Heya everyone. I just want to wish you a belated Happy Easter. I hope that the floppy eared hippity-hopping behemoth (aka ‘the easter bunny’) brought you plenty of chocolate this year.

Firstly, I just want to wish one of our long-term regular visitors; FriedCPU, a very happy birthday. Today he turns 19 which means that his days are numbered before he’s 21 and unable to use the excuse “but I’m young and naive and don’t know any better”. Enjoy it whilst it lasts. Happy Birthday duder!

I’ve recently been helping Dave’s twin brother Chris and his girlfriend move into their wonderful new home. It is really nice, even if their mirror decided to jump off the wall and land on my face last night. Their old house was horrible in comparisson. In fact I took a photo of their old house which managed to perfectly capture the essence of how bad it was. Except I don’t have it anymore. There’s a lot of things I don’t have any more. Why?

Because my phone decided to wipe itself.

Seriously. It was even kind enough to leave a message telling me it had done so;

There was a problem and the Internal memory has been reformatted and data removed to protect it. Please contact customer services to re-install additional languages.

And there you have it. All my calendar data; gone. Phone numbers; gone. Addresses, birthdays, all my settings, software I’d paid for and downloaded; all gone. Everything; gone! I am so glad that I had Shloer to turn to.

Losing your phone data is like going through the 5 stages of a break-up;

STAGE 1: Denial
In this first stage, you try to deny that your phone has wiped itself. You feel that it’s either just your phone being confused and saying random and hurtful things like someone with tourettes. Maybe your phone feels that it’s bonded with you and that you’re at that stage of the relationship where you can make jokes and poke fun at the other safe in the knowledge that no-one will take it personally. You try to put on a happy face with friends and family in a vain attempt to preserve the image that all is well. This stage may last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on your grieving style and how important the phone data is.

STAGE 2: Anger
Hell hath no fury like a person deprived of their phone data! Anger and indignation marks the second stage. The person gets very angry with their phone, or blame themselves for the entire technical fault. They either go through a list of self-recriminations and “I should have’s” such as “I should have written all those phone numbers down” or start rehashing problems that the phone has caused in the past, or both. Some people stay here for a very long time, unwittingly letting past faults and this current one affect their desire to even look at their phone. Actions such as runing around the room whilst grunting with desires of assassinating the engineers who designed the software on the phone are quite common.

STAGE 3: Bargaining
The bargaining stage involves the individual looking at what they can do to get their data back. This is where they start to beg their phone to restore the data all by itself; and try to turn mutual devices into co-conspirators and allies. Some talk to their phone or even stroke the phone just to make contact. And if they do make contact, they immediately lose all dignity and again start begging for a second chance. “If you give me my data back, I promise to do whatever you want!”

STAGE 4: Sadness and Depression
As the certainty that the data is lost forever begins to sink in, most start to feel dispirited and experience a sense of great loss. Anger may still be there but is overshadowed by sadness, even depression. It is common to find people at this stage withdrawing from family, friends and other forms of technology as they sink into melancholy and dejection. Plans with friends are cancelled (usually due to the fact that the information of those plans has been wiped from the phone’s calendar) and any work (such as posting on a website) is put on the backburner. Phones are answered only in the hope that it may be ‘the data’ calling back and restoring itself, and when it’s not, the cycle begins all over again.

STAGE 5: Acceptance
Finally it’s over! The anger has passed, the sadness has tapered off, the depression has lifted and it feels great. “I will survive!” Plans to get the ball rolling and to start afresh begin. This may include email’s to friends and family such as this;

 

Hi Everyone

It appears as though my phone decided to greet me yesterday with a message that said it had decided to reformat (i.e. wipe) everything in the memory.

As a result I've now lost all my phone numbers, calendar appointments, text documents, photos, videos, all my settings, etc and my phone also now thinks that it's brand new. It even told me to call my phone provider if I wanted new languages. I don't want new languages - I WANT MY DATA BACK! Apparently it was "to protect" my phone - but from WHAT?!? Predatory data beasts? From the bears outside?!? What has the world come to when a mans phone is no longer safe?

