| |
|
|
The Day After. |
| |
posted by
Scrambled
3:04:04
2:07am
|
|
Had a rather funny day today.
Woke up late and was called in for a dental appointment by my mother. You see, my mother AND my sister work at the same dental practice. As such, going to the dentist becomes a rather weird experience (possibly the reason I haven't been for 3 years!). Went in, and my sister was dental nursing (assisting) the dentist that was going to be working on me. This was very odd for a start. My mum was nursing in the room next door and kept popping in whilst the dentist was scaling my teeth and my sister was aspirating (sucking away the water). My teeth are now very clean and feel weird. :S On top of that, I have a lasting memory of my sister sitting staring over my mouth and discussing my brushing habits with the dentist! Very odd.
After that I came home and took some nice pics with my new camera and got to grips with some of it's functions. It's very pretty. Check the Daily Picture Thread in HOCAS on the forums to see the nicest picture i took. Then got ready to go out with my family and my sister's boyfriend.
My dad has a membership at a posh country club which has a huge couple of golf courses, a clubhouse containing a hotel and three restaurants with a snooker room and a bar/lounge area as well. If you've seen "Scent of a Woman" with Al Pacino, you'll know what I mean when I say the restaurant we went to is like "The Oak Room" where Pacino takes O'Donnell on their first night in New York. If you haven't seen the film then you are not good enough to read this blog and I insist that you go outside and stone yourself. For real. Anyhow, it's a place where you go in and the waiters are there to attend to you for the entire duration of the meal. They put the napkin on your lap, pour your wine, serve the food and put the pepper on your meal.
The food was absolutely amazing. For starter I had this thinly sliced rare beef with fresh rocket and parmesan shavings. It melted in your mouth and was gorgeous. For my main course I had breast of Gressingham duck atop this creamy vegetable dish which was like sliced spinach and onion. It sounds horrible but it was absolutely gorgeous. It was accompanied by a fois gras sausage (nice pate if you didnt know!) and the best gravy in the world. We had a beautiful claret to go along with it and it was just outstanding. At £30 a head it had better be! My dad and I had cheese and biscuits and a glass of port to go along with our dessert and then we had some coffee. The service was amazing too. The staff were friendly and jokey. Italian waiters with the perfect amount of "cheek" to be considered charming and when myself and my sister's boyfriend had taken our jackets off, their asking us to put them back on (apparantly a club rule) was with a smile and totally polite. It's one of those places which is stooped in tradition and rules. You go to this place and you are expected to have a certain degree of ettiquette and adhere to a tight dress code along with a long list of other silly rules. The staff there are usually very polite in enforcing them, and you don't argue because the rules are there and the service is so good that you don't mind doing as they say. It's a shame that the politeness is confined to the staff, though.
After our meal, we took our coffee through to the lounge area and took a seat over on some comfy sofas nest to a group of businessmen who were taking up two tables. We were having a nice chat and enjoying ourselves when my dad's phone rang. My mum reminded him that it was a rule that phones weren't allowed in the building and so my dad went to answer the call and just say to call back later. Anyway, one of the staff has walked over and started to politely remind dad of the rules when one of the snotty businessmen from the table next to us starts shouting over "I say! No mobile phones! QUITE unacceptable!" my dad apologises and puts the phone away and the member of staff smiles and walks back to the bar. But these idiots want to carry on making a fuss "bloody outrageous! Totally against the rules! How dare he bring a mobile phone in here!" Now, my dad has had a bit to drink by now and he, like my sister, has a temper and began to get riled. So he quite angrily says "Thank you very much, we've apologised and don't need you to tell us as well!" the guy mumbles something and then stops. My dad and the rest of the family still give some angry looks over in the direction of the pompous gits but then something happens which kicks it all off again. The guy stares at my sister's boyfriend who looks back at him and says in a threatening way "Is there a problem here?" The reason this became an issue is because my sister's boyfriend is half white, half afro-caribbean and suddenly this became about race. I take the initiative and turn round to face this guy, put on my "If you fuck with me, I guarantee you are going home with one less testicle" face and simply say "No." He backs down and stops, but then my mum joins in and starts politely telling him that he is out of order in policing the rules that are there for the staff to enforce and then acting threateningly towards us. My dad, being my dad, is now swearing and calling him a pompous old arsehole and the whole thing has kicked off again. Eventually I convince my dad to leave it and the men back down when I give them some more of my patented "looks of death." I start talking to my dad about the first thing which comes into my head and position myself inbetween him and the men, drawing his eye every time I see him trying to give another evil to the twat behind me. I'm trying to control the urge to turn around and give this bloke a reason to regret fucking with my family whilst discussing art with my dad. I also emotionally blackmail my dad into not retaliating to their comments or making a snide comment when we eventually left. True enough, he didn't. Both my dad and these old tits were under the influence of alcohol and I didn't trust the fact that something wouldn't happen which everyone would regret later.
