Category Archives: Cyberspace & Technology

Telephony

So.

I had a business meeting by phone scheduled for this morning. A meeting that I’ve been waiting for for some time now.

The phone rings. I pick it up. “Hi, it’s –”

And the phones cuts out.

I am not ashamed to say I threw the phone, I was so mad at it. (I threw it at something soft, and took the time to turn so that I aimed properly, but I threw it.)

I’m on my way out to buy (a) a replacement battery for the damn thing, and (b) a real phone with a cord that actually works to serve as backup.

It’s six years old. It’s done its time, both on the cradle and off. And it’s been sending us feeble “I don’t feel well” signals lately. But dying as soon as it’s taken off the cradle? Swan song.

UPDATE, 12:40 PM: New battery now charging. The salesman was surprised our battery lasted six years; he said they have a life of approximately three years. But the cord phone I bought? Only has a USB plug. Has to be exchanged for a Real Phone so I can actually use the damn thing as a backup phone on the main phone line, because of course there aren’t USB to phone jack adaptors that don’t cost more than the ruddy phone did. So it’s back out to the shops after Liam’s nap, so that we actually have a phone we can use before tomorrow.

::headdesk::

A Big Adventure

Yesterday we had A Big Adventure. We took the bus and metro downtown to the bookstore.

Since the car is down for the count we couldn’t implement our original plan for the day, which was to pick up earth and plants and finally get the garden in, or go get groceries, or do anything that required carrying things. But it was a beautiful day, and I had a coupon for a one-day discount at Indigo. Liam had never been on public transport before, and I’ve been leery of trying it without backup, so to speak, in case things went horribly awry. I happened to have a handful of bus tickets, so away we went.

He loved it. So many people to see! So many people to talk to him! When we got downtown we stopped in at a Second Cup so that HRH and I could have frozen hot chocolates (every bit as good as I remembered) and we could give Liam his lunch. He was so excited that he only ate half his usual lunch, but gladly accepted a bottle afterwards. Then we walked to the bookstore, and even though I read books to him and let him turn pages, he got cranky when I wouldn’t let him chew on them. It was around his afternoon nap time, and his two morning naps had been very short, so I’d sort of expected something of the sort to occur eventually. When I’d chosen books for his birthday presents HRH took him on a walk around the store while I pulled out my list and did a rapid check for the books I wanted to pick up for myself. The Jim Butcher wasn’t in stock (wah!) BUT the new Charles de Lint, Widdershins, was out, a lovely surprise as it hadn’t been listed as available when I’d last checked the website. So I snatched that up, plus The Greenstone Grail by Amanda Hemingway, a book that had a good review in a recent issue of Locus, plus Conrad’s Fate, the newest Chrestomanci book in paperback (yay Diana Wynne Jones! but the new cartoony covers for Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air are dreadful, whose idea were those?). All those books that he wasn’t allowed to touch really pushed Liam past his limits, though, so that was that.

We headed for home, and gave Liam another bottle on the metro as he was hitting that glassy-eyed tired stage. He fell asleep just before we reached the terminus, and slept the rest of the way home. All in all it was a remarkable success. Sure enough, my concerns about the metro were realised: to reach the platform you have to go up or down stairs, and our smaller stroller is still bulky enough to make this sort of thing difficult. The bus, however, is a breeze, particularly as we’re near the beginning of the route, so now I’ll feel perfectly comfortable taking him to the grocery stores or the shopping centres around here.

The phone battery gave out yet again when I was talking to my mother last night. I’m going to look into buying a new battery, as it’s happening with increasing frequency.

Photo Album Update

I’ve been behind on collating Liam’s online month-by-month photo albums, and these aren’t actually wholly complete; they only collect the various pictures that have already been posted in this journal. But still, for those of you who want them all in one place, we now have months seven, eight, and nine put together:

Photo Album: Liam – Seven Months Old

Photo Album: Liam – Eight Months Old

Photo Album: Liam – Nine Months Old

New pictures will be added to them as I find them and the time to get it done.

I’ve accomplished a lot of web-based work today, actually. I finally got the sidebar to work properly as well as reorganising a whole bunch of files on my server, setting up killer spam filters, and assembling these albums. Plus I practiced cello for an hour (and rewrote that damn IBFKATCS to simplify it one more time).

Invisible Live EP!

I just put Liam down for a nap while he was still awake. There have been no earthquakes, tsunamis, or other natural disasters. So far, so good.

I previously mentioned that this past gig was recorded. Invisible have generously made the live EP of their originals available for download in mp3 format, which should thrill all of you who screamed for an encore of Zombie Chickens.

Alas, the Random Colour cover of ADE has not been made available due to rights issues. (Namely, we stole their song without their permission. Even though they love us for it.)

Go, click, download, and relive the side-splitting horror of the clucking from the barn, coming for your brains…

Insert Title Here (For I Am Unimaginative This Day)

And the baby’s down for another nap. I like this long-nap thing. It’s cumulative.

I find it very amusing that my site stats indicate that this journal’s popularity has plummeted since syndicated feeds (LJ and otherwise) have begun publishing the whole entry instead of just a link and a slug. Not many people come here any more. Which doesn’t mean no one’s reading, of course; it’s just that the owlies are lonely. Ah well; more whiskey sours for them, I suppose…

Argh!

The feeds pick up the reposting of all my old journal entries, which I’ve just started to do.

There’s got to be a way to suppress feeds. I’ll just have to wade through piles of forums posts and support documentation to find it, though. So I’ll stop adding old entries for the moment.

::headdesk::

In the meantime, those of you who read via a feed will just have to pay attention to the date stamp on each “new” entry.

You know, this started out as such a good day, and has grown steadily less good. Gnash.