Dumpster diving: cash generative trash living.

Patience is the art of not waiting.

One more thing: yesterday, the computer engineer said to me: "you computer girl, yes?" I looked at him quizzically. "Sorry, sorry, lady," he responded, thinking I didn't like being called a girl, which I have no strong views on.

I pressed him for more information. I guess he looked at my combat trousers, tied-back messy hair (I'm a homeworker, right?), contemporary meeejah-style glasses (no lenses today, ditto), and drew conclusions. "Web girl, right?" He wouldn't tell me any more, except that I should ask my "computer friends" whether I look like one.

Is this a compliment? How did I get here (I ask myself)? Letting the days go by, water flowing underground...

Going postal? Royal Mail Special Delivery, Recorded Signed For, and plain old vanilla.

Did I say that a nice engineer fitted my video card, and plugged in the whole machine for me? It looks nice and shiny, but I'm putting off all the anti-virus, registering MAC addresses, loading office, document stuff, as I'm semi-scared of it, and can't do it in daylight-phone hours as I have too much to do. That's why I wanted to do it on the bank holiday weekend. But it's here, which is cool.

I'm sorry I've been so boring.

Don't Panic - the spiked version. The perfect antidote to victim culture.

Telewest residential tarrifs.

Unbelievable - my speakers just arrived, by fluke. Because the delivery person said it was on an OR delivery tarrif, anytime before 4pm. No, he didn't know anything about "delivering as soon as possible".

Of course now I'm on hold again at Evesham to tell them it's arrived. I'm in my eleventh holding minute. I think I'll give up.

And don't you hate it when you call a corporate switchboard, hold for ages being told your call is important, eventually get an operator who takes your postcode, mother's maiden name, and inside leg measurement and then puts you through to the customer care switchboard where you have to go through the whole rigmarole again. Only to find out that your friendly customer care operative, who erroneously told you this number was their direct line, is "away from their desk" seemingly for the foreseeable future.

And they say we live in the communication era.

Computer Update - I spoke too soon
So, even though Evesham emailed me confirming my replacement speakers were going on a pre-10am delivery, when the engineer called me at 9.30 they hadn't arrived yet. When I called the Evesham customer care hotline, I held for three minutes, and then spoke to Esther who told me that a fax had been sent to Amtrak telling them to deliver it "as soon as possible", which, judging by their service so far, could be next week.

She spoke to the same woman in the Amtrak depot I spoke to, who refused to call the delivery driver and find out what time it would get here, so now I have an engineer phoning me back in five minutes, but speakers that won't probably turn up till 4pm.

I kindly told the engineer he might as well go to his other job first, and I'll call him when I know what time the speakers are coming. I'm pretty sure that the chances of Evesham finding out from the woman in the Acton depot exactly what time it'll arrive are about as likely as Geoff Hoon saying it was all his fault really.

I'm trying not to let the stress get to me, but I have work to do, and need my new machine, and have wasted days on this crap. Any job I've had, if I'd treated customers the way I've been treated over this, I'd have lost my job.

Oh, and now it's 20 minutes later, and the Evesham Customer Care manager hasn't phoned me back, quelle suprise, and I'm holding for my ninth minute, and listening to that generic muzak which is loosely based on the soundtrack to American Beauty, but tinny and worse.

Computer Update: seven-inch version
Spoke to them today, an engineer will personally arrive with in an AGP video card with DVI support tomorrow, the replacement speakers are on collect and deliver at once, for a before 10am slot tomorrow, and the engineer will even set up my system for me. If this all happens, I'll be singing Evesham's praises like it's 1999.

I did have to call three times, but sometimes the expedient route is better than the jumping-up-and-down-customer-service-route.

Have I ever told you that I don't have bar skills - I have restaurant skills. I am Jewish, after all.

Did I tell you that when I went to collect my new PC on Friday, they wouldn't hand it over because I didn't have two official forms of ID on me, even though they never told me I needed them, and it was too late to go back home and get them, as I had people coming over for dinner, and I'd got kinda lost on the way because of Carnival preparations. Boy was I frustrated - crying even, but it was more than Phil's jobwasworth to be flexible.

Finally got my hands on the goods today, and it turns out that the 5.1 speakers are damaged (boot shaped dent in box and subwoofer), there's no DVI output, and the whole thing looks repackaged, replete with list of "missing" items taped to the box.

I'm not a happy camper. I ordered my PC two weeks ago, and I'm an instant-gratification girlie, at the worst of times. I've emailed my friendly Evesham operative, and I'm hoping they'll just come over and do it all for me.

Gah. The modern world. I mean, really.

Is this Adbusters campaign uncooling Nike, or entering the sneaker market by the backdoor?

Apparently, if you have seven apricot seeds (what they?) a day, you can prevent cancer. The FDA banned it.