We went to the bar on the way out and apologised to the barman who had originally come over to ask my dad to turn off his phone. He smiled and said "It's quite ok sir, I'm just so sorry you had to deal with that" as he nodded in the direction of the snobby table. My dad just laughed it off and, as a nice gesture bought the man a drink. We then went and played a couple of games of snooker and then came home. Again having to deal with the immensely respectable staff who were extremely friendly and respectful to us.
It's weird. It was a fantastic evening, the best evening I have had in months and yet I feel it was marred by the intrusion of a group of pompous old farts. Granted, it is a private members club with rules and tradition to it, but the elitist attitude of public school is totally unnecessary of its members. Sadly, it is people like this who run the country and the financial giants of the business sector. They are a fiercely elitist group who stick together with other people of like mind so that they can look down on "the little man." Many of them are institutionally racist and most of them are sexist. Their one redeeming factor is that, despite this, me and my family are better people than they will ever be, and no amount of money can change that. It is also a strong element of motivation to me to succeed in life. I am 20 years old now and studying a high class degree at the top scientific university in the country, possibly even in Europe. I know I have skills and will succeed when I want to. It will give me a great deal of pleasure to reach the stage of life where I have surpassed the wealth and power of the people who spend their life lording it over those they consider "beneath them." Don't get me wrong, this is not hypocrisy. I won't ever be like them (hell, reaching their level of financial success is highly ambitious anyway)but I would love to sit there in that room, in 20 years time and have people like them scoff at a commoner like me then turn to them and let them know just how much I own their ass. Heh.
Awww forget that. It's not going to happen. For that to happen, my ambition in life would have to be financially orientated, and it really isn't. My ambition in life is to be happy and to make my family (wife and kids) happy. Being financially comfortable is my goal. Not being "rich." It would just be so nice to kick the elite off their pedestal from above them.
That said, my mum kicks ass. She knows the maitre'd of the club (like the head waiter of the restaurant who practically runs the show and is one of the most respectable and top men in the building) and so went up to him after my dad and I had left to play snooker and very obviously had a personal one to one chat with him and had a hug and a kiss on the cheek from him in front of these men. I would have liked to have seen the look on their faces. A nice little two-fingers to show that we aren't nobody's.
Anyway - END RANT.
|
|
|
Add Comment - View Comments(9)
|
| |
|
|
Rapscallions and Scallywags |
| |
posted by
Scrambled
1:04:04
11:31am
|
|
In more cheerful news (than my last entry):
IT'SA MA BURFDAY!
That's right doods, I am no longer a teenage dirtbag, but a twentysomething - doomed to spend my days in coffee shops and All Bar Ones. Today marks a step into my third decade of life. It's gonna be an exciting ten years. Who knows where I will be ten years from now? Married? Kids? Dream Job? Beard? It's all an exciting mystery. But for today I am going to kick back and play with my new toy - a digital kammyraw \o/
Just gonna send a mass text message to all my old school friends to see who is up for a reunion/booze up at my old local. Should be nice to see who responds :)
Regarding news with my sister. She came and gave me a big hug and an apology yesterday with a little card with a poem on it about "being sorry." I know she means it and I'm not angry any more but I still feel the same way as I did when I wrote yesterday.
Anyway, today is my day of yay (I'll try saying that again after getting hammered!) so cheers!
Oh by the way. The title of this thread is in reference to the evil bastards who put together the following website
http://www.wehatescram.tk
You're all bastards and I love you with all my heart |
|
|
Add Comment - View Comments(11)
|
| |
|
|
Confused and Messy |
| |
posted by
Scrambled
31:03:04
5:27pm
|
|
This is going to be a very open and frank blog entry. Containing matters very personal to me and difficult to understand. Click the "back" button on your browser if that deters you from reading the rest of this.
