Sooo, yesterday I find the comupter is acting up. While doing my charitable duty (collecting used ink jet cartridges to help pay for a local riding scheme for the disabled.Yes, underneath this carapace of an unfeeling reactionary is an unfeeling reactionary…..as I actually do really believe that private charity is better than State handouts, in order to maintain my unthinking curmudgeonry I need to actually do some private charity work. Anyone who wants details on how to raise a little extra money for a local project can contact me.) in a borrowed van (terribly green we are, no car….or rather, city boy, so do not need one) I drop into a computer type shop and discuss the problem with the acne ridden oik who has stopped sniffing glue for long enough to wander behind the desk. Definitely my power supply, a new one is purchased for 30 euros. Collections and deliveries over, new power supply is fitted. Got it right, as it worked first time. For 10 minutes. Bang. Smoke. Irate Timmy, with box under arm, makes for cab rank to throw box at manager of said  AROWHSSGFLETWBTD. On the way, the taxi driver has a crash. Now, things are a little different here in this delightful Latin country. One does not simply swap insurance agents and proceed. Ooooh No Sir! One spends 40 minutes actually filling all the claim forms on the bonnet of the car. With the passenger of the taxi standing there waiting. Fortunately, as he finally dropped me at the mall, 45 mintues after starting a 5 minute trip, he decided that the full meter amount was a little unfair and offered me a discount. Still higher than the normal fare but not high enough to make it worth screaming about.

Sigh. Into the shop, the machine is carefully prised from my graps, acne ridden oiks deftly dodging stiff outstretched fingers aiming for their jugulars, they wiping the foam flecking from my lips as I gave my (considered) opinion of their company and all its works. Pacified I was by an assurance that the technicians (who work at night) would get onto it at 7 pm pronto.
OK, home, a wander with the canine security operatives, out, beer was drunk, early this morning I call.
Ah, No Sir, you did not quite understand. The technicians will take away the machine at 7 pm last night. They will return it in a week.
AAARGGHH!!
So, new cheapie box bought, plugged in, bugger me this is slow.  I mean I know that XP is bloatware but this is ridiculous…..going up two entire classes of processor, more than doubling the GHz and it crawls!!
Worse than that, it is absurdly insecure. Actually got a virus infection while downloading the anti-virus software!!!!
So, the day spent with firewalls, getting Open Office (No, Billy Boy is not getting any more of my money, back to rips offs in future), WinAmp, Firefox, all the vital bits and pieces.

So I respectfully request your understanding for no blogging for the past 24 hours.
The odd click on an advertiser, email, comment to the blog, linkie,something like that would be nice just to show , well, that  someone cares even if it is not acne ridden oiks who have stopped sniffing glue for long enough to walk behind a desk.

Almost back to normal now except for one thing. The combination of Portuguese keyboard, P operating system, US Typepad and as many English settings as I can get seems to have left me bereft of an apostrophe. No doubt I shall be able to buy a packet in time for tomorrow.