Probably everyone else knows this, but Willian Gibson has a weblog.

If a legend is rumour + time (Billy Connolly), then an urban legend must be rumour + time + internet.

Is the Linksys BEFW11S4 11Mbps Wireless Broadband Router the one that I want? Or do I want to go 54G with the Netgear WGR614 54G Wireless Broadband Router?

One of the wonders of being self-employed: in my lunch hour, I made Morrocan chick-pea flatbread.

Roger Dodger last night, at the Other Cinema, in Rupert Street.

Cute movie. You don't really care about Roger - like you don't really care about the women in Sex & The City - but it's fast paced, but, as ever, not as fast paced as the trailer. Trailers nowadays take the best 20 gags in the whole 100 minute extravaganza, splice them together into a 3 minute doodar, and then you left panting after the real movie for better, faster gags.

Oh well.

It's the geeks from a John Hughes movie, with the ad agency from What Women Want, and clubby Manhattan from a Jay McInerney novel.

Turns out, I can go and collect it at 6pm, but that's not the point, is it?

Aaarrgggghhh......
So I paid to have someone in my house from 8am this morning, to take delivery of my new PC. Get back now, there's a card through the letterbox downstairs, helpfully timed "AM", and now Amtrak say the next delivery is Tuesday. And the whole point was, that I could set it all up this weekend. The woman I spoke to, she is the supervisor, her manager is on holiday, and he reports to the MD in Bristol, who is - as she so helpfully put it - "too high up the food chain for me to know his name".

This is the worst bit about the twenty-first century. Apart from war, famine and terrorism, of course. I mean, I've got a list a mile long of stuff I need to get done this weekend - writing projects mainly - and I need an un-sellotaped computer to get with the programme.

Bugger.

What do you call a cross between Yo Sushi and Wagamama?

Yo' mama.

I'm here all night.

It's just one big piece of spam rolled together. Fabulous.

[via Stephen Pollard]

Apparently, someone just got stabbed in the next street. There's loads of police now, and when I went out there were ambulances and stuff. I feel: slightly nervous. And can't help wondering who it is and if they're OK. A kid I just talked to said that someone broke into the guy's house and stabbed him.

My neighbour has the most amazing triffid-stylee sunflowers.

30 Pavillion Road - nice little Knightsbridge venue, should you need one.

Suddenly on a health kick: the longevity game and life expectancy calculator

Crashworthy dummy?

Late nights-a-plenty: the Limmud conference 2003 website went live this morning (the world's leading festival of Jewish learning).

Did anyone else get panicked about the idea of global power cuts and print out all their outlook contacts? Just me then.

A streetka named desire.

What's the difference between sultanas and raisins?

OK, temporarily stopped melting (old PC appeared to have terminal illnes before new one arrived, but I've sellotaped it together, for now). Was writing backup CDs last night like it's going out of style, though of course, I have a good backup protocol anyway.

Discovered a wonderful new breakfast: Mesa Surprise from Nature's Path in Canada. It's like cornflakes, but no wheat, and lots of slow-release goodies. From Tesco, already.

I'm m-e-e-e-l-l-t-i-n-g...

US - most unwired cities.

Wifi stuff, for London. And this.

Technical Paralysis
So my new desktop (PC) is coming in stages this week: LG flatscreen, closely followed by an Evesham e-style. Think I'm going to get a wireless hub. But then I also need to get a new laptop, and really want an iBook. But will it be more hassle than it's worth, getting them all to work together? Or is it easy, now?

O What a Night/Day
So I dropped into two great parties I would have liked to stay a while longer at, just wearing my fauxarishis and new t-shirt, and then rushed home to do a whole magazine-stylee makeover for the "evening do". I know you want to know what I wore: a black, silk, slightly twenties, beaded bias-cut knee length dress, sheer black tights (my calves are not up to summer display, not when it's dress-up, anyhow), purple velvet shoes (that matched the beading at the bottom of the dress), and a creamy/brown chinese wrap and matching handbag that matched the beading at the top of the dress. Marilyn style eye-makeup. R didn't recognise me, but then I didn't recognise him because he was looking remarkably like Samuel L Jackson.

People-watching is the best. And it has to be when you go to a party where there are two hundred guests and you only know the hosts. Of course, we fell into conversation with a few people (an orthopeadic surgeon who wanted to give up work because surgery's not cut-out for motherhood; three women who's common link was that they all knew a woman who wasn't there), and for a while, I figured that R knew everyone there, but then he told me "it's a black thing" for guys to nod and acknowledge each other. I can't help thinking there are parts of London where everyone's nodding like a dog all day. Jewish people do it by conversation: you out the other person by making more and more obscure references, watching the recognition ratio till you can collect your money at the bookies. I prefer to think that people thought they recognised us in an aren't-you-famous? way.

