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/1511/2002 Archived Entry: "Friday afternoon"

Lots has happened this week, which is the main reason why I haven's posted anything here for a while. I've been too busy doing to write about it.

Firstly, there was a big Sector 1 Team Event on Wednesday and Thursday. It was, essentially, a big get together for everyone to get to know each other and to find out what everyone else sees as the problems that we have and to try and come up with at least somevague solutions. I had a really good time and got to know a lot more people than I had previously known. I can even remember a lot of names, which shows how much impact it had on me! The Thursday session was a lot harder than the Wednesday one, mainly, I think due to the vast majority of people having fairly major hang overs. I went to bed at 1.15 or so in the morning and there were still people there. Some of whom were really, seriously blasted. And that was with the bar closing at midnight! Most people, it seems, got to bed at some point between 2 and 2.30, making me the total wuss. (Is that how you spell that word?)
Getting home on the Thursday evening was interesting, what with the firefighters strike causing the tube drivers to refuse to work all over the place. The centre of London was very, very full. Even more full than usual, in fact. In the end, I managed to catch a bus fairly quickly, but I was all set up for walking from Gosh! back home. I'm glad I didn't in the end, though, cos I was totally knackered. And I'm still pretty tired, actually. I refer you back to my wuss comment.
This morning, I was in to work late, because I had to go to the post office to pick up a package. It's the DVD's of Buffy Season 1 that I got from E-Bay. I don't remember if I said anything about this, but I won an E-Bay auction to get Buffy Season 1 - as it is now unavailable new from anywhere - and it has arrived. Hoorah! We're actually in the process of watching Season 3 again at the moment. We'll be watching Graduation Day Pt.s1 & 2 (the season 3 closing episodes with the Mayor changing into a demon and stuff) tonight. After which, we will get back to Season 1. We've decided that one of the things we are going to splash out on when we sell the house is the rest of the Buffy and Angel DVD's that are still outstanding (that's season 4 & 5 of the Buffster and 1 & 2 of Angel. Although 6 and 3 respectively should be out soon as well). I'm just a Buff-Buying Madman! But, hell, it's good stuff.
Anyway, that's why it is now 4.30pm and I haven't left.
The other thing I did last night - other than watching Buffy - was to kill my computer. This was not intentional, let me assure you. I have talked a little about the problems I've been having with it elsewhere. The latest problem I had was that various wizards and things in Office didn't work. I wrote to Microsoft (after HP said 'This has nothing to do with us...') and they got back to me asking for more info. While checking out what they wanted to know I had to start up in 'Safe Mode' and it froze. Which, let's face it, is VERY safe. And now it won't start up. It gets to an initial screen telling me that the last time the PC was started it was shut down wrongly and how do I want to start up this time? And then goes on it's merry way for a few seconds before shutting down and restarting and going back to that initial screen. I think it's all to do with the re-install and something going wrong there (and if it did then it's HP's fauly, cos I did everything they told me to do...) But, at the moment, it's going to be back to the old PC and whinging to HP. Although, fortunately, I don't have to do it on the 60p/minute line, because I went into a HP 'Centre of Excellence' shop which is just down the road from C&G and they gave me a London phone number to ring. Which is good.
The other thing I did at lunch time (apart from go to Boots for eye drops, cos the whole rhinitis/asthma thing seems to be affecting my eyes now as well and making them itch a lot...) was to get a sudden Book Buying Urge. So, I had to go to the local branch of Books Etc. and sate the desire. I bought Stupid White Men (which was the book I actually went in to get and I think I may have got the final copy of it in the shop.) However, that was in the 3 for 2 offer. And I saw Carter Beats The Devil, which I had been intending to buy for months, basically since I started at Borders, was also in the offer. So, that was 2. I decided on The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy as my third one, because he's a bloody good writer and I haven't read enough of him. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of looking in the SF section, where I saw the latest Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction which is one of the absolute must buys of the SF literary year (and had a story in by Simon Ings...) so I absolutely had to buy it as well, of course. Well, I haven't bought a lot of books recently. And these will all be good 'uns. So that's all right, then.
I spoke to McKeags, the solicitors who are selling the flat for me, this afternoon, and found out that they are about to send out the draft contract for us to sign. So that's going ahead nicely. My mom also finally managed to get the burglar alarm fixed, after the buyer set it off. So, we should be sorted fairly soon then. Which is a good thing. A very good thing, indeed.