The Chapman Zone Dave’s Blog

Probably because I have just spent the past four days pretty much constantly on my PC.

The new one turned up on Thursday morning, so when I got home that afternoon, I got all excited looking at the parts, and phoned Collin immediately. He was not available until 19:30, so I had to sit and twiddle my thumbs until then, then throw the whole kit and kaboodle into the car and fgo round his place.

He didn’t actually build it for me. Rather, he told me what to do and made me do it - I learn stuff that way.

Everything went smoothly, until we got to hooking up the power supply to the motherboard. Firstly, I was one power lead short for the devices I have. Secondly, the connector from the power supply was a 20-pin, but the motherboard (being newer) required a 24-pin.

Bugger.

No major problem, just meant that I would have to buy an adaptor and a splitter tomorrow (I took Friday off just in case it arrived, and to make a three day weekend into a four day). I was a little p*ssed off though - I really wanted to start playing that night.

Friday morning was spent looking through the yellow pages trying to find a place that sold the parts I need. It’s no wonder that Novatech do as well as they do - even though they suck big time, finding somewhere else to go locally is virtually impossible. I finally found a place called Copperhead Communications on Brockhurst Road in Gosport. Problem was, they only had the splitter, not the adaptor.

I had to swallow my pride and order one fasttrack from Novatech. So the vow to never ever go there lasted a week or so…..

I draw consolation from the fact that while I spent £4 there, I spent £500+ elsewhere.

So after fighting through Gosport traffic on my bike, and then into Portchester, I got the parts I needed and went home to fit them. That part was no problem, and then I hooked up the monitor, etc and fired her up.

“Beep! Beebeebeepbeeeeeeeepbeebebeepbeepbeeeeeeeeep!”

Whoops! We had hooked up the CPU fan to the wrong terminal on the Motherboard.

FIxed that, and then installed Windows. That all went smoothly. Because I had five devices and need a IDE expansion card, I had to do a bit of juggling on the IDE front, but when all the drivers were installed, I re-arranged them to fit. Then I sat down to get on with some serious rearranging, and make use of the extra 260gig that my new hard drive offered me.

Or maybe not. Half my drives were missing in Windows Explorer, and when I looked at Disk Managament, I discovered a rather significant problem. Because my old OS was XP Pro, it had formatted the drives as ‘dynamic’ (without my knowledge), and unfortunately, XP Home Edition (which I now use) does not recognise dynamic disks.

Balls.

I phoned Collin, and after him offering to sort it for me Saturday morning, I decided not to wait, and fix it myself.

My rather convoluted solution was to find the old hard drive (40 gig) which I did not use anymore, reinstall XP Pro onto that, connect the other hard drives, and move three hundred gig worth of data from the dynamic drive onto my new 300gig, which I had formatted as a basic drive. I had to spend a protracted amount of time getting SP2 to work on XP Pro, as the drives were all over 120gig, and pre-SP2 systems do not recognise large hard drives. Then I had to swap over the operating system about five times and reboot each time to get everything where I wanted it to be.

I finally finished getting all the devices recognised and working at half past midnight. Fifteen hour day then, all told.

Saturday morning, I started moving the files around into my new arrangement. When you consider that there was about 600gig worth of them, you can imagine that it took rather a long time.