It's a bit difficult to know where to start this entry. I know what prompted it, but that's not really the crux of the matter. The matter is this - I consider myself a fairly level-headed person. I deal with problems in a calm manner and am tolerant of other people's feelings and emotions. However there has always been one person in my life who has been able to tear apart the very person I am and leave me in a place where I don't like myself and where I feel worthless. Unfortunately, this is a person who I can not get away from. This person is my sister.
This is a very difficult thing for me to deal with. I love my sister and want the best for her, but she is one of the biggest negative influences upon me and always has been. A bit of background - my sister is less than two years younger than me and has a formidable temper. The two of us, on most matters, are like chalk and cheese. Where I have succeeded in academics, she has not. Where she has succeeded in more social ways, I have struggled at times. We fought like cats and dogs as children, but because I was the boy and I was "the older one," I was always discouraged from fighting back by my parents. As the years went on, I learned to take her constant barrage of verbal and (very occasionally) physical action. She would say things that I could never say to her. Degrading things about who I was, what I was and what I would never be. In my heart of hearts I knew she didn't mean it, but when someone you love tells you how worthless and pathetic you are, with time, it gets through and creates a place deep inside you, from which it doesn't easily move.
I know for a fact that she has always felt like she was in my shadow. Still does. However, I have been aware of this my whole life and have ensured that I never take advantage of this and never flaunt my achievements. In fact, I have endeavoured to support her through every step of her life, picking her up when she was down and offering my help whenever she wanted it (an offer she never really took me up on). I've tried my hardest so that she wouldn't feel so inadequate in comparison to me, but I think she still does. The reality of the situation is that I have always envied her strengths as far as making friends and being able to talk to people. I've always been shy. Granted, moreso whilst I was younger, but even today, the day before my twentieth birthday, I worry about what people think of me.
I make little secret about the fact that I suffered from depression last year. I was on anti-depressants for four months in my first year at uni. I don't blame my sister for my depression, but I now understand that she was a crucial factor in it. My depression manifested itself in an intense feeling of self worthlessness and loathing. I firmly believed that nobody liked me and that there was no chance in ever being loved. This is an idea that had been promoted from a very young age by the words of my sister. She frequently told me that I was "sad" or "pathetic" and that I had no chance of making friends or, as I got older, getting a girlfriend. She enjoyed kicking me whilst I was down and I never fought back. My parents and I always made excuses. I was the older one, I was the more self-controlled, she just had a bad temper, she felt like I was better than her, I shouldn't "lower myself to her level." My whole life I have believed that people didn't and wouldn't like me and have believed the words and taunts from her. This came to a head last year when I was diagnosed with depression and I began the slow and arduous climb out. It's a climb which I feel I have made now. I am happy in my life and with who I am. I have friends, I am loved and I feel like my future is a bright one. It is no coincidence that this is related to the fact that I have moved out and have my own life now, away from my family and the stresses that accompany that. The longer I have been away from home, the less I want to be there. During term time, I only visit once or twice a month. However, during the holidays, spending longer amounts of time at home is somewhat of an inevitability.
I came home on Sunday night and was already confronted by the deteriorating relationship between my parents, symbolised by the consistent arguing and talking about each other behind the other one's back. This is something I am painfully used to by now, but it gets tiring to keep hearing about it. Coming home to that immediately makes me want to get away, but I'm getting used to putting up with it. However, now that I am on the borders of adulthood, with my own home and my own life, putting up with my sister's shit is not something I was intending to do.
