Sente Kiteway; friend or foe?

I have just watched Newsround (yes people, a 20-y.o. who watches Newsround. It's the only news I can bear to watch.) and apparently today, Tuesday the 17th of October 2006, the National Trust are running a blog related scheme. They're asking people to submit their blog posts from today to be kept in a special place so that people in the future may have an idea about what our lives are like. It's like a time capsule without all the strenuous digging! So if you're reading this in the long distant future thanks to the National Trust, Greetings. Head over to my blog and see what you missed out on!

If you're a more regular reader, one of the 3 out there, it's been a while since I've updated. Sorry. I'd like to say it's because I've been in the middle of a hotbed of activity. It feels like I have, but as soon as I try to explain all the wonderous things I've been up to there never seems to be enough to realisticly have been as busy as I have! Did that make sense? No? Good. This is my blog after all.

But look - I have the internet. It's not stolen this time people! British Telecom are actually behaving. The home hum in all it's plastic white shinyness is operational!



Sexy!

But at least now we're not preaying for clear weather when we want to use the internet so we can hop onto the people at number 15's connection. Why do people invest in wireless networking, have the knowhow to put it together but not spend the twenty seconds it takes to include a passphrase?

In else news I have successfully completed my first essay of the year and had it handed it in 25 hours early! Yeah, I'm a total geek. But it makes me feel better knowing that I have that window in case anything drastic happens like my computer developing issues like spontaneous combustion. And, hey, with Microsoft who knows! I always get the giggles when I run something from 'Microsoft Works'. But my computer lives on and the essay on the use of Sign Language in Chimpazees was handed in. Funfun.

Now that we have the internet I have taken the time to get caught up with the goings on in Perplex City. For those of you not familiar with Perplex city watch the following short video:



Or head over too the website. I hate not being able to long in for periods of time as I miss all the excitement. I'm finally all caught up today and I'm going to let you in on the fact that I am shocked to the core. I know they're not real people but I have spent over a year now regularly reading about these people's lives, helping them with puzzles and problems. All I can is my heart really goes out to Scarlett and Violet, it must have been terrifying everything that happened in the lighthouse basements (Quirky Acuity and The Scarlett Kite archives from Oct 2006 for details.) Violet chased by an unknown entity talking some pretty weird and crazy stuff, breaking her and needing a total blood transfusion for radiation poisoning. Scarlett trapped in the dark trying to construct an electromagnet to open an exit and having to shoot her sister's attacker, whom , it turns out, was an innocent guy. Now they've been to Viendenbourg and returned with evidence that their fature, master of the Perplex City Academy, is quite probably responsible for it all. After what happened with Anna a few months ago I'm a little worried about where this all is going. I am slightly concerned that third power agents may start making their prescence more 'known' at Earth events.

That was all probably very strange and worrying for you. Yes this is all about fictitous people and events. but yes it really did leave a mark on me. Why do people, or at least me, got so effected by fictitous things like this. I think it must have something to do with length of time and exposure and regularity as I'm the same with TV shows. Well certain TV shows.

But yes, I hope I've piqued your interest in Perplex City. The puzzles are all fun, you meet people even though it's mostly net-based. There's also thepossibility of winning £100,000 for finding the Receda Cube. I've agreed to advertise Perplex City around Bangor. So I should be making card drops and stuff round the place so keep your eyes open if you want to take part.

BT: It's good to balk

Okay this is is currently going to be pretty much a bitch fest at BT's expense. All those already uninterested should leave now and return for later updates. On the other hand if the bitching makes me feel better you may be rewarded with some joy at the end. So you may want to stick it out. Up to you.

I have magically found someone on Friar's Avenue who does not feel it clever to have security measures on their wireless internet. Some nasty evil part of me hope's they're on dial-up but if they were I doubt I'd be costing them any extra money as they'd already have to be connected. But yes now one week after our supposed activation date for the shiny white plasticness of the BT Home Hub and we are still internetless. There have been many phone calls lasting anything up to an hour to their 'Help'-line(s) and I somehow get the feeling we are no closer to cyberspace.

On Sunday we rang BT and were told that the broadband help desk people didn't work weekends and she "wasn't at liberty" to divulge any information about activation dates. We rang again on Monday and I spent 45 minutes talking to someone in India with little knowledge of a/ phone ettiquette, b/ what he was talking about or c/ the English language. People meeting any of these conditions should not be employed on help lines. Help lines are much more helpful if both parties speak the same language and at least one of them is trained in a job giving them helpful knowledge. During our phone call we made spurts of progress when he managed to tell me meagre snippets of information and I trained him on the basic operations of your common or garden personal computer and why the things he asked me to do were illogical and senseless given the nature of the problem. Then he finally divulged that his computer was saying that "the order is incompleted" sic and we should really be talking to Order Management. So he gave me their number. An 0845 number. I refused to have to pay to require about a service that should have already been provided so was transferred. Which is how I met lovely Scottish lady.

If you are a Scottish lady who works in Order Management for BT I would like to profess my undying love for you. You were nice and polite and demonstrated knowledge about the issue, computers and the English language. I wish I had your name so I could nominate for employee of the month, after Indian man you were a welcome breath of fresh air! Yes she even had nicer hold musak to which I listened while she spoke to the engineering department for me and found out that they were haveing 'routing problems' and it should be sorted in 2-3 days. The more astute amoung you will already have realised that nice Scottish lady was told misleading information by the engineering department and those days have already run out.

Keira rang back yesterday. She did nice phone voice for BT as she even rang the 0845 number. The were not very apologetic and then said that there was a tag on the line. A tag we were told had been removed when we first had problems with the internet ordering now 3 weeks ago. Needless to say we were not very impressed and made this unequivocally obvious without being rude. Though I think we are now making it our mission to simply bore BT into submission so they will give us the internet. I sent them an e-mail today asking for an activation date and details of how to recieve reimburement for the money we are spending on phone calls to them and on electricity going into a Home Hub that is, for all intents and purposes, useless. More e-mails and phone calls will ensue, have no fear.

On the plus side we were cheered to no end by 'Cheesey Pop Night' on The Hits. They even showed 20 Steps songs back-to-back and in chronological order. Sadly I knew all the words. There was also discussion of who in Steps could actually sing well. I kept saying that Faye Tozer could. Cat didn't believe me until number 20 "I Know Him So Well". Even after I pointed out that Russell Watson ('Opera-man') asked her to do a duet with him:



In other news I got my grubby little mitts on 'The Open Door'. I don't think it's as good as 'Origin' or 'Fallen' but it is still an excellent CD. I also interviewed for a voluteer position on a project working with the psychiatric ward at the hospital. I should here soon if I got the place. Fingers crossed please readers.