Where are you now?
Each Christmas bits of a song runs through my head. I can't quite remember the title of the song, but for some reason I kept thinking it had to do with a Christmas party hop. Seems that I remember a lot more than I think. In fact, I remembered the rhythm of the song, the pitch of the female singer's voice, and that the song dated back at least to the 60s.
I was right. Today I decided to go to Amazon and flick through the Christmas albums for some oldies, and I now know the name of the song and the singer: "Gee Whiz, It's Christmas" by Carla Thomas. As soon as I played the clip I instantly knew it was the song that has eluded me over the years.
Sometimes the most random thoughts go through my head, but in this case it wasn't so random. What ever happened to Carla Thomas? At least I know what happened to Betty Everett outside of "Let It Be Me" and "The Shoop Shoop Song".
I can't imagine what it would be like to be famous, and you know what? I don't want to. There are advantages to being another nameless faceless person in society, namely, you don't have the paparazzi hanging around on your doorstep every waking hour. Net curtains have their advantages...
And today, I wondered "whatever happened to Christine Holder?" Don't know why, it just crossed my mind. When last I heard she was a Sargeant in the police force, seemed to be doing well. She had broken up with the guy she was living with (from what I was told, it was an acrimonious split). I wonder if she's got children? Is she still in touch with any of the old crowd?
Why, after so many years, do people recognize me and remember my name, but I panic because I know the face but not the name? Do you forget names after years because other things become more prominent? Why do I remember some names and not others? and why do 6' tall deep-voiced, bearded men say, "do you remember me?" when the last time you saw them, they were 12 years old, 4' tall and babyfaced?
The Game
Yesterday I was wandering along, near the park, on my way to the supermarket (thought I nice long walk would do me good). A lady in the park picked up something and was walking further into the park.
On closer inspection I noticed it was a....Chihuahua with a pink doggy jacket with a fur-lined trim around the hood! The lady then put the dog down, and walked away from it, calling the dog to her. The dog just stood there, hood over its head looking at her. I was convinced the dog was standing there saying: "You have got to be kidding me. You put me in this get-up and expect me to come happily running to you???"
The lady walked further away, and called the dog, which refused to move. Eventually the lady kept up enough of a distraction that the dog, cautiously, started to make her way towards her owner. The owner then started to run, which got the little dog excited. Once the owner stopped running, the dog stopped walking altogether.
Meanwhile, a middle aged couple were walking pass the dog-owning couple in the opposite direction. As the dog-owning couple got further away from the Chihuahua (which was still standing still looking at them), she suddenly became excited when the middle aged couple caught up with her; to the point where she started jumping up and wagging her tail, and started running off with them!
At this point I laughed out loud, as the owner couldn't get her to come to her at all, this other couple had no problem! The dog suddenly glanced back, I think she was hoping that her owner hadn't noticed and would let her wander off. Uh-uh, not so. The dog reluctantly stopped following the middle-aged couple and resumed standing still and looking at her owner who was far away...
Today I went to the airport to see friends in transit. Well, nightmare isn't quite what it was, but inconvenient, yes! It took two hours to get to the airport, and I found out that I had to get off at Hatton Cross to get the bus to Terminal 4, as the underground is closed until next September because of the construction of Terminal 5.
Fine. Met my friends briefly and afterwards took the replacement service back to Hatton Cross. As I went through the barrier, one station employee called out to me that the service had been suspended. So...I got a bus back to T4 to see if I could get to T3 from there. Got the bus back to Hatton Cross as I knew a few buses there would take me would take me to a station that could get me home.
Got the 490 bus to Richmond (passed Shell's old domicile), and then to Clapham Junction, and then to Waterloo. Waited about half an hour in the cold for the bus home, which then terminated 10 minutes away from home, unannounced.
Well, a walk in the bracing air did me good...
Wonder wall
Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and at the end it was like the person heard nothing that you said and continued as if you hadn't?
That has been the conversations I've had with Oba - for the life of me, no matter how often I repeat myself, it's like I have been speaking a foreign language for the past few weeks. Thing is, I don't even speak in code, I was speaking very plain and straight, no fudging. Made no difference, so today I spelt it out for him - and he went quiet. To the point where he didn't say anything at all for over 5 minutes. I cannot understand how someone could think they were in a relationship with you having done nothing whatsoever.
