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Firstly, Happy new year everyone. After buying my (now) 21 week pregnant significant other a 37″ Sony Bravia for xmas, I decided we should put it to good use and play some computer games on it. As a Mac user, I’m not exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to serious gaming so I decided to install Windows on my late 2006 Mac Pro 1,1. After about a day of using Windows XP I remembered why I originally swapped to being an Apple fanatic; XP is sh*t. Having tried a copy of Windows 7 and actually liking it (very KDE4), I thought I’d actually buy my first legal copy of a Microsoft product since owning Windows 95. At this point I could probably write a book about all the issues I’ve been having installing the 64 Bit version of Windows 7 on an early Mac Pro. In short, after following instructions on every forum I could find, I gave up and swapped my copy of for the 32 Bit version of Windows 7. As I’m sat at work until midnight, I have no idea if the 32 Bit EFI on my Mac will play ball with this copy of Windows. Why am I even bothering? Left 4 Dead 2 is possibly the most awesome Zombie game I’ve played since House of the Dead 2. Sorry Steve Jobs, I really love your OS but some things are more important.

Kaiane Aldorino, a 23 year old administrative clerk has made history in Johannesburg (South Africa) by becoming Gibraltar’s first Miss World. Today while sat working in the Internet Cafe (Cyberworld) there were maybe 3 or 4 customers drinking away while we had Miss World on in the background. When Kaiane was announced the winner there was silence, followed by disbelief, followed by the sounds of a 6 square mile country errupting in joy. Kaiane we are all very happy for you and your family, and today we are all especially proud to be Gibraltarian.

The thought of paid overtime is nice. As I get paid a day rate for running an Internet Cafe, overtime will never happen. Recently, ‘Big Steve’ decided to find himself a real job working for the local Apple Computer shop, meaning I now have to work all of his hours until I can find a suitable replacement. 90 to 100 hour working weeks are currently sucking all my time, events such as our anual pig fest known as ‘Jamon Night’ are extremely tiring, and if I have to mop up some random 18 year old kids projectile vomit one more time I WILL go mad. Next time you go into an Internet Cafe or a bar, if the person working there looks tired, buy them a beer or leave them a nice tip.

For almost 2 weeks I have been living in a Kosher household. In the eyes of ‘God’ I am a Roman Catholic, in practise I am agnostic/atheist depending on how I am feeling that day. In the eyes of my Jewish flatmates, no one cares what I am as long as I respect the fact that in that household, things remain Kosher. At first I thought this would be a simple case of not bringing swine based products into the house. I was wrong. Meat plates cannot be washed with dairy plates, no consumption of milk for 3 hours after eating meat, different sets of cutlery for different things, absolutely no food containing E120 E422 E432 E433 E434 E435 E436 E441 E470 E471 E472a,b,c,d,e,f E473 E474 E475 E476 E477 E481 E482 E483 E491 E492 E493 E494 E495 E542 E570 E572 and a whole plethora of other items, actions, thoughts and what not. Although I have no intention of ever taking up a new religion, all of these rules and regulations make for quite entertaining living. If anything I am losing weight as I don’t dare go into the kitchen

I have totally given up on FedEx. After being told that my phone has been lost somewhere, I decided to get onto Handtec (the company I purchased said phone from) and see what they could do for me. After a brief 20 minute conversation with one of their extremely helpful customer support agents, a new telephone is being shipped out to me. Hopefully the phone makes it to Gibraltar this time.

Over the years, I have received many a rejection letter from companies I had hoped to work for. I used to be an intelligent IT hopeful with dreams and ambitions, I could change things and make this world a happier place one bit at a time. Many petabytes have passed, I now grind through each day, head hung low, shoulders slumped, a dejected shadow of my former self. Why am I being held back from joining an organisation where I can be of some use (or maybe an asset or even a marxist type commodity depending on how many buzz word spewing marketing types worked there long enough to become a boss)? An organisation where I can rise through the ranks until I am totalitarian leader of the whole planet. Who dares foil my plans? Human Resources that’s who. A simple “I would like a career change” is not good enough for them. They become confused at the fact you are applying for something that doesn’t directly match any of you previous roles, and fail to see that skills you have picked up can indeed be applied to different jobs and situations. What set me off today wan’t so much that I received yet another rejection letter, it was that I was rejected for a job that I didn’t even apply for to begin with. What the *&$! is wrong with you people? At least let me apply for the job before you reject me…

It’s been around 8 days since ordering a new mobile phone over the internet (Read my Parcel Tracking post to bring yourself up to speed). My phone seems to have travelled from Wellingborough to Poyle, Poyle to Stansted then fallen off the radar. After contacting FedEx in Gibraltar, they are adamant that the parcel is still in Stansted. After calling FedEx in UK, I was informed that my parcel had been transferred from Stansted to Heathrow (which is actually just across the M25 from Poyle), loaded onto a British Airways flight and sent to Gibraltar. There’s a good chance that my parcel has been swiped somewhere between the plane and the freight shed. This looks like an insurance job and a few more weeks wasted waiting for a phone.

There’s nothing more frustrating than going to a car park and finding your new Honda Accord (8th Generation CU2 model with the R20A3 i-VTEC engine) damaged along one side. Fair enough, some people are bad at driving but why damage someone else’s car then run away when you could have just left a note and let the insurance company deal with the mess? As I do not know who damaged the car, I have to claim off my fully comp policy. £300 excess, followed by my premium jumping from £540 to just under £1000 for the next few years. In total the damage will probably end up leaving me £1800 out of pocket. It will be far cheaper taking the car to a garage and paying to have the damage fixed myself. I’d love to knock the idea of fully comprehensive car insurance, but the day I cause £18,000 worth of damage to the car, I’m sure it will be worth every penny.

At some point earlier on in the year, my beloved mobile phone (a white HTC P3452 / Elfin / Touch – Depending on your market) died a horrible death. The death was caused by my laptop crashing half way through installing a new WM6.1 ROM on the phone, essentially turning said HTC into a very expensive paper weight. Since then I have been using a borrowed  Blackberry 8700f (Thankyou Steve from over at maddagu). It isn’t so much that theres anything wrong with the Blackberry, it just doesn’t seem to cater for my needs.

After many hours researching what device needs to fill my pocket (and empty my wallet), I decided on a HTC Touch Pro (HTC Raphael / Fuze). Sure, there’s a newer model out but I’ve always believed in buying technology late and avoiding the premium associated with cutting edge gadgets.

At some point in a later post I will discuss said HTC, but for now, where does FedEx fit in? Parcel tracking. It’s all very nice being able to see where abouts in UK my newly ordered phone is, but what’s the point tracking until the parcel arrives at Stanstead then allowing the dot on the radar to vanish? I’m bored. Where’s my phone?

After much careful consideration, I have decided to kill off my facebook account. Many of my friends are always complaining that they can’t use facebook chat for long as they will get in trouble at work. I have known of at least two people who have received some sort of written warning at work for making a comment on facebook, then their employer takes offense. Before I continue, readers may aswell read mylegal disclaimer. There are various examples on the internet of people getting fired over facebook. I work long shifts in an internet cafe, and as part of my job I can sit on the internet all day long looking at whatever I want – No one cares. The main reason for deleting my account (other than its a serious waste of time and distracts me from doing anything productive with my computer time) is the amount of arguments people seem to have with eachother. The whole public wall concept is more trouble than it is worth, I do not want to be sucked into arguments nor do I want my personal problems to be posted on someone elses wall for the whole world to see. Hasta la vista, facebook!