First a rant about buying books online, and then a note about new a gadget/toy.

17:34 <@shell> Amazon ftl
17:35 <@shell> Waterstones ftw
17:36 <@shell> French Lonely Planet phrase book. 3 options:
17:36 <@shell> 1) Amazon, £3.99 for the book plus £2.75 delivery
17:36 <@shell> 2) Waterstones, £4.99, free delivery
17:37 <@shell> 3) buy in the high street for £4.99 (RRP)
17:37 <@shell> guess which option i went for!
17:38 <@shell> also just bought 2 new buffalo cable routers to install linux on for people off ebuyer, and ink off mx2

Off to Paris at the end of May! Never been, kept meaning to, finally got a round to it.

… I pop my head up again. Same old story.

So what have I been up to? The boring and the interesting. Had few things I’ve been wanting to go on about recently

I had nice drive (not, it was pissing it down) to Manchester and back in early January for an interesting day at Zen HQ (an ISP) for a DSL diagnostics training session. We are partners with Zen at work. Highly recommended. Nice to phone up an ISP, and to talk techy and get some one who understands. Unlike Virgin. In January I ended up shouting down the phone at them on behalf of my parents. I’m normally very tollerent with call centre staff, having been one for many years. The idiot in India just couldn’t grasp the fact the cable modem was at fault. It was just totally locking up randomly, completely inaccessible. Fool wanted me to do diags and stuff on my PC. He couldn’t grasp I was more qualified than he was and had a clue. The cable modem was from the dark ages where cable modem broadband was 128k!! It was OLD. Ended up posting on the ISPs support newsgroups, who booked an engineer no problems. English tech support FTW. When the engineer turned up he just laughed because of how old it was and replaced it. No testing, no questions

I have a new phone! Vodafone v1415 (actually a HTC S710). Another Microsoft Windows Mobile phone, yes I know, but I am Microsoft Exchange girl these days. After recent experience of setting up of mail servers on Linux, even more so too! Now it isn’t as high spec’d as my old TYTN but it’s more like a normal phone. Normal size. Normal numeric keypad - but still has a qwerty keyboard hidden away! I have a PDA style (touch screen) phone for work like my old Tytn (currently a O2 XDA Mini S (Qtek 9100)). I don’t need 2 though, especially 2 bulky phones. Work phone soon to get upgraded to a Tytn II anyway!

I’ve been really happy with Vodafone. I rang them up last week as my TYTN was faulty yet again. Must have got through 3 or 4 of them. 1 had a jammed button. Another had a dodgy keyboard after a while. Then the last one they sent me didn’t charge the battery properly so it was dead in less than 24 hours. I just politely explained I had lost faith in Tytns. Now I’d seen the new phone I had now and was aiming at getting one somehow. I was expecting to have to pay something as when I asked before how much it would cost me to just get one they said £225 but because I’m nice customer they’d sell me one for £150. I’m only about 8 months into this contract.. they turned around with out me asking and just gave it me for nothing!

Complete contrast to Orange and why I left them a few years ago. A decade ago they were the best. No more though. Orange really don’t care any more, and if they mess up are not interested in fixing it, or owning up to it and apologising. They let me go with no effort to keep me over a £50 phone. Vodafone have kept me now no arguments over 2 phones each being approx £200 phones! I pay about the same a month to Vodafone as I did to Orange. Vodafone have made a few cock ups but they’ve been straight up with them and apologised, and admitted their faults. We’re having right problems at work at the moment with clients who use Orange and have Blackberry’s. Orange seem to have lost the ability now to even set up accounts correctly! I once wrote Orange a bloody long letter because I could not all of a sudden access my account online. I was told to call a 50p/min line. I reluctantly did as I heavily used the online service. They didn’t fix it. I rang customer services and explained I was not doing that again, it was clearly their side that was broken. Not interested. As I said, I wrote a 2 page letter about this and general annoyances I had with their recent crappyness. I got a 2 line letter back just telling me to call the 50p a min number… I left them a few weeks later.

