Notes From The Journey
Wednesday, 29 January, 2003
I haven't been doing a lot of writing recently. One of the things I have written was for a website in which the writer, Michael Norwitz, tries to bring together various different stories and create a single timeline for them. This involves a lot of juggling with dates and some serious geeking out, but it's quite fun.
Anyway, Michael wrote to me and asked if I could come up with an origin for a character called 'Brother Brit-Man', who, apparently, appeared in one panel of one comic. (Michael, quite obviously, has far too little to do...) I agreed (which says what about me, exactly?) and came up with something.
I haven't put it up on my site yet, but you can read what I came up with here and see how it fits into the whole timeline for 'Earth 17/Dreamworld' (which is mainly dealing with characters shown in a single issue of a DC comic, but also throws in Brother Brit-Man which came from a Marvel comic. Why? I don't know!) here.Posted by stephen @ 10:16 AM GMT [Link]
Thursday, 23 January, 2003
My MP3 player arrived last night! Hoorah!
So, I spent most of yesterday evening fiddling with the software and then transferring all the music I'd previously recorded on the PC on to the player. I find it kind of amazing that something as small as thing is can hold so much music- currently over 2000 tracks!
So, I'm happy. And it's new comics day today, so that's good as well.Posted by stephen @ 09:26 AM GMT [Link]
Wednesday, 22 January, 2003
I gave blood today. It didn't hurt or anything. And I feel so good now.
Posted by stephen @ 04:16 PM GMT [Link]
My luck was as expected. Almost. Securicor delivered my MP3 player at 4.30 last night. Pity I didn't get home until 4.45, isn't it?
So, seeing the card with a contact number on it I thought to myself, reasonably, I assumed, that I would ring them and arrange to have it re-delivered this evening and ensure that Candy came straight home from work, just in case they do the same thing again. (I knew Candy would be amenable to this - anything to give her an excuse not to stay at school, basically.)
I rang the number. And it rang. And it rang. And it rang. So, I rang off and rang back, just in case I had the wrong number. And it rang, and it rang. And it rang. (As I'm writing this, those two sets of repetitions appear, rather pleasingly, one directly under the other. It won't when you are reading it, but I just thought I'd mention it.) So, I tried once more. Rang off and rang back. It was engaged. For the next ten minutes. Now, either I was really unlucky and someone else rang them immediately after I did and managed to get through immediately, or someone there waited until I had rung off and then took the phone off the hook. Guess which I think it is?
This was the only number on the card. I deduced that as it was an 020 8.... number, it was probably for the actual depot rather than a central call centre. I thought there must be a number for that and, if it was anywhere, it would be on Securicor's web page (which I could give you the link for, but I'm not going to. If you are really desperate to check out there wepsite, I'm sure you can work out what it's going to be.) It wasn't. At least not on the actual Securicor front page. Instead, I had to go to the page that allowed me to track my parcel, look at the url, realise that it was a different site to the front page and theorise that it might mean there was ANOTHER front page. (I have just done it again and discovered that the logo above where I clicked to go to the tracking page is another link - it's not exactly what you call obvious though. It's not like they actually tell you to 'click here' or anything. No. That would be too much like customer friendliness.
The new front page I found did appear to be somewhat better designed. And did actually have a number to ring.
So I did.
The woman at the call centre answered the call by quoting the telephone number to me. Which confused me slightly. Call centres don't do this. The phone number is not important. If I've got through to them then, chances are, I probably want to speak to them and by saying who they are, it confirms that I've rung the correct number in the first place (or, alternatively, confirms that I've rung the wrong number, if I'm trying to get Pizza Hut or something...)
So, I explained that I had received the card. She said that the delivery could be anytime between 4 and 9pm. I said, I knew that and had just missed the delivery. So, she asked what time it had been delivered. I told her it was 4.30. She said 'well, that's between 4 and 9."
I was good. I didn't swear at her or get angry, or anything. I explained, in words of one syllable where possible, that I was aware of that and was just trying to get another delivery arranged. Which she actually did manage to do for me. I did say that I wasn't very happy with what happened when I rang the number on the card and she said that "it was a problem that they were aware of and was one of the reasons why they had set up a call centre." She didn't, however, say why the number for the call centre was not actually printed on the card and why I had to go through this rigmarole to find it.
So, Securicor and Customer Service. Not exactly a happening thing.
Okay. Got that off my chest now. Although I might just send this to them and see what response I get. If anything...
Posted by stephen @ 09:24 AM GMT [Link]
Tuesday, 21 January, 2003
Okay - stuff that's happened.
House sale has gone through and we have lots of money in our bank account. (Hoorah!)
Candy SEEMS to have slowed down on the vomiting stuff. She didn't throw up Sunday or Monday and this morning didn't follow the usual pattern (green and brown with orange splodges.)(Hoorah)
We've ordered lots of Buff Stuff (I'd put in a link, but don't have the time. Go to Amazon.co.uk and search under Buffy. It's not hard...) (Oh, hoorah, again.)
I'm going home early. (Hoorah)
Because... The MP3 player that I've ordered is being delivered this evening(hoorah!). Although, knowing my luck, it'll be delivered at 4pm on the dot... But, I'm this >--< close to being (in the words of Sir Cliff) Wired For Sound. I checked last night and I currently have over 6 days worth of music stored on the PC. This is quite impressive.
And, one last time... (hoorah.)Posted by stephen @ 03:59 PM GMT [Link]
Tuesday, 7 January, 2003
Well, it's been a long, strange road over Christmas and New Year, but I'm finally back and blogging again.
Firstly, and most importantly, is the news that I have been keeping under wraps for the last 12 weeks... Candy is pregnant! Yes, I can finally prove that I've had sex at least once. She is currently still in the throwing up every morning stage but, hopefully, she'll get over that soon. She has her first scan on Friday and I'll try and post a copy of the picture as soon as possible after that. Won't that be exciting? This, of course, means that I have something to write about until July. It could be worse, I could be writing about going to the gym (To which I returned last night, after the fortnight of Christmas and New Year off...).
What else? Christmas and New Year were very nice. Both were quiet - Christmas was spent at Becca and Pat's place out in the wilds of Essex, New Year was spent watching Jools' Hootenanny up in Newcastle where we were dog, cat and house sitting for my mom and John. We had a couple of dinner parties with people that were really good - getting to see everyone again was wonderful and reminded me of how much I wanted to be in Newcastle rather than London. On Saturday, we went to Jean and Roger's for their nearly-Twelfth-Night party combined with Chaz'z birthday celebrations. Good news - Chaz has sold a story. (Check out his diary for January the 1st and 2nd for more on this. It's the first thing he's sold for a year, so he is understandably happy and, hopefully, it's a sign of his luck turning. Even better, he's promised to send me a copy of it. Which is always nice.
Back at work now for two days - yesterday was rather busy catching up on everything, but I've managed to get rid of most of it now, so I feel comfortable with writing this entry. Although I'm stopping now and going back to work. Bummer.
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