[Aside: this is not so interesting, as I am often mistaken for Tracey Ann Oberman, a woman I was at University with, who is now a sucessful actress. We lead parallel lives, as I read on IMDB that she has also taken up pilates as a result of back problems. And she goes to the same gym as me. When I was at college, my own mother couldn't tell that it was her on the front of the local rag, campaigning about something I had no interest in, I forget what. The strangest thing is, that I know she was a year or so ahead of me at University, and now she seems to have lopped a few years off her age at IMDB. OK, aside over.]

Great DJ, who played the best mix of soul-style music, and had everyone strutting their stuff on the dance floor. There was one really annoying woman: she looked like the backing singer from the Human League, lopsided haircut and all, and she was wearing a dress like a very long boob tube, and danced as though she was playing a game where she had to keep one hand behind her back, and the other high up over her head to show that she had had an expensive depilation treatment recently. Of course she had to keep yanking up her dress, even though she was sticking her boobs out, and making a strange, pained (drunk?) face, and shuffling around like it was the Wigan Casino all over again. There were lots of eighties clothes: off the shoulder stripey t-shirts, three quarter-length satin trousers, you name it, any fashion that's not kind to the curvaceous woman, it's back with a vengeance.

We left about eleven, after a full two-hour work-out, and my muscles are aching, which is good, as I was planning to go back to the gym sometime soon. It's been eight weeks since I sprained my ankle, and it's still not good, but that's another post. Must go to work. Later.

Been a busy few days: 2.5 projects completed, one more to get done this week (try August for acquiring conference speakers - I know the holiday plans of every single senior HR exec in the country), and starting a 3 day a week project on Monday. With a guy who appears to have spent some serious time rewriting my Terms of Business for me.

Oh well.

I'm wearing my new t-shirt; black with sparkly writing that says:

80% Woman
20% fox

...only, when I saw it in the shop, it thought it said:
80% Woman
20% fax

...but of course I knew that was a typo, and should have read
20% text message

Anyway. Two parties (hen-style, and birthday) this afternoon, and then famous-neighbours party in cool club tonight. I have had a manicure. I am prepared.

Someone told me last night that if a bird flies into your house, someone's going to die. I'm working on the basis that this is a bubbie meiser [old wives tale], otherwise I'd have to worry.

Hipster bingo: that's me for the evening, then.

Had some friends over for supper last night (made salad nicoise, with real seared tuna - healthy and nice, what a combination), and D pointed out that the Atkins diet is like a religion: when you're on it, you seek out other people who are also adherents, and discuss it at great length. But then, I think weight watchers is a cult (they take your money on a regular basis, and you mostly have nothing to show for it), so what do I know?

There are so few times when I'm happy I'm still on Micro$oft Windows 98 (SE).

Sick of Customer Service Religions
So after two year's of using an IBM ThinkPad as my main machine - my laying-off gift from my last full-time (dot-com-stylee) job - I've decided to get new kit. Decided on an Evesham desktop, with an LG flatscreen monitor, and probably an iBook for handbag stuff. But the shit I went through with the customer service personnes was unreal: prices in dollars they wouldn't let me pay, speccing a monitor that didn't have a DVI to go with the machine, telling me the Phillips monitors were identical to the LG monitors, just badged, when they're worse, telling me that a 1X512 chip would be slower than 2X256 and then changing their minds. There was a time this morning when I nearly told them to take a running jump, as someone (who wouldn't tell me her job-title or responsibility, merely that "she answers the MD's phone, that's all you need to know" reneged on a previously quoted price. Sheesh. In the end, F gave me great advice: don't get hassled about how bad their service appears to be, just buy it. Monitor from ebuyer was 20 squid cheaper than Dabs, too. Deed done.

London's greatest vinatage formica cafes. Yep, formica.

The Right to Manage (I'm a leaseholder) comes in on 30th September.

Just because one day I'll look back and wonder what I did on the hottest day of the world - forty people came over on Sunday (including people from Lyon, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield) to perform a surprise 30th birthday ritual for D. He was genuinely surprised. It was fab. And hot. People hung out in the garden till elevenish, and then we all faded. Used my collection of South East Asian fans (the old fashioned kind - I used to live in Singapore/Bangkok) for the first time in years, and people seemed mightly pleased.

The bird scenario was sorted about 9am - I actually posted something but blogger went off on one with my post. I knocked on my downstairs neighbour's door (by a process of elimination: the nature-outdoorsy people are on holiday, the party people don't surface till much later, the famous neighbour has moved and the new people just moved in yesterday), and J was terribly neighbourly, and after half an hour of us trying various things - brooms, calling the RSPB, food to lure it, he threw a towel over it and put it outside. It looked quite scared, and is probably in bird therapy as we speak.