I had a welcome break when Glenn came around. He stayed for a few hours and we caught up a bit. I have seen so little of my friends these past couple of months, I feel a little guilty. It’s the same every year though at this time, what with Summer Camp, and prepping for next term, and this PC situation has been a real pain in the butt. When he left I got on with more moving around, and then started installing some more software. Saturday was easier than Friday, but I still spent most of the day sat in front of the PC. I decided to get the Summer Camp photos done that night as well, which entailed looking through 650 photos and choosing which ones to use, then photoshopping them. Finished at about 02:00.
Sunday started off with a break, as I had told Collin that I would help him take some garden waste to the tip. Three trips, and a hack and slash at almost all of the plant life in their front garden later, Collin took me round to Asda to treat my car to wash (cheers Coll!), and then I went home to do some more work on the PC. It’s amazing how much there was to do, just housekeeping. I let my PC get into the same state as my room - totally disorganised. It’s become a bit of a crusade this weekend though - I knew I was going to spent the meat of it doing PC stuff anyway, so I don’t consider it a weekend wasted. I have been pretty oblivious to the weather outside though - apparently its been quite nice.
Sunday night I took Tom and friends to the Dugout - they have their semi-final at the Wedgewood rooms on Thursday, and they have another practise on Wednesday night. Picked them up again at 22:00, and took the scenic route back while headbanging to ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Carried on on the PC when I got home and finished at about half past midnight again.
Monday has been more on the PC so far, although I did do my first ever bit of rewiring in the house - Dad showed me how to replace a light socket. I have been writing and printing stuff to deliver to the Scouts about the start of next term. I was hoping to deliver them tonight (and finally get out on the bike and get some much needed fresh air), but remembered that if I am to get a camp in before it gets too cold, I need to book it now, and hand out the letter on this delivery, to allow the return slips time to get back to me. I phoned Wilverly, then Braggers Wood (which Collin recommends), and am currently waiting for them to phone me back.

Must get to bed at a sensible hour tonight, as I have work tomorrow…

…or perhaps not, as some of the photos are actually thought-provoking.

(Strong language used in some examples though, so take caution)…

http://www.picturesofwalls.com/

…if the plight of modern society is of any interest to you. I’m not saying that the document speaks the truth, but I agree with much of what it says. Whenever I hear the word ‘morality’ bandied around with no real defining context (as in parts of this article) however, alarm bells do start to ring as to the real motivation behind the article. Fortunately though, the authors do not take the opportunity to leap into a tirade about the decline of Christianity (or other organised religion) being at the root of societal decline…

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs10.pdf

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”

                                                              - George Washington Carver

I’ve always liked that quote. Never had a reason to post it until now, and the reason is pretty tenous. Jake has been ranting on his blog about being terrorized by the wheelchair bound equivalent of the Toecutter’s gang from Mad Max…

I sent the credit agreement forms off on my way to work yesterday morning.

I just now had a look at the dabs website, at my order status page, and next to all the items on it, there is ‘Shipped’ written in the Status column.

Ooh, I’m getting excited now.

Actually, it’s been quite liberating being without a PC for this past week or so. Well, technically, I have been using my PC, even though the monitors cuts out every time I perform an action such as opening a new window, and even though it locks up on me for minutes at a time every few minutes. Because it is in this state, I have only been using it for checking my email, and buying a replacement PC. I have a ton of things that rely on the PC to get them done, and I always feel like I’m juggling too many things at once, and things get neglected. I also feel like I never give adequate attention to one particular job, and flit between things, so nothign really ever gets fully done.

Sorry, I’m rambling again…

The point was, while it has been nice to be forced to not do a lot of this stuff, it will be nice to get back to them all now.

Well, I had a look at my order status on Dabs last night, and I noticed that all of the items that I ordered have been allocated from stock.

Sooooo…..if the credit application gets approved, I should get what I asked for…..

I just hope its the right stuff. Fortunately, many of the components were the exact same model as I ordered from Novatech, but I was not able to reach Collin on Saturday, so I had to wing it a little. I think I got it sussed, from remembering what criteria he was usign when he helped me with the Novatech order.

Oh, and I just got a phone call from V12 (the finance company) this morning, confirming that I was cancelling the Novatech order and going with the dabs order (they haven’t read the email I sent them yet, but I assume they will go looking for it now.)

Is there some way of automatically counting the words in a post? I wonder if that last one was some kind of record for me.

I mean, I know I can go on, but…….damn!

…I hope.

Goddamn, I have just wasted a whole week trying to get a PC from those t*ssers. Let me tell you the story…..

My old PC had been playing up, and as I’ve had it for a few years now, I thought it time to get a more up-to-date system. So I hopped onto the Novatech website, and after getting horribly confused, gave my good friend and ever-patient computer guru, Collin a shout. He helped me choose the components I would need to build a new PC, using my old Hard Drives and DVD Writer. I put in the order on a buy now - pay later offer Novatech were running. Basically, if I pay the balance by May 2007, I will accrue no interest whatsoever.

