black Friday

Jesus, what a bloody mad day yesterday was. Went out on Thursday night but probably had less to drink than on either of the two preceding nights and woke up in the morning feeling fine. No Internet at home because on Thursday it had been cut off. Well, my BT line had been cut off because previously it was in Anne's name and they couldn't just change the name and billing details, they have to turn the line off and then start it up again. Sigh. So it had stopped working at about midnight on Wednesday night, 0830 on Thursday I called up and reopened the account in my name, phone came back on by 0900 ... but no Internet. Talked to my ISP who said that when a line gets cut off, all services get cut off -- and to get ADSL back on it costs 53 quid and takes a week.

So, anyway, no Internet at home on Friday morning meant obviously I couldn't check email or do any other time-wasting nonsense when I woke up, so bored with BBC Breakfast I went to work at a vaguely resepectable time for the first time all week. Got out the house, turned my Rio Karma on, plugged in my headphones and only got sound out of the left ear. Fiddled around with the cable and the headphones and stuff all to no avail. Oh well. I guess I need to find the guarantee for the 'phones, although I'm not yet totally convinced it's that and not my already-pretty-fucked Karma (haven't been able to change the volume for over a year, scrolly wheel is broken, hard drive has busted on more than one occasion...). The thing that gives me hope about the headphones is that when I flick the noise cancelling switch I definitely get that in both ears. The cable is new so shouldn't be busted either.

Bought Terrorizer magazine on the way into work and rejoiced because this issue has a Death Metal special in it and interviews with Deicide and Terrorizer(!) anyway. Bit confused by their gig guide which claims Skinless -- who are fucking large, based on having heard one song of theirs -- are playing in Glasgow next Wednesday. I'm expecting them to be headlining at the Cartoon in Croydon though. Confusion.

On the train I got an SMS from Mark, although I didn't notice it until I was waiting for a bus near Waterloo. Turns out he'd got the X68 bus into work. Sad though it is this makes me incredibly jealous. I love bus travel in general, in London especially, and the X68 is an express that goes from way out in the sticks all the way into the centre near our work. By the time I replied he was waiting for a 176 just up the road from me, ended up on the one just in front of the one I got. Later on IRC he admitted just how right I am about Waterloo Bridge being a fucking ace bridge in London to cross by bus :-)

In work I wasn't sure why but I just found myself being wound up by everything. In a really odd mood, and stuff I either overheard or in conversations where I was a participant, everything was just making me react really badly. Just one of those days I guess. Played table tennis and was awful, then had a not great curry from the canteen. Back at my desk a headache came over me, a real twat of one 'n all. Had a few cups of water, a can of Sprite, and two Nurofen, but 90 minutes later it still hadn't shifted so I went home.

Quick aside: yet another thing about blogger beta is hassling me now, it's being super-sluggish and every 3 seconds I'm getting the beach-ball come up. I reckon firefox is going to crash any second :-( and since it doesn't 'seem to support any kind of API, eg flickr can't post to it I'm really regretting having changed to it. Oh well.

Got home pretty quickly and on my approach to the flat I was cursing Wooj for leaving his bedroom window open when he went to work. Except he hadn't: it was open because he was at home. And he had some good news too, turns out the Internet connection was back on. Now just before leaving work I'd left a comment on my ISP's support system asking whether there was any way they could get us turned back on before next Thursday. I could only assume that they'd said "Yeah, OK" and logged onto their site to say thanks. Loaded up the ticket and... they'd said "Nope, next Thursday's the earliest we can do it". Umm, OK... well it's still working now, and not only that it's 8mb where before it was just 2mb.

Sat on the sofa watching cricket. We are proper shit so far in this test. :-(

Fuck it. This interface is really pissing me off now, composing this entry is painful so I'm going to give up and just watch Soccer AM's first show of the season.