their voices without regard for anyone...I don't think it can be much worse than that.

This morning I checked the funds in my bank. The gods were clearly smiling on me - my student loan had literally just gone in. I rang and confirmed that I would like to take the room. I've agreed to go to the student village with £100 later today to collect the key and then I can move in. I'll be paying about £120 per month less than I am currently paying...and I will also have the electricity bills paid for me. Plus there will be no BT charges, or Internet costs... so in total I shall be making a substantial saving.

Just in the nick of time too. The car really needs to go in and have the front tyre sorted out. Not sure how much it is going to cost, I must ring ATS and find out.

Last night I watched The Exorcist - what a messed up film! Thing is I found it hilarious at times because I saw Scary Movie II recently. The thing I didn't understand is this: The Mother of the Child walks into her room on several occasions and weird shit happens, like stuff flying around the room...the bed jumping up and down...a display cabinet moving under its own power across the room... and yet none of them ever seem to believe that she might be possessed. There are a number of "wrong wrong wrong sick and wrong" moments in the film though. My favourite example being "Let Christ fuck you!" If you've seen the film you'll know what I'm on about.

Work isn't going badly. I've finally managed to get the site looking about right without tables. Woo.

Tyre-slasher jailed for 16 months

Wow. That's quite, um, extreme. Personally I try my hardest not to drive through puddles in case I should soak someone because I've been the one who was soaked before now and it's not fun. When I was soaked I got angry, shouted stuff and what-not...but never been on a tyre-slashing spree before. 10 out of 10 for originality though.

10 days! That's quite a slashing spree. He must have just completely lost it.

I've just completely rearranged my office. The plan is to make it easier to see the door so that I don't have a heart attack every time my boss walks in. The room looks smaller now, but at least I now have my own area and can see the door.

Watched Scary Movie 2 last night. My opinion: It was OK. Nothing special. Not as good, even, as the first one. When I saw Tim Curry I thought "Oh, it's...er, um, errrr...him..." It wasn't until I saw Tim Curry in the credits that it twigged. I've seen Tim Curry in various recent films, but never linked him with Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, despite knowing he was Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

I've had my staff account less than 24 hours and have already received a Nigerian Scam email. I decided to have a little fun using Anony Email

Prediction 2

My second prediction has gone live on Lowey Predicts

Work

Had a fun day at work today. Spent most of it looking at my website in screen-readers. Well, I say looking...more like listening I suppose. It's not awful through a screen-reader...but it's not great either. I need to do some work on it to improve its screen-readability.

Spoke to a woman from IS about screen-readers on campus and accessibility tools. She told me a tool was about to be made available and she offered to let me know when. I gave her my email address and she said rather bluntly

"Oh you're an undergrad?"

"Er, yes." I replied. "I'm an Industrial Year student working with the OLU"

"Well don't you have a staff account?"

"No. I was told I could have one but not seen it yet."

She told me who to speak to. I spoke to them. I now have a new email address and free printing. WOO!

Car

After work I went to Halfords to purchase a new rear windscreen washer jet. They weren't sure which I needed, so they said "try this one. Bring it back if it's not right and we'll refund you"

So I tried putting it on while I was in the carpark, and it wasn't right. Turned out they didn't have one for a 106 and so I was told to go to the Peugeot dealer on Llanbadarn Road. They were closed. However they open tomorrow at 8:30 so I'll go before work.

The bugger is still leaking masses of water, and I still can't work out where it is coming from.

Easter Weekend

It has been a very long weekend. I am now back in Aberystwyth.

For a change (and to try and save some money on the toll bridge) I decided to return home via Gloucester. The last time I attempted this route I ended up getting lost in Hereford's messed up one way system, so this time I took my time to plan the route very carefully so that I was sure of where I was going. Apart from one screw-up on a roundabout everything went quite smoothly. Until I got onto the A44, that is.

First the car overheated. Strangely I wasn't all that far from where it overheated the last time. Luckily there was parking on the left the very moment I noticed the overheat light so I pulled off the road. It is good practise, I am told, to wait at least 30 minutes before putting water in the engine as otherwise the engine can be cracked because it cools down too quickly. So I allowed it about 40 minutes to be on the safe side.

The car couldn't have chosen a more scenic place to die though. Over a fence on the left was a field which sloped very steeply down to a river. Off to the right was a huge hill. I decided to go for a wander while I waited for the car to cool down, so I jumped the barbed wire fence and made my way down to the river, passing the cases of 4 old computers. What they were doing in the middle of nowhere I do not know.

On reaching the flat part of the field which led to the river I stopped - realising it was marsh. ERK! There was no way I was going any further than that, I had already checked my phone and discovered I was far too far out to get a signal, so I didn't want to get into any trouble. I went back to the car and waited in there instead.

After the car was up and running again I got back onto the A44. The car seemed happy enough and things weren't too bad until I rounded a corner and some complete twat in a 4x4 was driving, literally, down the centre of the road. I slammed the breaks on and he, when he noticed me, swerved back onto his own side of the road. My hand was then quite firmly slammed onto the horn just as soon as my heart started beating again.

Smooth sailing after that. When I got back I went into the kitchen and emptied the contents of the milk bottle I left on the side on Tursday down the sink. Whilst holding my breath. I then rinsed it thoroughly, flattened it and binned it, then opened a window or two.

Anyway it is now time for work so I shall have to go and almost certainly fill the car up with water again.

Comical Spam

People are still desperately trying to hack my website. They're all failing, of course. I was looking in my Hotmail Bulk Folder because I fancied a laugh and there was one mail. In it there were several jokes (presumably to try and make the spam look innocent) most of which were pants, but one really made me laugh:

heheheheheheh.

Parents

Yes I am at the parents for the weekend. Could be worse, not been having too bad a time. It's looking increasingly unlikely that I will be seeing any of my mates as I don't seem to be able to get hold of any of them, so no drinks for me. Well, except for all the free beer from the parents.

Found out that my brother has been arrested because his prints were found in a stolen car. He's been released on bail. Prat. He never ceases to amaze me. More than anything else I can hardly believe that me and my brother could turn out to be so different.

Tomorrow my Dad and I shall be spending however long it takes trying to get my ruddy car to remain water-tight. I managed to find a leak yesterday coming from the top-left of the radiator - which is what I originally suspected. However, this seems to be an on-and-off problem. The other leak is somewhere in the vicinity of the sump, which is going to be a much more difficult task. My Dad has stolen the ramps from my Grandad's cellar. Not that my Grandad could complain, what with being dead and all.

A client for my webdesign company has been hounding me all weekend, but I refuse to answer his calls while I am on holiday (yes, sad but true...I consider going home to see my parents a "holiday"). No doubt he wants to know why I haven't replied to his email that asked me to redesign his entire website for free. Some people go beyond the realms of amazing me.

This evening I have been mainly fixing the parent's computer which my sister repeatedly screws up. There were 125 ad/spyware registry keys, 3 recognised registry values and 1 adware process running according to Ad-aware. I also uninstalled mountains of crap (mainly those infuriating Internet Explorer toolbar add-ons) and cleaned the old mouse, as the new one was a god-awful pile of rubbish. The computer now starts in next to no time at all, and is much more stable.

Now I need to design a certificate that is "state of the art" for my Mum. Not sure what "stae of the art" means in the world of certificates, but I will do my best.