Pynchon

I am a wuss. Really I am.

I have worked in different strains of IT since 1982. Firstly as a computer operator (BIG TAPES! BIG DISKS! BIG COMPUTER ROOMS! - None of this namby, pampy PC and micro shit!), then as a programmer, then as an analyst/programmer and then as a support/analyst/programmer/dogsbody/(and anything else you might want to add). During all of that time I have been driven by one clear, guiding principle and that is that I will have nothing to do with technical issues or hardware because I am not, and never have been, competent with physical things (except in the ways of love, obviously ;-).) What's that I hear you say? I could learn this stuff if I tried? Sure could, but I don't want to because it scares me. Fuck off. End of subject. There are people (Lorraine included) who can do this stuff better than me.

For Christmas, amongst other things, Lorraine bought me a Creative Zen portable music player. It plays MP3's, WAV'S and other musical kind of things. It will hold approximately 10,000 tracks, depending on format, and is a fantastic and beautiful present. Obviously it was also a disaster as it would also involve me having to finally install the Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 4-Port Hub, which we bought a good 18 months ago, onto my PC to convert my single free USB port to 4 available USB ports. To do that I would have to get to the back of my computer.

The last time I saw the back of my computer was when the engineer came to install Broadband. (Shit! I am sweating at the memory of it.) It was a fraught experience. After plugging everything back in, the screen wouldn't come on. The USB port wouldn't work. There were loose cables. There were electrical buzzing sounds. Strange things happened when I booted it up. (Ever since that day I have had to do several returns' when booting up because of the software that was installed. The engineer said that this was normal. "Bollocks", says Pynchon now, but didn't say anything at the time.) Pynchon had a mini nervous breakdown and developed a migraine.

Wuss.

Anyway... The hub has been installed, but I haven't tried it yet. I am waiting for the Creative Zen player to be charged up, and then I will be installing the software, and then I will trying to use the port.

Other than that, today has been a pretty mundane day. Yesterday, Lorraine had a card from the Post Office saying that they had tried to deliver a parcel that was too big to go through our letter box, so she was very excited about that and insisted that we leave the house at the crack of dawn to pick it up. It turned out to be an underwater picture of her twin nephews swimming (think the cover of Nirvana's "Nevermind" abum). Interestingly enough the babies' genital area was subtly shadowed out. I suppose I can understand why. There are some evil bastards out there.

We took in some dry cleaning, picked up some shopping, went into town, purchased tickets for the stage production of "Get Carter" at the Midlands Art Centre in March, hung around Beatties (which closes in a week and now resembles a very sad jumble sale) and bought some leather boxes (why?) and came home. No time for a film, but I will be going to see "Brokeback Mountain" tomorrow.

Lorraine is having her hair done tomorrow. I must remember to tell her that she looks gorgeous and she will.