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Posted from my new Nokia E61

by Suw on November 30, 2006

Currently at home, using my Nokia E61 to post to my blog using the standard Blogware web interface, via my Dad's wifi. Nice!

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A Hallowe'en Frank

by Suw on October 31, 2006

After much consideration, discussion and changing of minds, this year Kev and I decided to try a Frank pumpkin. Frank, of course, being the big scary rabbit from Donnie Darko. Easier said than done because he doesn't exactly have a face that reduces easily to shades of light and dark. We also had problems with an overripe pumpkin which managed to be both squishier and thicker-walled than we would have liked. The carving was a wee bit rushed, and lack of good pumpkin carving tools does sort of limit one's finesse, but still… it's a jack o'lantern. We will have to refine this design for next year. And get some better cutting implements.

Frank, the Donnie Darko Jack O' Lantern

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Bye bye Blackberry, Blackberry bye bye

by Suw on October 31, 2006

So that's it. My fling with the Blackberry Pearl is over. It has been sent back to T-Mobile, from whence it came.

I tried to buy a Nokia E61 instead, on the same Web 'n Walk plan, but T-Mobile has taken against me quite severely, telling me first that “because of your credit status we are unable to offer you a pay monthly phone”, and then when I tried again, “We're sorry but we're currently unable to
place your order, as your credit status prevents us offering you an
additional line on your account.”

Bullshit. My credit rating hasn't taken a dive in the last week, and no, thank you very much, I don't want to buy a copy of my credit report directly from the credit reporting company. This is more about T-Mobile's stupid system wherein you can't keep an account but change the phone, you have to cancel the account and then buy a new one with a different phone.

This is the most appalling customer service. First, they missell me the phone, now they are refusing to sell me the phone I actually want.

I'm tempted to just stay with Orange, but to be honest, the T-Mobile plan is a lot cheaper than the Orange one, and Orange don't seem to have the same range of phones. Luckily, my Treo seems to have magically healed itself (for the most part), so I wonder if the wig-out was due to water in the works rather than anything intrinsically wrong with it. Although the slowly growing yellow wiggly squiggle on the screen remains so it is definitely still on its way out.

This will all get sorted out eventually, but only the little fishes know when. Meantime, use the old phone number if you're going to call me because the 'new' one no longer works.

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When boyfriends break things

by Suw on October 28, 2006

You may have noticed a sudden slew of old posts being republished here, all of which have now been deleted. You may be wondering wtf that was all about.

It's ok. It was just Kevin playing with my Treo – he hit 'Sync All' in mo:Blog, thus causing it to republish a whole bunch of stuff I wrote last year.

Special apologies to William Meloney who left a very nice comment on the reposted version of this post, The Connected Life from May last year, which has sadly now been deleted. William, I can respost it to the old post if you like – I still have it on email. Just let me know.

As for Kevin, well, it's lovely to have a boyfriend who is both curious and technically inept. It provides me with hours and hours of fun. I'm just not going to mention either the Sony Minidisc or the iPod here. No sireee. Not once.

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Air travel made yet more miserable

by Suw on October 26, 2006

As if flying isn't enough of a hellish chore these days, with daft hand luggage restrictions, over-zealous security and long waits, the French have decided to go one better with their new MP2 terminal at Marseilles:

The city of Marseilles has seen the future – it has no carpets. A minimalist, no-frills air terminal, intended specifically for low-cost airlines, opened yesterday beside the city's existing airport.

Carpets are replaced by a painted concrete floor. There is no air conditioning. Passengers have to carry their own bags from check-in to security control. There are no luggage trolleys. There are no shuttle buses or swivelling gangways to reach the aircraft. Travellers walk across the tarmac to reach their planes.

Independent Online Edition > Europe

Wonderful. That's just want I wanted. A miserable flight that lands at a miserable airport. It sounds worse that Charles de Gaulle:

The MP2 terminal at Marignane, near Marseilles, looks remarkably like a
freight hangar. That is not surprising. Two years ago, it was a freight
hangar.

Passengers will be encouraged, and expected, to spend as little time in
the terminal as possible. There are only 30 seats in the whole building.

Bugger that for a game of soldiers.

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London Underground is fscking uselesss

by Suw on September 9, 2006

Stuck outside Holloway Road station waiting for it to be opened. It's shut (exit only) because there's a football match on at the Emirates Station and apparently there have been too many people using the station. They are also saying that it going to be shut every time there's a match on. Great.
I haven't minded the disruption caused by matches – the roads closing and the flood of supporters. But this is really annoying. Apparently “there was a sign up” but signs are easy to miss, and frankly that's not enough. At the very least LUL or, more appropriately, Arsenal should have given leaflets out, and ideally they should have leafleted every house and flat in the area. If I had known I could have walked to Caledonian Road which was unaffected.
Oh, and Kings Cross is shut, and the Victoria Line and Northern Line apparently suspended. Bloody useless. LUL are about as useful as a fart in a jacuzzi.