Spent the last week recovering from a horrible stomach bug or food poisoning or something Never fun. Sister had been staying with me and it started the evening she left (last Tuesday). She felt ill a few days later, so I’m thinking it’s a stomach bug. We hardly ate that day and what we did we both had. For hers to come on days later it couldn’t have been something we ate!

Nicky stayed over from the Saturday to the Tuesday and we did all touristy stuff in London. A sorry for me as I buggered off to Germany for her 18th birthday. We spent Sunday in The Strand/Trafalgar Square/Leicester Square/China Town enjoying all the Chinese New Year celebrations. Monday’s highlight was the evening at the theatre seeing Cabaret with Julian Clarey, and some guy who was in Home and Away. It was, err, different to my previous theatre experiences. That’s what I get for telling my sister to choose I guess. She was interested in the whole dancing side of it. I wasn’t expecting the nudity - I wasn’t expecting an evening with Julian Clarey’s back side We Will Rock You is still my favourite though Avenue Q was hilarious. From a musical stand point though, We Will Rock You was just an experience and a half. Tuesday we went to the London Dungeons. Now me and my sister are not wimps, like the screaming teenage girls who ended up being in our group going round. There were several points we were stood/sat there holding on to each other though lol. An experience I highly recommend (unless you have heart issues!!). It’s basically a whole set up of scenes etc that you go through with actors leading you through it, being part of it with a few rides and various ’stages’, all to do with the history of London. The gory history. Make sure you take an Oyster card and you get buy 1 get 1 free on tickets too.

Looks like my sister may be down this way come September It’s uni time for her, already! She is doing ‘Fashion Management’. She’s got an offer from Manchester Uni. She is more impressed though by Westminster uni who have given her an offer too (campus in Harrow though for her degree) as she will get to go America for a while to study and a year out working. They’ve also offered her a scholarship which will help out with finances hugely! The only other one she is interested in is The London College of Fashion, right off Oxford Street. It’s a ‘Who knows who’ nose in the air place though. She has her interview there next week but she’s growing less and less fond on the idea of the place. I think she would like to get an offer just to say she got an offer but think she would go to Harrow though! Also the fact Harrow is just outside London so cheaper, but only 20 mins on the tube away. She loves the idea of living in London.

Doing the Tutankhamun exhibition at the 02 and Terracotta Army at the British Museum in a few weeks with my mum (got to keep them all happy…!). Will let you know if they are not as boring as I am expecting

Off to Swansea this weekend to enjoy the nice Welsh scenery and beer with Hyphen. Well in need of it at the moment.

Still got to sort out going to Copenhagen to see lovely Ida. I will get round to it Ida! Especially as the plane tickets to get there and back are cheaper than going to Swansea and back on the train. How stupid?! A rant for another day..

Got Ubuntu on my laptop now seeing as how pissed off I was getting with Vista, and how Linux now understands the stupid sound+modem chip in 1 in it and can produce sound. Also how friggin easy they’ve made wireless now. Yay! Also doing a n Ubuntu server at the moment. I did start but had HDD over heating issues, and splat. 0Expect to see some random Ubuntu-y posts with links/howtos to stuff. Nothing more annoying then forgetting how you sorted something out last time when you spent hours doing so. It’s good to share.

Desktop with 64bit XP OS and 4GB RAM for gaming FTUW though.

Currently listening to and enjoying ‘Ministry Of Sound Anthems 1991-2008′ album. Classic.

So it’s Christmas day, I’m in Germany, just out side Hamburg… and I’ve spent the whole day in bed really ill. Fever, aches, you name it.

Just my friggin luck!

Saturday - went to Berlin - was cool. Got told the interesting bits by Steev who I’ve come with and who lived in Berlin for a year. Missed our fast train (1hr45) there tho so had to get uber slow train that stopped everywhere, taking something like 4 hours. They seem to like having a train station for just 1 house in the middle of no where.