Did all the bumph and paperwork necessary, and was given prelimenary approval for the credit amount. Because I was desperate to get the PC as soon as possible, I phoned Novatech there and then to see if I could collect.

After two attempts where I was put on hold for five-ten minutes and cut off as soon as the call went to an operator, I got on the bike and went to the branch. After queuing for ten minutes, I was told by the guy over the counter that I could not take the goods away today because they had to a: wait until the credit was finalised properly and b: the goods had to be delivered to my house for security reasons. He did reassure me that when the goods were ready to be delivered, I would be notified by email and would be able to phone up and arrange a day and time for delivery.

So there I was, stuck without a PC for a few days - no biggy. Scouts is still a few weeks off yet, so I don’t have to get cracking on with the programme just yet.

Tuesday rolls around, and when I get back from work I find the approval email waiting for me from the finance company, so I phone Novatech to see when delivery could be arranged for.

“Sorry sir, we cannot deliver the goods just yet - I’m afraid some of the items are out of stock.”

“Out of stock? How can that be? I deliberately chose the components that were in stock when I placed the order. Besides, I only ordered them three days ago.” I had chosen Windows Pro over Windows Home Edition (at £30 more) simply because the latter was out of stock, for example.

“Sorry sir, we do not reserve stock on this credit scheme until approval from the finance company comes through. I see that it has, sir, so I will allocate the available parts to you now.”

[Sigh]

“So can you tell me when the other items are likely to arrive?”

“Certainly sir, if you can just hold on for a moment…”

Five minutes later…

“Sorry Sir, but their appears to be a problem with the monitor you ordered. It seems that they will not be able to supply any more of these for quite some time.”

[Sigh]

“What I can do sir, is allocate you an identically priced monitor, made by the same company. The only difference is that this one is not widescreen.”

“Errrr….OK then. Is that one in stock then?”

“No sir, not yet”

[Sigh]

“…but I can almost guarantee that it will be in on Thursday, which means that delivery will probably be Friday.”

“OK then, can you give me a time of delivery, so I can make sure I’m home to receive it?”

“Sorry sir, we cannot provide a time of delivery, only the day.”

“Excuse me? But the chap I spoke to at the shop on Saturday said that I could arrange a time as well, no problem.”

“Sorry sir, we cannot provide a time, it all depends on things like the amount of deliveries that day and what order he delivers.”

“So how am I supposed to make sure I’m in to receive the delivery? I cannot take whole days off - I’ve just got back from my Summer Holiday.”

“Sorry sir.”

[Sigh]

So I have to wait a few more days - I’ve waited this long already, I suppose I can wait a little longer.

So Thursday rolls around. I manage to arrange a day off on Friday (Actually it was surprisingly easy - I asked, and John said yes…). When I get home, there is no email.

[Sigh]

Friday, I decide to take the day off anyway - it may turn up, and besides, it’s hard to turn down a day off work when you’ve already mentally prepared yourself for it.

Nothing.

Friday afternoon, I have a look at the order on their website. When I look down the list, the monitor still says ‘Not in Stock - Awaiting Delivery’.

No telephone call, no email apologising for the lateness of stock.

Nothing.

[Sigh]

I phone the Customer Service line (it’s just after 16:00 by this time).

“Welcome to the Novatech Customer Service Line. I am afraid that we are currently
closed.”

[Sigh]

“This is getting silly” thinks I. So I selected another monitor of slightly greater value than the one on my order, with the intention of going to the shop and paying the difference, so I could take away the order there and then (all the other parts were in stock and held for me).

Saturday morning, and as I managed to sleep till 11:00, I did not get to the shop until 12:00 and the place was heaving as usual. I get in the queue and wait…

And wait…

And wait…

“Why is this queue not moving?” I think to myself.

A couple of minutes later, a bloke who I can only assume is the shift manager pops his head round the door and says:

“Sorry, I am afraid there will be a delay of between ten and fifteen minutes. The computers are down and we are trying to get them back up again”

[Sigh] (I had a rather ironic smile on my face for this sigh.)