The argument started off with something ridiculously pathetic. I was cooking spaghetti bolognese for my family when my sister came in from work and immediately starts hovering over the pans. She gets some French bread and asks if she can dip it in the sauce. Knowing how much attention she'll pay to my response, I say "No" anyway. True to form she starts dipping it in the sauce anyway, putting the same piece of bread that has been in her mouth back in for another dip. I knock her hand out of the way and tell her not to be so inconsiderate as she has been dealing with people's mouths all day (being a dental nurse in training) and what she's doing is unhygienic. This launches her into a tantrum of calling me a cunt, a prick, pathetic, telling me to grow up, whatever her spiteful little head can come up with. I feel myself falling into the void of self loathing again, and the auto reflex of bottling up the abuse but make the decision that I'm not going to take the shit this time. So I shout back, swearing and telling her to get out of my face and to stop being such a bitch to me and to fuck off while I'm cooking. I don't like talking to people like that and I don't like reacting badly whilst angry inside. It's not who I am. But my sister can bring that side out of me with little effort. She's the only person in the world who can. Eventually she goes to sit in the next room, throwing my guitar against the wall and still shouting about how pathetic I am and how I'm being such a prick and how things were great until I got home two days ago. I pause and then turn to her and say "So you would rather I was gone? It would make you happy if I left and went back up to London two days before my birthday and spent my holiday alone?" With a look of venom and absolute certainty in her voice, she says "Yes. Yes it would." That was it. I had had enough. So I did something which I have never done before. Shouting "Right!" through gritted teeth, I grabbed my car keys and made a run for the door. My mum, who had been watching the whole thing began yelling at my sister and calling after me, but I didn't care any more. I was going. I got in the car and I just drove. Reversing out of the driveway and driving out of my village with such speed that, in retrospect, I was lucky to have avoided an accident. I drove to the nearest viewpoint - a hill which overlooks London and parked. I then sat there and I cried.
I don't like crying. I am a testament to my father's example that crying is a sign of male weakness and that if you can avoid it, you should do so. But this was the culmination of a great deal of emotion. Years of stress, hatred and personal disgust which I thought I was over, suddenly came rushing back over such a stupid issue. All at once I suddenly felt unwelcome in my own home, angry with myself for how I reacted, reminded of how bad she used to make me feel. I suddenly remembered the family holiday we had had just four years ago where she had almost driven me to a nervous breakdown with her jeers and spite. It all just came rushing back and, suddenly, the place which I had long left behind had returned, like a ghost from the past. It was like an illness which had plagued me my whole life. An illness of which I finally thought I was cured. Then suddenly, in a matter of seconds, it had relapsed and was causing me the same old pain, doubled with the upset that comes with the realisation that it is back to curse you again. My phone rang with a text message from my sister offering a feeble apology which my mother had almost certainly put her up to. I responded with a very childish yet, at the time, heartfelt response of "I hate you and I am not coming home." The phone rang shortly after from my mother, and my sister rang a few seconds after, but I didn't answer and I eventually turned it off. I then spent the next hour driving around my home county wondering what I was going to do. In my haste I had left my London house keys and my wallet back at home, so most courses of action were out of the question (including, thankfully, alcohol - not that I would have got tanked up and driven around drunk, but I didn't know what I was doing for the early part of last night and alcohol wouldn't have helped).
I ended up at the top of the tallest hill in the county. I parked my car and climbed a tree and sat in the crook of a branch whilst I watched the Sun set. I decided to turn my phone back on to pick up a couple of pleading text messages from my mother and soon enough, it rang and I decided to answer. It was my mother asking me to come home. I told her I'd still be a while and hung up before I started welling up again.
I spent the next hour driving to different viewspots and sitting on the grass very quietly watching the world go by in the dim twilight. I watched the newborn lambs run around the fields below, I watched the sky turn pink, I watched the lights turn on in the nearby towns. I buried myself in the peace that is only accessible from sitting alone in a quiet place and watching life take place in front of you. Eventually I drove home. My sister's boyfriend let me in the front door with a kind look and no words. He's a good guy and I think understood the effect she had on me. I don't know how he deals with her, but he's a stronger man than I am in that respect. I went up to my room and sat in bed, put on some music and read a book. My sister tried to come up to talk, but I sent her away. I still havent spoken to her today. My mother came up and I sent her away after a brief talk too. I've been avoiding my mother and sister all day and am looking forward to my Dad coming home so that we can go out to the pub and do the quiz together (a monthly tradition for us).
I've come to the conclusion that this place where I am typing from now, is no longer my home. My family lives here, but it is not the place where I feel happy and safe. My sister has promised, via my mother, that she will never do this again, but I can't believe her. The way she treats me is part of who she is and the way that I react to her treatment is unfortunately part of who I am. I HAD planned to stay here for a fortnight before heading back home to London, but I don't think I will last that long. People, traditionally, find their family difficult to cope with after they move out, but this is something more severe. I can't cope with living here and living with the shit which I thought I had left behind me. Telling my mother that this was no longer my home was a hard thing to do and probably deeply upset her, but it is the truth and it needed to be said.
