The Bells Have Made Me Deaf

January is always a slack month. People have no money to spend after indulging the god of outdo throughout December. On the other hand, January* brings unwanted gifts to eBay for cheapskates like me to indulge the god of almost necessary and come in handy.

In the past couple of weeks I have purchased 130 metres fabric, 1 monks bench (someones homemade effort), 2 staplers, 1 nail gun, 1 compressor, 1 pasta maker, 400 metres piping cord, 1 desk, 1 5pk of air tools and 1 jump start/compressor unit for the van.

I must try to steer clear of all bargains in the foreseeable future or at least until these ones have paid for themselves… heh!

*Yes I know it’s February already.

- Hear More

Very relaxing music for a washing machine advert, although they only play a snippet. It was enough of a snippet to trigger my automated search and download function. Vangelis - Ask the mountains. I’ve had it on repeat now for an hour hoping it’ll unwind me enough to get to sleep. What a dopey name for a washing machine though. Aqualtis ! I’m sure it means something to washing machine geeks but not to me. A washing machine designed by men who don’t actually do any washing, tends to be more high tech than necessary but that’s men. Time wasting gadgetry that ups the price is about as essential as giving it a name.

Ach, what did I type this for… now I’m all ununwinded again.

This weeks deliveries to my door included a selection of new bras, a wireless router and several pairs of shoes.

The shoes were all too small. Since European sizing came into vogue, my feet seemed to have miraculously grown even bigger or maybe those Brussels standards are not to be trusted. I’m not a shoe person at all so I don’t tend to buy them unless the last pair are falling apart which usually means I get a replacement pair every 3 years or so. April to October/November I wear walking sandals, provided there’s no frost and it isn’t one of those “proper shoes” occasions. Anyhow, the ones that arrived were all good sensible walking shoes and a smart but casual pair of toe-less hoojahs for good measure. I ordered a few for choice, not intending to keep them all but I was surprised that not one pair actually fitted well enough to make buying an option.

A parcelforce man arrived with a parcel and one of those awful machine thingies that you have to sign for whatever it is you get. I hate them. It’s hard enough to write anything any more with using a keyboard so much but how anyone could prove that signature was mine is beyond me. You can’t even see what you’re writing for goodness sake! In the parcel was my new Livebox from Orange.

Wireless is a pain in the arse to set up, or so I thought. After almost losing patience and launching the whole bing jing out the nearest window, I found that XP was not to be cursed but rather the incomplete step by step guide from Orange and a totally useless installation disk which they know is a problem (if you have installed the updates for Adobe) but continue to send out to new customers regardless…. duh. I pity anyone with no geekish inclinations who’s trying to get the thing to work. Then again, they include in the parcel a phone number for some wireless experts who will come and install the lot for just £70. Hmm… how convenient.

Half the bras (co-incidentally, also wireless) fitted just fine and the rest will be hurtling back to the warehouse marked as “too tight”. Who needs that sort of torture. It’s bad enough being harnessed all day without the circulation to your brain being cut off as well.

So the phone arrived four days late and I asked myself “Do I really want to give money to these people who’s 48 hours is actually 144?”. I didn’t answer myself right away but when I finally did, the answer was ‘no’.

The phone, a Sony Ericsson W300i was dead cute. I loved it but for the fact that the memory wasn’t expandable and the camera was crap. Those were good enough reasons to send the thing packing back to the dealer. 256MB just isn’t enough for a Walkman phone. What on earth were they thinking? Then there was the other massive glitch… it wouldn’t work with my SIM. The only solutions were to stick with the old phone or go for a completely new deal. I chose the new.

Orange just happen to have a nice selection of contracts at the moment with a free brand new phone. Murphy’s law kicked in once again and the phone I picked is out of stock. I reckon it’ll be worth waiting for though. Please don’t let it be discontinued!

Feeling somewhat sorry for myself last week, I embarked on an internet spendathon and bought a new walkman phone with bluetooth dongles and stuff and a long overdue new camera. I did well with the phone getting a whole £50 off in the sale. A real bargain eh? Irresistable! The camera, also a Sony, wasn’t so cheap but the thought of being able to optically zoom in on Scrabo Tower cheered me up no end. This week requires a workathon to make up for it. Silly season is on it’s way when the world goes mad to get their sofa in fit shape for new spillages.

On my last leisure day (aye right!) until January, yesterday I finally got around to buying fire cement and installing the stove. I had to shed the fleece last evening. Yes! No Fleece! For the first time this drafty hole of a house felt cosy. Roll on winter. I’ll have a few rip roarers.

No no… it’s not what you’re thinking!

I wasn’t planning on changing my phone package until the current contract expired. The plan was to find a new broadband service provider. I’ve been using Onetel since changing over from dial up and had no complaints at all about the service until they were taken over by Talk Talk. Admittedly the complaints are minor but since I’m paying extra for unlimited service, I take umbrage at being cut off several times per day and the connection just hanging at other times requiring reconnection to get things moving again. So with those minor niggles, I began to look at other providers. I got no further than Virgin who were offering free broadband with a pay monthy mobile phone tariff. No longer needing an unlimited download option, it seemed like too good a deal. As a boon, I can actually pick up a virgin signal in the house whereas 3 requires all sorts of contortions to find the hotspot. Once found, if you move or even breathe, you get cut off. So, from now until November I have two mobile packages active with a total of 1000 minutes per month and a couple of thousand texts. I’ll be frothing at the mouth trying to talk that much… I wont even try to use all the texts. Don’t you just hate things going to waste?

[thumb:537:l]This was too much of a bargain to not buy it. It isn’t as pretty as the one I wanted but £80 cheaper and twice the heating output. It should be delivered in a week or so. The vendors post purchase e-mail was really reassuring…

Please inspect your goods at delivery. Your goods are FRAGILE. Yes, that is correct Cast Iron is FRAGILE. By the time your goods reach you they will have been on and off three trucks, driven by neandrathol man and handled by cavemen. Your goods could have been dropped from at least a meter in height or rammed through with a forklift.

YOU WILL BE ASKED BY THE COURIER TO SIGN FOR THEM. WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING CANCELS YOUR REPLACEMENT INSURANCE AND STATES THAT YOU RECIEVED THEM IN GOOD ORDER. Remember these goods belong to YOU, not the courier. Tak nae merde.

Now to find a bulk supplier for logs and look forward to a winter wandering around the house in me skimpies (provided those neanderthal truckers don’t spoil it all).