When I got to the counter, I proposed the idea to the girl at the desk.

“That should be no problem sir. Let me just call up the account.”

Five minutes later, “Sorry sir, I am afraid we cannot do that for these circumstances.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you ordered this over the internet, the goods have to be delivered to your address.”

“But why? I’ve been waiting for week now, and I just want to put them on a trolley and take them to my car. Why can I not do that?”

“Security reasons sir. We have to make sure that the components go to the address that they are supposed to go to, as per the credit agreement.”

“That’s no problem. Here’s my Driving License. See it has my name on it, my signature, my address and oooh - even a photo of me!”

“Sorry sir, I am afraid the goods have to be delivered.”

[Sigh]

“Look, it’s clear that you can’t do anything about this. I’m sorry for getting abrupt with you, I know it’s not your fault, so can you get the manager out here please?”

“Certainly.”

Off she went, and there I sat for another five minutes, staring into space.

Eventually, the manager came over, and I repeated the whole story to him, expecting some kind of reaction from him as to the disaster that this transaction had become.

“Sorry sir, it appears that the release of the alternative monitor has been suspended, and we will not be getting any in for while.”

“Great! Look, just let me have one of these monitors and I will pay you the difference. How about that?”
“Sorry Sir, we cannot release these goods to you at this time. And also sir, I am afraid we cannot simply change monitors, as it would affect the details of the credit agreement.”

“What?! But you’ve already done it once!”

I’m starting to get a little exasperated by this time…

“Besides, all I want to do is get a more expensive monitor, and I will pay you the difference here and now in cash.”

“Sorry sir, we can’t do that. The only way we can do it is to delete the credit agreement and start a new one.”

“Oh I don’t believe this! Are you saying that because you did not keep an item of stock in reserve for me for just two days, I have to cancel a credit agreement, and go through all this cr*p all over again?”

“Yes sir, I’m sorry.”

“And I will have to wait for the forms to come through again, sign them again, and await your pleasur come delivery time?”

“Yes sir.”

“And I suppose that the items will not be reserved for me until this new credit agreement is accepted.”

“Sorry sir, we are not allowed to reserve items until such time.”

As you may appreciate, I am really not doing too good a job of hanging onto my temper by this time.

“Tell you what, how about we just forget the whole f*cking thing?! I assume that you will take care of contacting the finance company and informing them?”

I’m a little fuzzy about this exact bit, but I’m sure there was no response - I had my head in my hands by this time trying to keep it together.

“Very well sir. You’ll just need to contact the finance company and let them know that you want to cancel.”

“Oh, for f*cks sake! Why can’t you take care of that?”
“Security reasons sir. Sorry.”

Now, I’m in a pickle here. I need a working PC, and I have no idea where I’m going to get the parts this cheaply and with this kind of deal. So I decide to swallow my pride, quieten down a bit, and…

“Look, how long would it take to get these components if we just do it the way you suggested?”

“Well sir, it…”

Then the girl spoke up again.

“Sorry sir, I’ve just deleted the transaction, like you asked us to.”

I start to laugh hysterically “Is this some sort of f*cking joke or what?”

“Look sir” said the manager “I’m doing everything in my power to appease you…”, his voice actually started to take on an exasperated tone at this point.

That was it. Something inside me snapped. I leaned over the counter, grabbed him by his tie and pulled his face into mine: “LISTEN YOU STUPID INCOMPETENT F*CKWIT, YOU ARE NOT TRYING TO APPEASE ME AT ALL! ALL YOU ARE DOING IS STANDING THERE WAITING FOR ME TO FINISH TALKING SO YOU CAN APOLOGISE FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO DO F*CK ALL ABOUT ANYTHING! HOW THE F*CK DOES THIS PLACE STAY IN BUSINESS IF YOU ARE ANYTHING TO…..”

Sorry. That last paragraph was total b*llsh*t. I got as far as saying “Appease me? APPEASE ME?! LISTEN…”

Then I gave up.

“F*ck it, I’ll talk to the finance company. Stick it up your *rse, I’m out of here!”

And than I walked out of there.