Sunday - went for a walk, got lost, found a MacDonalds lol. German’s still believe on everything being shut on a Sunday. Which I agree with.

Monday - went to Hamburg, wandered around until shops closed mid after as being weird Germans they open Christmas presents on Christmas eve! Then came back and just felt really ill.

Tuesday, today, Christmas day - day spent in bed terribly ill.

Wednesday - Hopefully I’ll feel better to go out. Would like to go to Hamburg in the evening and take some cool photos around the harbour.

Thursday - We fly back in the evening. 1st day shops will be back open. So we’re going to leave the luggage in the luggage lockers at the train station (the Germans still have them unlike the English :D), and shop. We’ve not spent much of the spending money somehow so woo.

All pending me not still lying in bed feeling like death. I am not going to enjoy flying home feeling like this!

Hope you’ve all had a better Christmas than me. Have a fun new year.

Sorry about the.. emptyness. Kind of got a life and.. stuff. I’ll explain one day

Currently looking forward to Germany at Christmas with Steev, lots Snow hopefully, meaning a white Christmas! Written about that previously though I’ve just realised. Only 38 days to go though and bloody hell do I need the time off from work. Off from 2 days earlier though for the talk Christmas party. Didn’t manage to get to last years, so wooyay. First holiday for a few years I think. Planning to do Compenhagen in Denmark next year now I’ve had to get off my arse and renewed my passport, and see lovely Ida (it will happen Ida!) Edinburgh is also in the works. Travelling Shell.

Website will be down in the next few weeks while I move to a different server. Not exactly when or how long and the such yet. Hopefully I will manage to not break it.

Shell xx
Thinking.. Next year shall be an interesting one.. though the last year has been!

Some bastard thing has bit and infected me! All inflamed and horribly itchy and uncomfortable on my arm. 3 of them Got horrible antibiotics off the doctor. Ones I have to plan my eating around. Gr!! Got pushed out the door at work this morning to the doctors by everyone because of how bad they got.

Just normal bites appeared yesterday.. itchy.. normal though. I’m always getting bitten by things like nats. Put some cream on them last night when I got home. Woke this morning and wowa! Just started spreading out with “spikes” up and down my arm while at work.

Of all the bites I’ve had (during the summer I always have nat bites all over me), loads, scratched tops off them and all sorts (asking for trouble!) and never had them infected before. These, hardly scratched the tops much. One has barely broken skin, debateable if it even is, but they are all infected. Conclusion.. not my fault for scratching them, but the bloody thing that’s bit me.

!!!!!! REALLY ANNOYING

Bloody antibitoics (which always disagree with my body in some way or another too) and food planning is already pissing me off too…

*Goes and screams quietly in a corner*

One of those evenings of thinking, and “Why?” just keeps coming up.

I could write such a long list.

This time yesterday I felt on top of the world.

Just… why?

Good: Erm. Yeh. I’m a live. We’ll come back to this one.

Bad: Bronchitus sucks. Had friggin’ thing now for going on a month. Viral infection so feck all antibiotics will do for me (but they did sort out my bad sinus’ that were giving me tooth ache). Had horrible lower abdomen pains for last day too. Nasty chesty cough. Not good. I’m falling apart.

Good: Thought of something! Spending Christmas in Hamburg, Germany with Steev. Very excited. Going to attempt to learn some German, shall be interesting. I spent 5 years learning french at school. Have I ever been to France?! Also waiting for Cisco book so I can get some Cisco certifications under my belt too.

Bad: I and everyone else forgot this Christmas day was my sister’s 18th birthday. So I won’t be there for it. I’m not the most liked person at the moment by my mum and sister Though they do see my point that they didn’t think about it either when I told them I was probably not going to be around this christmas when they were visiting me. Instead they waited till 2 hours after the plane tickets had been booked.

