Spillage

I managed to pour a full mug of coffee onto the desk last night. My immediate concern was obviously for the Creative Zen, which appears to have survived with no damage. The desk itself is ancient and not a matter of concern, but the keyboard appears to be a write-off. Needless to say the spare keyboard upstairs has the wrong-size connection (which shows you how ancient the various keyboards are), so I can either pop into Maplins today to buy a large-to-small adaptor, or buy a keyboard and a USB-to-small adaptor, or buy a keyboard and try to fit yet another USB connection to a machine that wasn't really designed for so many USB connections.

Jonathan sent me an Economist article which states that 60% of LiveJournal bloggers are female and under 21, which tells me which live convention I should be attending this summer. Then again, perhaps not. The thought of 100s of girls all going "Ewwwwwww!!!!" and moaning about how unfair life is because their parents make them get up at 11am and won't give them more than $100 for clothes a week might just be a little too much to bear. Unless any of them had a spare keyboard with a small pin connector.


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Under The Milky Way Tonight

When you have been running well for a while at Limit (and I have) you get to take things for granted. So, when the poker gods turn (as they do), and your AK fails to obtain a flop of Kxx rainbow, turning up instead something like 987 of very much not-your-suit, you look at the board with something approaching bemusement. Working along the lines of the Welshman who took his radio back to the shop when Barry John was not selected for the Welsh rugby squad on the grounds that the radio must be broken, you say:

"I'm sorry, there must be some mistake. That board is dreadful for my hand. Do you not understand the rules?"

And so, a minor setback this evening, but all is present and correct. I had the right degree of sensitivity to the amount lost; I did not try to steamroller the table; I did not make calls to show people how unlucky I was, and my BB per hundred rate over the past two months remains in excess of 3. So, very satisfactory. If only I could bring this attitude to $5-$10 and multiply my desensitivity level by 3, I could slaughter the table, I'm sure of it. (BTW, I went 98 hands on one of the tables without winning a pot. Good going, that, or what?)

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The new keyboard is happily installed on the other computer, and it came with the proper connector. This was good, since the keyboard was only eight of your English pounds, while the adaptor from USB to small pin was a fiver. Bloody hell, where's the logic in that? I mean, those adapters cannot cost more than 20p to make. All that charging a fiver for them does is make it more likely that someone will boost them from the shop. Maplin's has very odd pricing at times.

Of course, you never leave Maplin's having bought solely what you intended to buy. Maplins is like the "Better than that!" man on The Fast Show.

"Did you get the keyboard, dear?"

"Better than that, darling. I've bought a liquid chocolate waterfall!" (And, yes, they did have one. "Just add melted chocolate", it said, helpfully.)

In my case, it was £24.99 on a "Connect up to four TVs to your aerial" kit. It all looks a bit complicated to me, but since nothing in the electronic universe is more complicated than the TV set-up that I have in the front room at the moment ("just add PSP") I am not fearing. Oh no.

So, that will be a fun installation at the weekend as I attempt to link up the TV in this room to the aerial socket in the front room.

As I headed to pay for my keyboard and "Better Than That!" item, a man was waiting at the checkout.

"Just how long does it take to find a plastic bag?" he said, with the irritation clearly born of a normally patient man who has been waiting for some considerable time for something which it would be reasonable to expect a checkout to have to hand.

I guess this indicates the level of forethought in most shop staff. It was just gone noon. So, unless this chap was the first man in the shop that day, they must have served other people. You would think that they would notice when the plastic bags were running low. But, no, apparently not.

As if it were my lucky day, at this point a young lad appeared carrying 5,000 plastic bags, presumably on the grounds that Jesus might turn up at any moment with some loaves and fishes and it might be best to prepare for the rush. I suppose that it's better than him coming back with just one plastic bag.

It reminded me of the time I spent about £5.50 on stuff in Tesco and I only had a £10 note. The girl looked in her till and saw that she had no pound coins. So she gave me nine 50p pieces.

"Look, if you do that, you are going to run out of 50p pieces", I said, reverting to my normal specialist topic of the bleeding obvious.

Blank looks all round.

"So, what will you do when you run out of 50p pieces? Give the customers their change in 20p pieces?"

"Ask for some more, I suppose", she mumbled, in that manner reminiscent of a schoolkid with his hands behind his back looking at his shoes as he talks to a teacher.

"So why don't you ask for some pound coins now? Or, even better, ask for the pound coins when you are running low, rather than wait for them to run out and 'hope that something turns up'?"

More blank looks.

I'm perpetually amazed by the number of people (and we get it in the office as well) who seem congenitally incapable of looking ahead more than a minute and a half. Printer running out of toner? Print on the other printer. Running out of A4 paper? Steal some from the photocopier. If there's a bodge solution available, go for it.

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Right, I'm going to watch "Lost". Someone at work today nearly gave away what happened while I was within listening range. Actually, I'm amazed that anyone can keep up with the plot long enough to be capable of giving it away. I guess that this episode must be one of the less opaque.

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