FutureMe.org

My friend told me about this site where you can send emails to your future self, which is a pretty cool idea. I just sent two emails - one to myself in a year, and one to myself in five years. I just hope I still have the same email address by then.

As well as sending emails to yourself you can also read anonymous emails that people have sent. There's some really interesting ones.

I return!

I must apologise for the lack of updates over the past two weeks. The reason for this is that my PC broke, and I've only just got it working again. There was a problem with the power button which meant I couldn't turn the PC on at all, and while it only needed a new wire, getting it fixed became more complicated than that.

First I contacted Ebuyer whom I bought the case from just under a year ago, and they told me to get in touch with Asus, the manufacturer. So I emailed Asus and they said to go back to Ebuyer. Ebuyer then said they'd send me a spare part, but when they couldn't find one said I needed to send the case in for repair. Once they got hold of it they said the problem couldn't be fixed and that they'd send me a new case, but I'd sent my PC in with all the other components still inside - processor, disk drive etc. So they sent me back a new case and all my others parts in another box. But they sent them to my old house where I'd originally ordered the case from a year ago, not my current address! Luckily we kind of know the people who live in our old house, so we went round today and picked up the packages, and I've just re-fitted everything back inside, and it all seems to be working fine. I've never built a PC on my own before (I had someone help me last time), but I just followed the instructions that came with the case, and there've been no fires or explosions yet.

To be fair, Ebuyer were really good about the whole incident actually though. I found it very easy to get through to a human when I phoned them up, they kept me updated about everything, they've replaced the case free of charge and they even wrapped up my components in anti-static packaging when they sent them back.

But get this: OK, so it's bad enough not having a PC for a couple of weeks, but guess what - my phone broke! Again! I'm sure I have some sort of electronics curse - everything just keeps breaking, which has left me annoyed, bored and cut off from the outside world.

I have done a few cool things recently though. I've been reading a fair bit and playing lots of GameCube, and my band went into a recording studio on Wednesday. It was the first time we've done that, as we normally just record everything ourselves, but we all really enjoyed the experience, and got loads done. We recorded some stuff for an upcoming compilation we're going to be part of, and it was a lot less stressful than recording ourselves, and higher sound quality too.

Fortunately, I do now have a phone which my parents confiscated from my sister while I wait for mine to get repaired (this time by Dial-a-Phone). But don't tell her I have her phone - she's not supposed to know.

I'm really glad my PC's working again though, and I've got a lot to catch up on - two weeks is a long time on the internet.

Also, this is my 150th post - cool!

Phone troubles

My phone broke a good few weeks ago now, and I only just got it back yesterday. It's been really annoying not having a phone to use, but even worse was trying to get it fixed.

First, we tried contacting Dial-a-Phone, the company that we bought it from, and they said they'd send a pre-paid envelope thing in the post for us to send the phone back to them. But after waiting for a while, nothing came, so I decided to take the phone to The Carphone Warehouse, who send broken Nokia phones back to Nokia for repair. When I took it to them, the guy told me it would take 8-9 days and they'd let me know when it was ready to pick up, which didn't sound too bad. But after a few days they phoned and said that the problem was quite hard to fix, so they'd be sending it along to another repair centre. Then we didn't hear anything for another week or so, so we phoned them, and apparently the phone hadn't actually been sent along when it should have, so everything had been delayed. Then we heard that the phone was irreparable and I'd be getting a new one. By this time, the envelopes which Dial-a-Phone had sent had arrived at our house, and they said that if we'd have sent it to them they'd have sent me a new one straight away.

I had to keep phoning The Carphone Warehouse up every few days to find out what was going on, and when I'd get through to a human they'd always say the phone would be ready to pick up in 2 or 3 days. I looked online and a lot of other people seem to have had a similar experience with Nokia repairs, and what's most frustrating is that there's nothing you can really do, except phone them up constantly and hope it gets sorted.

Well, eventually I phoned up yesterday and it had finally been sent back for me to go and pick up. So I went, and it wasn't a new phone as they'd said, and it wasn't my old one either - it looks like someone else's repaired phone - but after weeks without one, I'm just glad to have a phone again.

This whole thing has been pretty annoying - first, the fact that the phone broke, and second, that it took so long to get back to me. I'll definitely think twice about buying from Nokia next time, and I guess the long and short of it is, if your Nokia ever breaks, don't send it through The Carphone Warehouse.

Finished!

Wow. Exams are over! It still hasn't sunk in yet and I'm finding it hard to comprehend having free time without feeling like I should be working. It's such a nice feeling after a really hard year.

My last exam was yesterday and it was on Japanese language. I found it quite tough, and don't think I did too well really, but I should have passed, which means I can still go to Japan in September.

And today my band started practising some Sonic the Hedgehog covers today for a Sega compilation we're taking part in - we're doing Spring Yard Zone from StH 1 and Chemical Plant Zone from StH 2. They're both really interesting tunes and sounded pretty cool when we played them. Although it's impossible for a few different reasons to replicate the originals perfectly, we're trying to be as accurate as possible, and I'm looking forward to recording them.

GameCube

I've been wanting a GameCube for a while now, and as I'll soon have loads of spare time for playing games, I bought one yesterday. Me and my brother had a 'Cube back when they were current-gen, and I think it's a great system, mainly because of some really great games.

This one I bought was only £20, boxed, from CeX in town, which is quite good I think. I did buy one yesterday, but when I got it home I found out that it was in really bad condition, there was no power supply and the controller was an Xbox third party one! So I went back to CeX today and swapped it for the 'Platinum' edition of the console, and everything's there and in good condition.

For games, I've bought both Sonic Mega Collection and Gems Collection, which means I can play just about every old-school Sonic game, including some of the more obscure and rare ones, such as Sonic CD, which I've heard great things about. I also have a copy of F-Zero GX, which I love, and of course, I'll be getting Super Smash Bros. Melee - I still have my old save file on a memory card somewhere. I want Pikmin 2 too, but that's quite hard to find for a decent price.

I wanna start playing now, but I still have one exam left to revise for... Might just set it up tonight and have a quick blast.

Revision!

Revision is really starting to do my head in now. I've only been revising for like a week, but when you just sit in the house and read through endless sheets of paper all day it starts to get to you. Saying that, my first exam is this Friday, and then my second and last is on the Monday, so I should be all done in a week's time. After that I just have a few things to sort out at my student house, then I'm free to relax for 2 or 3 months!

Thinking about it, it really doesn't seem long since I moved into that house back in August. Perception of time is a very strange thing.