Good: Mum is taking it surprisingly well that I won’t be there for New Years also. I think this is helped by the fact I’ve said I’ll come to Nottingham last weekend I have free before Christmas and first one after. Joy. Thankfully got access to 2 cars there now, making visiting people there easier.

Bad: Cat’s are off again outside. Arguing over whose drive is whose.

Good: Because I don’t want to finish on a bad point. Lovely 3 day weekend spent last weekend in Swansea with Hyphen. I didn’t think till after that swimming in the cold sea was not a clever idea for my chest. Few weeks and Hyphen is visiting me. 2 weeks after that Rebecca (Hyphen’s visited me at my new place but not Rebecca yet). Going to the theatre with each of them, something I’ve not done at all yet. Avenue Q with Hyphen and We Will Rock You wil Rebecca. Shall be good. Then Hyphen is back at the end of November when the London Transport Museum reopens! That’s it though up until Christmas. Quiet for me compared to the last few months. No plans to be in Nottingham untill the 2 weekends before Christmas.

Ugly: Ponder. Apparently. Steev says.

Now off to do something.. I can’t remember what. Got lots of photos to upload. Might do that. Might not. Got to finish sorting the crap out of 438 of them yet and organise them!

BTW: Johnny 5 FTW.

Seeing as 4oD has just finished downloading Friday’s IT Crowd that I missed, I’m off to watch that.

Shell wishing she could say more but knowing it’s just easier to stay shut up for now.. we’ll see..

Finally fixed the photo gallery too now! www.michellez.net/photos/ - I’m slowly getting round to putting more photos up that I’ve collected over the last few months.

Wondering what to do now my mum has left. 7 days! Too much. Need a beer…!

Going to try and impliment gallery2 into the main site (Wordpress) now again, as the new theme lends it self to it a bit better.

Geek - need to relax so I get the code out

…Nice relaxing week end

Saturday - .talk party/BBQ in Warrington. Which was nice as I haven’t been to a talk event in over a year now so haven’t seen many of the .talk bunch for that long!

Sunday - Back to Nottinghamshire (where I am now), to see my parents.

Monday (Today) - My Mum is coming back with me this evening to London for the week, and I’ve just dropped my sister and her friend at the train station as they are going down to London too, for a summer school. I have work on Tuesday and Wednesday this week (only), my mum is going to occupy herself seeing relatives she hasn’t seen in decades in Eastbourne though. Thursday and Friday I have off doing god knows what with my mum. Then my sister is staying over at the weekend too (not sure where I’m sleeping!).

Wednesday is my birthday, and we’re all meeting up to go to China town near Leicester Square Can’t wait. There was me thinking I’d been spending my birthday at work (someone else is on holiday, so for the first time in my life I have to work on my birthday!), then do nothing perticular in the evening.

Oh, and Virgin Trains Pendalino 1st class FTW… Better than Midland Mainline 1st class! Though Midland Mainline standard class FTW over Virgin standard class, because you still get mains power at your seat. This weekend I’ve been on Virigin trains, First TransPennine, Central Trains, and Midland Mainline later. First was a “mistake” after someone thought it would be clever to report our train as cancelled from Warrington Central when it wasn’t. So we got off the First train at Manchester and waited for it. Hmm.. I wonder how many miles that is.

I’m rambling now….

Microsoft Certified Professional

I know certain people will comment, spitting in disgust at that.

Finally got round to sitting exam 70-270 (Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional). Passed with flying colours - a score of 986 which is bloody good. It’s out of about 1000 points (depends on the questions). Just wondering what to do now. Wouldn’t mind doing something Cisco related I just wanted to get my first proper useful qualification exam out of the way tho (with a easy one ;)). Last exam I did was A-Level computing in 2003!

Had a nice weekend again too. No work. Nice and chilled out. I went and watched the film Transformers this evening, which was a VERY good film. Loved it. Had it all - Humour, shooting, you name it.