What's an appropriate thank-you for a neighbour you've never actually spoken to before who makes himself late for work by performing a bird-saving task for you?

Did I mention it was an incontinent bird?

There's a bird trapped in my living room. I've opened the back door, but it doesn't seem to be able to tell.

Time for a wireless network, that's good for PCs and Macs. Should I get one of these? Or what?

"It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot! ... It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but ain't no good if you're in the jungle!"

Right or Wrong?
So my neighbours upstairs - the DJ - put a note under my door at around 5pm saying "sorry about the short notice, but great weather and all that, we're having a party in the (shared) garden tonight. Hope you can make it."

Now they may live in a mellowed-out-whatever kinda way, but I'd invited a small bunch of friends over for an intimate quiet dinner months ago. And my whole flat is vibrating to dub reggae, descarga, and other musical styles best inbibed when a little, er, stoned, frankly. No, they can't move the speakers to the end of the garden, they have to be right outside my back door.

I feel like they're inconsiderate, and actually got quite tearful for about ten minutes till I realised how futile it was (and also had some good advice from my Mum - hello Mum (waves)). If they give me a few weeks notice, I can plan - be there, not be there, whatever, at least I know what's going on. It's not that I'm not spontaneous, it's just that the quiet enjoyment of my home is currently vibrating to a bass beat that goes all the way back to Haille Selaisse (check spelling when less tired.) My friends were cool/understanding about it, though, and I made a bastardised version of Nigella's salmon den miso.

What do you think? (about my neighbours, not the salmon).

Bil Thomson's got technology/blog overload - like I care.

Wish I'd gone to the London flashmob.

When assistants/receptionists ask me "does s/z/he know what it's concerning?" I can't help feeling f***K off, you nosey cow.

"Working from home" is a lie. If people are working from home, why won't their colleagues give you a number for them, and if you do have one, why don't they answer their mobile phones? It's a con, we all know that. There's a bloke at a certain analyst firm who hasn't answered his phone for a week.

What do you do when you've got a meeting which in all other circumstances you would wear a suit for, and at the same time it's the hottest day of the decade?

Seems most of the western world is "working from home" today.

Just got a call from a client who I'm meeting tomorrow at 2.30, saying would I mind terribly if we met for lunch? They've booked a table at 1230 at Fifteen. And I said...

UK phone code locator: because believe me, one day you'll do 1471, and an 01397 code will come up, and you'll need to know that someone called you from Fort William and didn't leave a message.

"Mr Delmonte, he say yes!": I can breathe again: the client liked it. Did a presentation of my HR stuff Friday afternoon, and they're happy for me to carry on, want me to do an additional project, and even want to pay me more. I don't like disappoint clients.

Saw a couple of other people Friday, and then Friday night "potluck dinner" at a local-ish shul, which turned out to be more fun that I imagined. Met a host of international-stylee interesting people, as well as running into an old friend I've not seen for ages. Third batch of Mexican chilli was my contribution, but it turned out way hotter than I intended, but even though I announced this (I think it's poor form to have people you don't know keel over from eating a dish you made), it all seemed to go, and I even got a couple of compliments.

Had a lie-in this morning, first for ages. It's six weeks exactly since I sprained my ankle, and it still hurts - walking back last night, only a couple of miles, made me realise that it's gonna take a while. Out for supper this evening, and then up at the crack of dawn (no, really, 8.30 flight) to get to Manchester for the day. If you book in advance, flying is the same as the train, and way more efficient. I hope. See you on the other side.

Gotta go to a hundred and fourteen meetings in about two seconds. But just head two women on the Today programme (one from the Welsh Assembly, one a psychologist, presumably from Wales) have the most ridiculous ding dong about whether the women in the Welsh Assembly (parliament) are fat/clinically obese, in the light of the WA's current debate on obseity.

I mean, who does this pyschologist/silly cow think she is? She clearly designed her remarks - peppered with "as a psychologist" or "from a pyschological perspective" - as a media feeding - fnah fnah - frenzy, and seems to have acheived her objectives. "I do seem to see a lot of larger women at the WA". Like, that's specific, lady. And when the parliamentarian suggested that women members might get eating disorders as a result of public debate about their body mage, I nearly choked over my all bran, cracked linseed and soy milk cereal. P-u-leese. Eating disorders are generally tied to self-esteem and control issues, which is why it's largely fourteen year olds who succumb, not people who've fought elections to get where they are in politics. Just generalising, of course.

And her ridiculous retort "I'd like to see people practice what they preach, like doctors to stop smoking" topped the soundbite-so-what scale for the week. I need to have a word with those people at the Today programme. I can help you: I'll be the person-on-the-clapham-omnibus you test out the silly season stories on. Nick's got my number.