I don't know what I am going to do now. I should probably talk things out with my sister and explain how she makes me feel, but I love her (hint to anyone who comments - if you berate my sister I will not react kindly at all) and I don't want to make her feel bad, regardless of how she makes me feel. Also I don't know if I can actually tell her the truth - if I will actually, physically be able to move my mouth to tell her the things which I have said above. All I know is this: I can't live here anymore. |
|
|
Add Comment - View Comments(14)
|
| |
|
|
What the shit am I doing? |
| |
posted by
Scrambled
21:03:04
9:36am
|
|
Ok ok ok...
It's 8.18 in the morning. I've just gotten back from a house party and I haven't been to sleep yet.
So why in God's name am I sitting writing a blog entry?
Answers on the back of a postcard plzthx.
I genuinely have no idea. I'm still slightly drunk, my eyelids feel like they weigh the same as two small Skodas and my head is about to hit the keyboard. I guess it has just been a long time since updating and I feel like I have a clear head at the moment. That's almost certainly a load of lies because what follows will have come from the mind of a mildly inebriated, heavily sleep deprived individual. Forgive me for any of the following spelling, structural or grammatical errors.
So, since my last update I've done a lot. I've performed in Little Shop of Horrors and had an amazing time doing so. My first principal role (Orin) and one which I will never forget. It was a special experience. The after party was amazing. It was at my house and it went on until 2pm the next day. I blacked out at one point, only to remember the point where i was sitting on my couch, next to an open window, with no shirt on, surrounded by my friends and watching the end of Moulin Rouge. Truly a sign of a great party!
Something about that party DID make me feel guilty though. A bit of back story - one of my housemates kind of fell for a girl in the cast of Little Shop. On Valentines Day he gave her gifts and cards and sent a barbershop quartet to serenade her (I was bass :D). She was an older girl and just out of a bad relationship. I expected her to turn him down and sure enough she did (That said, I never tried to deter my housemate from pursuing her because i thought she would say no. Something about that is just plain wrong). So he was gutted and upset but carried on nonetheless. This was a couple of weeks before the performance week. Now, a few days before the run, I found out that this girl had feelings for another guy in our company. This put me in an awkward position. She is a good friend of mine, the guy she liked is also a good friend of mine. But my housemate was still sore. To cut a long story short, at the aftershow party, I gave the girl the advice to make the first move, she did, the two hooked up... except it was in my housemate's room... on his bed. Needless to say he was angry and upset, but he doesnt know that I played matchmaker. If he did he would probably flip. I'm just happy that I helped bring two of my friends together and find some happiness. Anyway enough about that.
The theatre company that ran Little Shop is the Theatrical Society for Imperial College. For some perspective, that's several thousand undergraduate students and around a thousand postgrad. Tomorrow I am running for chairman of this society and it's very very likely I will get the position. That scares me a little. It's a lot of responsibility and I'll be a significant figure within the arts and entertainment sector of IC. Things are dealt with very professionally and it WILL be a job of sorts to control the workload. However, I'm really looking forward to it. The society has proved to be the base for my life in the last couple of years and given me a reason to stay at university (Lord knows, the course isn't the thing keeping me here). I know I can do it, but it's going to be hard. I will let you all know how the hustings go tomorrow.
