Now with added treble

The crystal clear sound in my left ear died again last night when I put in my ear drops. Ah well.

At lunch today I went back to the doctors again to get my ears syringed, so I knew I would get the hearing back soon enough.

I've just got back. My right ear refused to unblock, so I have to continue using the ear-drops in it and go back on Monday to get it syringed again. She kept blasting it with water but it didn't seem to make any difference. Then she started on the left ear. There was a sudden pop and intense gurgling sound and vastly improved hearing in my left ear. She had another try on the right ear but to no avail.

Although the hearing in my left ear seemed better, I was still unsure as to whether it was "right". I still seemed to be able to hear more of what was going on inside my head than outside but I didn't say anything, thinking it would probably just be water.

I went home and made some lunch, marvelling at how different everything sounded. The difference was most noticeable with things with a large range of tones, such as running water.

After lunch I went and put the drops in my right ear. I lay on my side for a minute or two to let the drops soak into my ear. They didn't seem to be sinking right down though, so I tilted my head to a funny angle to help gravity do its work, when suddenly my left ear cleared and I can't describe the way the world suddenly sounded. I had to leave for work, so I picked up my keys and stared at them in disbelief. Never have my keys sounded like that before. They suddenly seemed crackly and very very loud.

I left and the door closed behind me. Not with a dull "click" as it always had done in the past, but with an almighty "crack". I locked it and it went "crunch". My jacket seemed to make crinkling noises every time I moved. There was a funny whispy noise like the wind as I walked to the car, which I suddenly realised was my breathing. The car sounded like a tractor. When I got to work I saw the cleaning lady at the top of the stairs who said "hi". I said "hi" back and then walked into the office with a huge grin on my face. Nothing sounded the same, everything sounded clear and sharp and loud and close. Everything sounds exactly the same and completely different at the same time. Even my keyboard sounds somewhat more clicky and plasticy than before.

I'm not looking forward to having the other ear syringed again, it's not a pleasant procedure. It makes my ear feel really itchy inside and it's extremely noisey in the ear that is being dealt with, but if it means I can hear like this in both ears (wow, directional hearing - that's a novelty idea) then I'm up for it.

I can HEAR!

I had to nip home to get my badminton kit as my brain is firmly set to "Monday mode". Dashing out of the office at a quarter to twelve I got half way down the stairs when I realised I had left my car keys in my coat - in the office. I ran back up the stairs, grabbed the coat and then started rushing back out of the office. Passing the secretary's desk there was a sudden pop and glorious crystal clear stereo hearing.

I'll still go to the Doctors tomorrow to get my ears syringed though. My right ear, ironically, is sounding a bit quiet now. It's such a wonderful relief finally getting my hearing back. I was so excited that the secretary asked me if I was ok. Suddenly the car sounds very noisy once again. Ah well, you can't have everything ;)

Took a battering in Badminton. I think I will just have to accept that I am not as good as the others. Matt, my colleague, has taken to it like a duck to water. After two very fast hard games I was completely shattered and had to take a break and get a snack as I was feeling dangerously low on blood sugar. A 10 minute rest, some sugar and some water and I was back in there playing doubles and giving John and Matt a run for their money. Sadly we didn't get to finish that game which was a shame as it seemed quite nicely matched.

Now to go back to screaming at Netscape 4, Mozilla, Internet Explorer and Opera. I want to get the website looking readable in NS4 without breaking the (now correctly formatted) version in Mozilla/IE/Opera. Sounds simple doesn't it? The slightest change can have the biggest consequences in one or all of the other browsers.

Sasser

To avoid any potential problems from the Sasser virus I have decided to patch my work computer, although the machine has been running quite happily all morning without any trouble. Anyway I've just gone to the MS Update site where there are 5 critical updates for my machine. 1 of them is for Outlook, which I don't use. 1 of them is for Internet Explorer and a small bug meaning it has trouble reconnecting to some servers. Big deal. I only use it for testing my website anyway. The remaining 3 all have the same description:

And people wonder why I am skeptical of using Windows.

I'm trying to reduce the number of links to the news I post here, but this caught my eye.

What?! If said small businesses employed anyone with more than half a brain-cell they would have protected the computers properly to begin with. If they are unfortunate enough to have not protected them then surely they can simply download the fix from Microsoft?

Once again it comes down to the simple unavoidable truth: Microsoft have gone a long way to bringing computers to the masses. I can not dispute this one simple truth, however they have given people too much power that they do not understand. If you want my opinion the government should force Microsoft to set Windows up (by default) so that the users have minimal privellages so that they have to go out of their way to gain extra rights on their machine.

What the hell?

Phew

A quick rundown of the weekend:

On Friday I drove down to Liz's. The journey was as boring as ever. Liz mentioned that Ricey had invited her to a party in Leicester. We bought a bottle of Bailey's to mark Liz's final day of being able to ingest dairy products (she's vegan again now) and settled down to watch Bernard and the Genie once again; it's a timeless classic.

In the morning we went shopping and sorted some stuff out. Then in the late afternoon we set off for Leicester. Liz navigated flawlessly and the only place we went wrong is in the middle of Leicester where we ended up on a bus-only route. We dropped the car off at Ricey's and went inside for a beer and to shout at stupid gameshow contestants and stupid gameshow hosts.

