innocent_lex

Grrr. Broadband has been down more than it's been working all week, and virgin are claiming the problem was fixed yesterday. How come my connection has been non-existent most of today as well, eh? Why am I having to post this via phone?

Fix it! Gimme back my interwebs!

Posted via LjBeetle

So far today I have rebooted the Virgin box four times just to get it to work. I needed to do this because my network was down and rebooting the virgin router and my wireless router had no effect. Nor did rebooting my computers (work and home). Lots of rebooting.

Then the fridge started wailing at me. It wails at me when I've left the door open. Since I hadn't opened the fridge or freezer today I was a bit puzzled. I opened the door to find out what was going on. Crisis! Its little red light was flashing to say it was too warm. This is not even vaguely possible. I hit the button to shut it up, turned the thermostat to a lower temp and left it. It wailed again. I turned the button off. The instructions say to make it colder. It doesn't go any colder. I've put a thermometer in the freezer to find out what temperature it really is, and in the meantime... I rebooted the fridge. Yes, indeedy. Am looking suspiciously at other electrical appliances in case they start wailing at me and need rebooting.

Daft bloody world.

I'm seeing and hearing a lot more bigotry these days than I used to. Is that because I'm more aware of it or because there's more of it around in day-to-day conversation? In terms of people I know, I've heard casual racism (as in, words used without any care that they are racist and no thought that the person hearing the words might be offended), homophobia (no, the f-word is not a good one, and being gay is *not* synonymous with being a paedophile, good grief!), and of course the eternal ongoing sexism that pervades everything (which may or may not be getting worse, but it pisses me off).

I'm concerned about the big things like the BNP being voted in as MPs, but also about the everyday speech from everyday people. Is it just me?

I'm sure you think it's absolutely frickin' hilarious to give me a ridiculously out-of-season cold *and* a days-long dodgy stomach. I'm not amused. At all. The only thing that's keeping me from exacting my righteous revenge is the fact that I've managed to wangle a week of working from home. Oh, and that I wouldn't know where to target said revenge.

Seriously, though, to get through a day of phone calls I really need to be able to stay away from the toilet and / or the tissue box for more than five minutes.

No love at all,
Me

At least, here in the UK they do. So on Sunday it'll get dark here by about 5pm and it'll get earlier for several months. What difference does this make to me? I'll always come home from work in the dark. Actually, it's been that way for a few weeks now, but that situation will carry on for months and months. Walk home in the dark, make sure to switch off the ipod as I get off the (crowded) train, watch the stream of people around me thin and vanish as I leave the station, walk down a road alone while looking around to see if anyone's nearby, if there's anywhere to hide, careful of the cars stopped at the lights in case the occupants do anything unexpected, and make it to a car park where I'll be alone (though checking for people), check the back seat of my car before unlocking it, getting in and locking it again before I drive home.

And in case anyone's wondering, once I leave the station the 'people' I'm looking out for are men. This is entirely normal behaviour on my part, making sure I can hear and see as much of my surroundings as possible when it's dark because women are taught (for good reason) to fear being alone after dark. Here's a proposition: how about men are kept in after dark so women don't have to be afraid? That would make a change.