What else? I saw Anything Goes at Drury Lane on Tuesday. It is a fantastic show and superbly produced. I recommend you go and see it if you can. The music, the set, the acting, the dancing, the comedy. It was SUCH a great night out. Funnily enough, as luck would have it, we're performing it over the Summer. I'm publicity manager for Tour, so if you live in the Exmouth/Exeter region, expect to see my posters popping up in the next couple of months for ICOS's Anything Goes. I simply can't wait. Tour was so fun last year and this year I've got a lot of friends from my theatre society coming along as well. It will no doubt be two weeks of total mayhem and fun (plus Lauren will be there for at least SOME of it which makes it ALL the more worthwhile). It's something which makes me very excited :D
I shouldn't waffle on for too much longer. So I'll talk about my most recent week. The Drama society (non musical plays) of my university were running a play this week (two weeks after Little Shop). A French play called "A Little Hotel on the Side" - a comedy about adultery and debauchery translated back into jolly english. It was being directed by a couple of friends of mine and they needed a competent actor to fill in a few cameo roles at the last minute. In retrospect it would have caused me less stress if I had just said "no," but I always feel obliged to help a friend in need. Basically I got very frustrated by the lack of professionalism. The actors didnt know their lines properly, the set was unfinished (and still being painted before the last night's performance - i.e. three performances with an incomplete set), the directors were still running scenes and giving drastic, character altering notes midway through the run, and they were encouraging clapping each other during the bows (something I detest - i was very noticably the only cast member not clapping on stage). You get used to a certain degree of professionalism with an amateur group and you start to get annoyed when you don't see it with another. I suppose I would be happier if it wasn't for the fact that this drama society hails itself as being the top society for performing arts at my uni (When my theatre society performs better shows, more professionally, makes more money, gets twice as many audience members and has a far better internal social scene). Anyway, I should stop ranting. Despite the lack of preparation, the cast and crew put on a very good show. The acting turned out to be pretty damned good and very few lines were forgotten.
So tonight was the aftershow party. I wasn't expecting much. Sure enough, I turned up to a fairly empty household (they were celebrating a housemate's birthday at the same time, so the party was going before the cast arrived) and found myself almost immediately trying to diffuse a situation where a rather huge friend of mine was considering picking a fight with someone he grossly dislikes because some other guy had spiked his drink with vinegar and worcestershire sauce. Basically looking for an excuse for a fight. It was pretty much a case of laughing and joking with him and convincing him that starting a fight would be laughably pointless and stupid. Sure enough, he soon was discussing the finer points of gambling and had forgotten about his grudge.
Following that, I ended up going out on the roof for a chat with a close friend of mine who I met through his girlfriend (another good friend of mine). I had a rather revealing conversation with him that he was experiencing relationship problems. A fact which he has told no one else and which no one would guess. I tried to talk to him about it, but we were soon joined by a young lady who wanted to share the lovely view over London. I'll speak to him properly later.
After that I spent a lot of time drinking a lot of beer and chatting with members of the cast of the show. One in particular has made me smile. A girl who was playing a French maid in the play, who all the guys have been chasing after like dogs with a bone. She's been flirty back but never really accepted their advances. My legs ended up providing a pillow for her head and we ended up chatting quite a lot throughout the party. It was nice because neither of us were interested in each other and we both knew it, so we could be friendly without any of the silly awkwardness. We were the only ones who stayed awake beyond 6am and ended up drinking tea, watching music TV and laughing at current popular music. We had a nice talk about my relationship with Lauren too. Said how lucky I was, how much she was excited for me for the Summer and how, despite the distance, there's no reason it won't work out. I've not had doubts, but it's always nice to hear it from another person. I left the party at about 8am and got a hug to say thanks for keeping her company whilst everyone else had gone to sleep. We dubbed ourselves the hardcore elite for staying awake and we shall lord our achievement over the hungover masses next week. It made me chuckle to myself how all the guys who were trying to get her attention were just sitting jealous and got bored as the two of us were just having a good old chinwag, thus negating their chances. I think she was possibly glad to have a break from them! I like making new friends like this.
So I cycled home through the blustery wind with a headache and feeling as tired as fuck. And all the way home I was thinking about Lauren. About how much fun we would have had at the party. About how she'd probably be asleep by now. About how much I loved her and wish I could be with her now. Thus I was very happy to find her still online when I got home. It's not much, but it's the best we can do for now. You're fabulous, honey. Thanks for making my life such a happy place to be.
|
|
|
Add Comment - View Comments(16)
|
| |
|
|
Sigh frikkin sigh |
| |
posted by
Scrambled
18:02:04
4:28pm
|
|
I have a personal distaste for public transport, especially buses. London buses are being made better by good ol' "Red Ken" but even he can't prevent the crying children, the chavs on phones and the rancid smelling elderly folk.
I also have a personal distaste for anything technical. I have a laptop, I plug it in, it works - shpling shplang shplong - I'm Happy. When it doesn't work, I can usually fix it by shouting at it, hitting it with a textbook or giving up and asking my housemate to give it a go.
