Just one little thing this time, only one. Where did the common, new trend come from which dictates that inline links should be as similar as possible to the text in which they appear? How often in the last week have I seen gray text with an inline link which is marginally darker gray. Or even a blue link, but the visitied link color is either identical to the text or near identical. Since when is it the goal of web pages to camouflage links???

example? right here. in the yellow box, where it says "Programmers can download blahblah here". That is a link but completely invisible to anyone who doesn't expect it to be there.

What is wrong with you people?? :wth:

Isn't it annoying??? Credit/debit cards have made life so much more convenient, I hate going back to using hard currency to pay for something. But most of all, I hate change. Because it never goes away. Change is impossible to spend, nothing costs 47.34.. So you end up having it, and collecting it, unless you're an obsessive change spender. One of those people who spends the last day or two of the vacation to make sure all change is spent in one way or another. The easiest thing is just throw it out. Or give it to someone. But nobody wants it. Who would want change?

I was looking through a bunch of old drawers today and I found change again. Lots of change. From years back. Change accumulated, which was planned to spend but never actually remembered. So it just lies there forever and the only time you remember it is when you go into that drawer by mistake looking for something completely different. Like my passport, which I still haven't found. I decided to see exactly how much change I had accumulated. Close to €100. Half in Polish currency, the rest in Euros and Swedish kroner. I'm taking the Polish money with me, I'm sure I can get rid of some of it. The rest I have to dump somewhere unless I want to bring it back with me. Once you start it never stops. The only way not to have change is not to have money. Because when you do, you end up spending it. And you get change. And you'll never get rid of it. Gah..

It's like a 85% packet loss. Ok done with the technical stuff, you can breathe now. I don't know how many times I've done that. I'm supposed to be friends with this guy just cause he's in my class so when I spot him on the bus, I try to make conversation. It's like swimming against a current. I have to do all the work, ask all the questions. Questions are good cause they require answers. But the conversation never goes anywhere, it's boring questions with short, tedious answers. I hate the one way conversation, it's such a struggle. "So did you start on that report yet?" "No." "It was funny what the history teacher said today." "Yeah." "So how about that Liverpool?" I, of course, don't give a damn.

And the sad thing is that sometimes you have to do it because there's no way to get out of the situation, like meeting someone on the bus. You can choose to sit by yourself, which seems a little funny. Or you can endure it. If you meet them on the street, you don't even need an excuse to take off. But sometimes you also get it with people you think are your friends or could be. I should have something in common with this person, I've heard her talk to other people about things that interest me, yet when I'm here the conversation doesn't work. Sometimes you both would like it to work but it still doesn't. And anything you say comes out like a clueless attempt on the other side.

And then there's people who know how to do this well. The kind of people who can always find something to talk about with someone. I envy them, they got it easy.

After yesterday's intervention, my phone is still dead so I'm looking for the customer service number again when I find this, a chart showing average times of waiting for service. I decided to check it.

Yesterday, I did not time my waiting but it had to be at least 15 minutes. Today it was 11 minutes, so although I'm being moved up the queue (presumably at the expense of other customers), I still end up waiting way beyond the "average". Apparently the average time today is 2 minutes. :rolleyes:

So I get the tech on the line, explain the problem, he takes a look and tells me my phone adapter doesn't have an IP address assigned, so it's effectively offline. He set it up with a static ip remotely and all I have to do is restart the adapter. That simple, huh? And that was the entire problem? I see. So apparently what the other guy told me yesterday (ever notice that when you call for support you _never_ get the same person twice?) was utter bs.

So I restart the adapter and what do you know, my phone works again. How nice it is to deal with people who know what they're talking about.

Don't you hate these things? It's such a chore to me when I have to do it. Today I had the DSL company on the line cause my phone has been disconnected, a mere month after I ordered a new phone service based on broadband telephony. After I ordered it, the phone was working for about 2 weeks before it was blatantly disconnected and if you try it now, you'll get that familiar "this number is not in service" message.

So I call them up and I have to navigate the feckin phone system. Press one for sales, press two for service, press three to end the misery and get electrocuted. So I'm #21 in the queue. Now I'm convinced that these numbers they give you are a complete sham, just random generated everytime. How is it possible that the further back I am, the quicker I progress until I get to the very front, when they always keep me waiting for ages? Doesn't make much sense. What I hate most about this is holding the stupid phone at my ear, if I put it down I risk they unexpectedly put me on, I don't hear it and they hang up so I have to start over.

And they always play you the same annoying music, don't they? 3 years ago, 2 months ago and today, always the same one. Every few minutes they say "Thank you for waiting, you have been moved ahead in the queue." Da fuck? Why would they move me up? At the expense of whom? This system is seriously void of any logic. In fact the only logical consequence is that your number in the queue never increases. So finally I get to be number one. I hate being number one, that's when they make you wait the longest. One time I was number one, they took me off the queue and I was listening to a phone not being answered, I bet the bastard was at lunch. So I'm still number one and oddly enough, I get the same message. "Thank you for waiting, you've been moved up the queue." How very kind of you, apart from the fact that I'm still number one and I'm still waiting. I believe I got that message twice before I got the service department on the line.

So I explain the problem and the guy asks me did I do any changes to the router when I got it? Yes, I forwarded all the ports to my firewall. Well there's your problem. But how come it did work for the first 2 weeks? I can't answer that. Erm... fine, I'll see what I come up with. So I reset the router to the state it was when I first got it and you guessed it, phone line still doesn't work. So now I'm stuck with the sequel tomorrow morning.