The joke was he said "we need to talk"; he calls me a couple of weeks ago, and says let's go for a meal in town. I said no problem. So we meet, and I start walking towards the restaurant and he asks where are you going? I said to the restaurant, that's where you said we were going to talk. He then says, I don't have any money - at this point I looked at him. How can you invite someone out and then wait until they get there to say you have no money? Don't you cancel and re-arrange it for another time when you do? Did he expect me to pay?
So I asked him, what's the plan now? In true Planet Oba fashion, he just stood and looked at me and said, what do you suggest? We ended up standing up somewhere outside a church in town talking. He said what he had to, I listened, and then I said what I had to, and I assumed he understood - well, I was wrong about that. As much as I didn't mind talking to him, the corny language, the persistent calling (on one occasion he called me about 20-something times in as many hours), the unnecessary telephone drama was tiring. I saw enough about him to tell me that this is not a person I would want for anything more than friendship. Now I know why it was that I never considered him as anything more than that.
He assumes that, because we talked last Tuesday, everything is "ok" and "back to normal", which basically means he can carry on as always on Planet Oba, where he is the only inhabitant.
Spell it out for the slow of understanding: THE ONLY RELATIONSHIP I HAVE WITH YOU IS IN YOUR HEAD.
Touch me
It started with a thread. It started with a conversation in a thread. It then moved on to a conversation with my brother. Which in turn led to some online searching. And eventually led to a purchase, and with it...an almost empty account. It was an accident! I really meant to pay using my card, but accidentally did so with my account...
So I ordered it yesterday afternoon, and to my surprise, it arrived today - darn, he's good! The disappointing thing is that it has to be charged for 8 hours before use!! I was working late so started charging it before I left home, and continued at work. Also got talking to my brother and trying to configure it.
Ok, that now makes it two PDAs. The thing is that Palm is intuitive, you can figure things out purely by guessing. My brother says it's because I'm used to the Palm OS but I disagree. Windows Mobile on the other hand isn't intuitive; to delete a programme isn't very straightforward, and Activesync is nothing like Hotsync, which backs up the data on your Palm. You have to backup separately on Windows Mobile (via Activesync) when you synch. It isn't very much like the Windows PC operating system, but a steep learning curve. We shall see how it goes.
Oh, what did I buy? A Dell Axim x30. It was the closest looking to a LifeDrive I could get - I liked the colour and shape, moreso than the x50. And the little sticky-out bit for the wifi & Bluetooth...?
Can you hear me?
The past two weeks have been quite busy, I finally feel like I'm able to slow down a bit - just in time for the cold weather, great!
A couple of weeks ago I got myself a bluetooth headset, the
Cardo Scala 500. It's my first bluetooth headset, so naturally I was excited about being able to use my phone handsfree.
After charging it and everything, I looked for my first tester. When I got through, I could barely hear what the other person was saying, there was "static" (for want of a better word) on the line, and the connection kept dropping. I tried it with someone else and the same thing happened. At first I thought it was the building, so I tried it outside - same problem.
Naturally disappointed, I had to wait a few days before I could contact the folk I bought it from as I was in Birmingham. On my return, I sent an email, and today I tried calling them. I haven't got through, but I'll try again tomorrow.
Along the way, I was reading a review about the
Logitech Mobile Freedom headset, and one reviewer said that it worked perfectly as he sped down the motorway at 80mph! Now that was funny, so I went to eBay to see what it was like there.
After a bit of a search I found it, this time someone was selling it for under £20, including postage! Normally you're looking at £35-£50 or more. I took the chance and bought it, it arrived on Saturday, and I duly charged it. Took it out for a whirl on Sunday and I tell you, the difference in sound is something else! Don't know about the Windstop microphone thing, because I deliberately went outside whilst it was windy. The person I was speaking to could hear the wind but the reception was excellent and she had no problem hearing me. I guess I figured out what what the Windstop technology was supposed to do!
Not a bad deal for less than £20, and highly recommended! And to think I spend almost twice the amount on a headset I can't use. SIGH!