Imagine then, if you will, how it makes me feel to combine these two distastes into one amalgamation of pain and torment which has been my day so far.
I'll start at the beginning, a couple of days ago. I got back from a rehearsal to find my laptop had turned itself off. How odd. I turn it on to find that it is out of power. Now this is perplexing because the bloody thing is plugged into the mains. Sure enough, the LED indicator on the transformer is off. I try changing the plug to different sockets but to no avail. I do the man-thing of trying to change the fuse (with a knife, because real men don't need (read: have) screwdrivers) but this fails to work as well. Now, I'm a humble man, and I don't understand why a lot of things do or don't work, but I have a funny sense for ingenuity and "let's see what this does" methodology. I noticed that the input cable to the transformer looks like any regular power lead, so I pulled the cable out of my retro 80s Ghetto Blaster and tried plugging that into the transformer. SUCCESS!
However, the next day, the transformer died again. In a moment of madness I tried the original lead and bizarrely it worked fine... for a few hours. The supply has been well and truly knackered since then.
Being fortunate enough to have the day off today, I decided I'd pop down into Hammersmith to pick up a replacement cable, have a spot of lunch out and then come back and get on with some work this afternoon. The best laid plans of mice and men. After a not unpleasant bus ride, I checked 4 computer shops in Hammersmith and was eventually advised that this was a tricky thing to get hold of and my best bet would be Tottenham Court Road. I postpone that idea for a while.
Another bus journey, this time into college, sat next to a smelly old lady who decided to sit her bags on my knee and then tut when I tried to get off at Bert's Hall. Get into the computer room to check the web for places that might stock the cable in London. WHAT LUCK! The company which I bought the laptop from has a branch just off Oxford Street! "Great," says I, "a jolly jaunt to the shopping centre of the capital! I'll pick up a power thingy, have a bite to eat and then pop back home." The best laid plans...
Another bus journey, this time with a toffy-nosed bitch constantly moaning at the bus driver for letting more people on the bus when there were only a few people standing - this just plain irritated me: let the guy do his job! Anyway, I find this bloody branch of Evesham computers and have a nice chat with an asian fellow in there who explains that they don't actually sell anything there, they just take orders. That's just brilliant. Helpfully though, he gave me the same advice as I had had earlier - to go to Totty Court Road and try places there. ANOTHER bus journey down Oxford Street which was probably slower than walking and I find myself by the huge great statue of Freddie Mercury outside the Dominion Theatre (side note - go see We Will Rock You - It's FAB!).
I spend the next hour going around every electronics shop along the road (which is every other shop fs) but to no avail. The cheapest they can do for me at a dodgy shop is £70. No thanks guv.
Disheartened and miserable, I decide to cheer myself up by getting another bus. This time sat across from two chavscum girls who were discussing their purchases and how much of a slag Chantal was. I change buses and this time am sat next to two girls who are speaking very loud, fast, high pitched Spanish. From my limited vocabulary I determine that they are talking about pretty shoes and boys.
Finally I reach the place where I am currently sitting - the college computer room... again. I've spent the last couple of hours searching the internet for somewhere that will deliver me this bloody adapter for a decent price and in a reasonable time. After two hours I pretty much gave up and settled on a more expensive generic model which may or may not work and which may or may not be from a dodgy internet company (http://www.psaparts.co.uk in case you were wondering). £50 incVAT with next day delivery. Beggars can't be choosers.
It's a very frustrating thing when you live a substantial part of your life through a connection which can be severed like this. It's also very stressful when you can't seem to fix the problem. I just have to hope that this cable comes tomorrow, because I have too much work that I need in that little laptop, plus I'll miss the ease of talking to my lovely lady till the early hours of the morning.
Let's hope this nuisance ends soon. It can't really get worse from here can it?
Oh wait, I still need to make 2 bus journies to get home.
Bottom.
By the way, I'm still collecting fansigns. Please host them for me or send them to me via the forum. The address for the current signs is
http://www.geocities.com/scramofthephoenix/fansigns/ |
|
|
Add Comment - View Comments(8)
|
|
|
| |
Random Link: |
Nebulus
Flash verion of fantastic C64 game |
|
 |
|