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Oh, you tease!

by Suw on May 16, 2006

Sitting at Heathrow, minding my own beeswax when I get a text from T'Other. The new MacBook is out. A replacement for the iBook, it goes five times faster, has at last audio in/out, a built in iSight camera and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. And at a snip of a price.
I just burnt through a chunk of my monthly data allowance on my Treo looking at the mobile browser unfriendly Apple site, and drooling. I really want one. I abuse my iBook so badly – multiple apps with multiple documents open and multiple tabs in FireFox and Camino. I could really do with a CPU that can deal with such behaviour, because there's no way I'm gonna change.
Can't wait to get to online so I can compare with the MacBook Pro.

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Off, off and away!

by Suw on May 10, 2006

So T'Other and I are off to Warsaw today for the EBU Radio News conference. I'm very excited because I've never been to Poland before. However, this trip is not without its ironies. I've let my Polish learning go, so am entirely linguistically challenged and my phrase book is still in Dorset so I am going to have to buy a new one. Still, we have a little time outside of the conference to explore the city, so will make the most of it.
Meantime, access to the internet will be patchy, and will to find access even patchier still. See you… later.

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Posting from an QTEK 9100

by Suw on April 8, 2006

So T`Other`s brother (ooh! that rhymes!) has this really great PDA/phone called a QTEK 9100 or an XDA mini S depending on who`s selling it to you. I've been thinking of getting one of these for a while and now I'm getting to play with one and I have to say that so far I really like it. This blog post is being written using IE and the old fashioned admin pages, and it's working just fine over our wifi network. Nice! I might just have to go get myself one of these.

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Information

by Suw on January 19, 2006

Walking towards Bank station just now, my train of thought was somewhat derailed by two fire engines hurtling round the corner. Then an ambulance. A HEMS car (Tom can explain what that is.) Then the police, in cars and on bikes. More sirens.
By this time I'm at Bank and the entrance is closed. More police. More ambulances. Wouldn't be surprised to hear a chopper in a second. No one has a clue what's going on, though. Clearly the station is closed – the cluster of emergency services vehicles and personnel attest to that.
I start walking to the nearest bus stop.
What you have to realise about Bank is that is has about 9 different entrances, and links underground to Monument station. Obviously all entrances are shut. But each one seems to have a fixed sign on it that says 'When this entrance is shut, use X other entrance'. As most of the entrances are out of sight of each other, there's no knowing that there's no point walking to another because it too will be shut, no way of knowing that the emergency services are on site unless you walked past them. I see people going from entrance to entrance, trying to figure out what's going on.
No gate has a temporary sign saying 'Station closed'. There are no LUL personnel around to tell you.
How hard would it be to actually put up a sign on the gates when the station is shut? A little information goes a long way and it'd save us punters from a lot of confused milling about.

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The sorting that evens things out

December 8, 2005

Still insanely busy, as you may have surmised. Keep hoping it will calm down, but every quiet day is ruined by a crisis. I have so much unread and pending email I don't know where to start. Paris was fun, but not relaxing (more on Paris if I ever get the chance to sit and […]

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Where went my quiet week?

November 24, 2005

A pattern appears to be emerging. I look at my diary on a Monday and notice that it looks comfortably empty. About thirty seconds later I get a slew of emails and suddenly my week looks like the revenge of the iCal Gnomes. I get up, deal with urgent ORG stuff, go in to see […]

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Not all things that are lost stay lost

November 15, 2005

I found my favourite earring. There's a lesson in there somewhere, I'm sure, although it's probably less about the nature of possession and more about things you shouldn't do whilst wearing earrings. Funny how a delay on the train when I have my Treo and a blog post to write isn't as bad as when […]

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The trouble with favourites

November 7, 2005

The thing about having favourite things is that you face a dilemma. Either you put your favourite thing somewhere safe so that nothing ever damages it and it can't get lost, or you use it all the time so that you can delight in whatever it is that makes it your favourite particular thing but […]

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If it's commuter time it's blogging time

October 12, 2005

Seems the only time I get to blog these days is on the journey home. Fifteen minute wait now til the next train so fifteen minutes to stand and write meaningless drivel on the Treo for your delight and delectation. Almost entirely unprepared for my trip to New York on Saturday. Haven't packed, found my […]

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