I did the usual routine when sh*t like that happens to me (which is not very often mind) - walk quietly back to the car, climb in, shut the door, and scream vulgarities at the top of my voice for twenty seconds. Kind of like Cameron does while he’s debating whether or not to pick up Ferris.

So. I’m back where I started - no PC.

Hmmm…..Dabs. After writing an email to V12 (the finance company), I hop on the Dabs.com site and start to add components to my shopping list. Apart from having immense difficulty finding a suitable case that I liked, it was a pretty easy process. I used the spec that we had made on the Novatech site, and many of the items were available from both.

As it turns out, I managed to build the almost exact replica of the Novatech PC, for a whole hundred pounds cheaper. I was so pleased, that I chucked in a decent Soundblaster Audigy 4 soundcard to the mix.

Having placed the order, I got to the credit agreement bit. The whole offer was disturbingly similar to the Novatech one…and lo and behold, it is the exact same finance company!

I can now see the cancellation of the Novatech translation coming back to bite me in the *rse for the dabs one, and me being stuck for even longer without a PC…..

…I’ll keep you informed. Needless to say, Novatech are worthy of nothign but utter contempt. They are fine as long as things are going smoothly, but the second things go wrong, they turn into a brick wall. As long as they have the money from you, they cease to give a toss. Honestly, avoid them at all costs if you can.

As you know, I have been down the hut sorting the stores out these past couple of weeks.

Well, one evening I turned up to see a note from Helen (I think maybe it was Monday), about a chap from along the road who asked if he could stash some wood in our drive. The chap also mentioned that he had seen a trailer in the Gillies, and was wonderingif it was ours, since ours was missing….

“Since ours was missing?” I thought to myself. “Ours isn’t mi…..”

I popped outside to check, and sure enough….missing. The note did not specify where in the Gillies it was spotted. Not that it mattered - I scoured the place that afternoon and could not find a trace.

Now, I am not a violent man. I don’t do the whole confrontational and intimidation thing. I don’t get into fights and I generally avoid trouble. I abhor violence. Thing is, when something happens to the Scout Hut, whether something gets stolen or the place gets vandalised, something goes off in my head, and I want really badly to catch the little c***s and hurt them for doing it. I sometimes think I would enjoy it too. I think I am paraphrasing Pulp Fiction when I say that it would almost be worth them doing it just so I could catch them at it.

F***ing ****holes. I mean, why do it? Why that place? I guess it’s because it is empty for long periods, and the perpetrators are the most gutless type of petty criminal, targetting the places where there is virtually no chance of getting caught in the act.

Just writing this is making my blood boil thinking about it.

During the work I was doing at the hut last week, I allowed Kyle to practise his drums there, as mentioned in my last post.

Well, it seems that one of the neighbours has taken exception to this practise, and they have raised a complaint with the Environmental Health Agency. I got a call from Tiffy informing me of this a couple of nights ago.

Fair enough, the drumming is f***ing loud, and I could see how people would get cheesed off having to live with it. As it happens, his neighbours have already got an injunction prohibiting him from playing in his house. I imagine that if I was in their situation I would have done the same (or rather I would have complained to them myselves first).

The thing is, I was there most of the time, and I am always mindful of the neighbours feelings, and occasionally check outside to see what the noise is like. We keep both doors shut, and all windows that face the neighbours closed, and when outside, the noise is minimal. Also, as the drums were being played during the working day, they were being totally drowned out by the traffic on the dual carriageway, the car garage on Crescent Road and the extension work that is currently going on at Aldi.

The only possibilities are:

1. The time when Tom, Kyle and I went up to the hut on Thursday night and had a jam session which went on till 21:30.

2. Kyle (when I wasn’t there) either accidentally or otherwise opened a facing window, or left one of the doors open, at which point the noise does get very loud escaping the hut.

3. The neighbour is just a tosser and doesn’t like us. I have had an argument with one of the neighbours in the past when we were loading up kit to go on camp, but from what Tiffy says, he is not a bad guy, and the complaint was not of the most strenuous variety.

Oh well. I think I will get away with using the place to practise my electric guitar still though, as that is not silly loud.