We went to Bruce's place for the party, taking our bottle of Bailey's with us. There we drank Bailey's and wine and ate lots and lots of delicious vegetarian foods. Kerni had made muffins which were delicious, although my brain struggled to cope with the idea of the savoury Carrot and Coriander muffins. After we had played "pass the arse", a rather silly mutation of the classic game "pass the parcel" we all ended up outside listening to Bruce and sideshow Matt playing guitar and singing completely out of synch; which was entertaining.

This eventually mutated into singing without guitars. After a few hours of this I was starting to feel a little more sober. In fact I reached that dangerous stage where I am very nearly sober and have no inhibitions. If ever there is a time for me to make a fool of myself it is when I am in that halfway house stage.

I sang.

Yes I know I don't sing or dance, but that night I sang. I'm not quite sure what came over me, whether it was the alcohol in my system or the great atmosphere, but I ended up singing "Sweet Transvestite" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show Liz tells me it was a very good rendition, however it has been very firmly locked into the vaults in my memory labelled "too embarrassing to contemplate within the next 50 years - DO NOT OPEN".

At around four in the morning we decided that the neighbours had probably had enough of us and so we all went inside, and then we all decided to naff off and get some rest. We headed back to Ricey's and went to sleep on the floor at about five.

By nine I was awake again with severe pain all over from awkwardly on the floor and a minor headache from the alcohol my body had suffered. Liz woke up too, so we decided to raid Ricey's DVD collection.

An entire DVD of Black Books and many many episodes of Father Ted later we decided it was time to go for a walk to burn some of the unholy number of calories we had eaten the previous night.

Our walk took us down the canal in Leicester until we got so thirsty that we had to walk down some huge road in search of a shop to get a drink from. We headed back to Ricey's again, stopping in Safeways to get some food where Ricey and Liz kept vanishing in different directions. I realised just how tired I was when I misread "Leicester" on an advert on the noticeboard as "Lobster Sex". No kidding.

We drove home not long after we got back where I seemed adament to try and jump every red light in Leicester. I think it was just tiredness, but I soon got back in the zone again.

When we got back to Liz's we decided to go to Blockbuster and hire Duets. That's the first time I'd ever been to a Blockbuster shop and I don't particularly want to repeat the experience if I can avoid it. The place was full of chavs who didn't know how to queue and who stood right in the middle of the aisles making it impossible to move. In the end we hired Love Actually too as Liz wanted to watch it again.

I drove back again at about 5 today and was infuriated by the number of morons driving at 25-30 Mph in 60 Mph zones. It seemed every moron was on the roads today, but hey it could have been worse. I basked in the glory of not having to skid off the road at 60 Mph to fan my engine down to a sensible temperature. By which I mean the car didn't overheat. \o/

Now I need some dinner as I am HUNGREH!

Off to Newbury

I shall be departing in about three quarters of an hour, so there shall be no blog this weekend. In fact it's bank holiday weekend so I shall not be blogging until Monday evening at the earliest. I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing long weekend with Liz. Sounds like she needs a hug, I know I do.

According to my Dad the price I paid for the car was a bargain, which makes me a lot less grudging to hand the money over.

I've just realised I left my damn ear drops at home, so I shall have to go home before setting off for Newbury. D'oh.

Anyway, until Monday evening or perhaps Tuesday morning... tarah!

Is it just my imagination or is BBC News full of spelling and grammatical errors today? Some of the articles I have read I have had to re-read 3 or 4 times just to work out what the hell they are trying to say, it's like reading the work of a junior school child in places.

And that solves the mystery of the missing keys...

The car is still allive! Even the tyre seemed to remain inflated this morning. I'm very pleased with the job that Graham did, when I get some more money I'll have to take it back there and get him to fix the other minor inconveniences on it too, such as the driver side window that winds down ... but not up again. And the passenger side speaker that frequently forgets to work.

Last night I tore my room apart looking for the keys to my old flat. I wanted to get some stuff from it, but I couldn't find the keys anywhere. While I felt certain that I hadn't locked them in I still had that horrible sickly feeling that is reserved for such special occasions. Worse still they could have dropped out of my pocket. This is made even more worrying by the fact that I had put the keys back onto the keyring they originally came with: A bright yellow plastic fob with the address written on it.

Eventually I decided I would have to simply wait until I got to work before doing anything, as there was the possibility I could have left them in the drawer of my desk.

And here they are. In my desk. Little bastards, they caused me so much trouble. I don't know why, but I seem to get angry when I eventually find what it was I lost. The longer I spend looking the angrier I get when I find them. Maybe it'd be better if I just never found things I'd lost?

I just found a switch next to the sink in the kitchen with just one word on it: "Press". No label to say what it is for or anything, just "Press". While part of me is screaming to press the button another part of me is a little more cautious.

Random switches could belong to anything. It might cause the end of all civilization as we know it. Perhaps it is a self-destruct for the building. Maybe it opens a secret entrance to another world. The possibilities are endless, and oh so exciting and scary, but the chances are it will just switch on the extractor fan. I think I'd rather not find out and leave it as a mystery.