The ironic thing (as is always the case with me) is that my phone wouldn't synchronise my phone numbers with my PC so I couldn't back them up. But I thought "Oh well, my new Apple Macintosh arrives either tomorrow or the day after and it will sync easily with that - especially as the mac has bluetooth in it!" And with just two days to spare AT THE MOST - it decides to do this to me.... And what's worse is that I don't know exactly what caused it. Because if I did, then I could apply that to real life and wipe a lot of bad stuff that I did from my parent's memory. Especially the money I owe them. Hehe, yeah that would be cool....

Unfortunately this whole fiasco also means that I've lost all of your information as well. I could probably do with checking that I've got all your information up-to-date anyways, so I guess that's the silver lining.

I used to have a lot of people's addresses and birthdays stored on there as well but I know that there's at least a few of you whom I never got that kinda stuff from.

(I kinda feel bad asking this, but...) please could you reply back with your phone number(s), address(es), birthday and any other information you might feel would be relevant (like your website or information about how to defend against the bears outside?!?). Or if that's asking too much, then your phone number will be fine. (just however much you're willing to disclose).

Thank you so much - I really appreciate your help with all this. Losing my phone data is almost as bad as losing everything on my PC. But my PC is selfish and whilst it won't back up my phone, it doesn't have a problem backing up itself. Just wait till I get my mac tomorrow....

 

Well it’s now tomorrow and it turns out that whilst I’ve been waiting all day for my Mac Mini, there’s been a slight bit of confusion over shipping dates. I called Apple and apparently, as of yet, it hasn’t been assigned a carrier because it hasn’t actually entered the country yet (they’re built to order - yay - a mac mini built especially for meee).

So today has been a bit of a wasted day, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to waste Friday as well for when it finally arrives. The only problem is that without my phone data I can’t actually remember what it was that I had planned on Friday. One thing that I am certain of though is that I hate these jeans.

FASHION SUCKS!

There was a time that I believed that not one girl physically found me attractive, apart from some girl at the school I work at who’s friend came up to me and told me that this girl had seen me in one of my shows at the theatre where I had to strip down to a pair of Y-fronts - and apparently she thought I was hot and had “a huge package”. Which was very embarassing to hear at the time considering the fact that I was trying to repair a projector. Fortunately, I have no idea who this girl is, so all is well in the world. Ish. Another cast member said that his female collegues were debating the size of my package at work the following day. Now whilst I’m sure that most men would like the thought of their manhood being discussed by a group of women, that it might in fact be quite good - I for one want to say that it’s not.

I think that when you’re not used to anything like that being discussed, suddenly having your own genetalia up not only for discussion but for a debate is… well it’s very uncomfortable. Just as uncomfortable as the women’s corderoy flares I had to wear in that show. And as it’s uncomfortable, I have no idea why I’m discussing it now especially on my own website.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand… so there was this time and I had a friend who said that my clothing style was part of what made me look unnatractive. My general average everyday style that I find comfortable is a plain coloured t-shirt (such as red or white) and a pair of jeans. She described them as “80s Jeans” and are apparently unfashionable (which begs the question as to why major brands such as Levis and Lee still make them?) Anyway, she decided to take me shopping to buy uncomfortable, expensive yet fashionable clothing

It wasn’t until we got to the counter that I realised who’d have to pay for the whole lot. By “I’ll take you shopping” she meant “I’ll show you what to get and you pay for it, end of discussion!” Great.

Anyhoo, today and yesterday I’ve been wearing these jeans because all my old ones either have holes in the knees or are dirty and in the wash.

Now I don’t know what it’s like for girls; but when a guy has to go pee there’s an order to things. I don’t know if it also applies to them, but if not girls, then listen up!

There is what I call “The urinitory window of opportunity” This is the time within which you’re able to hold off going to the toilet before life gets uncomfortable (not to be confused with meeting the inlaws or being forced to watch realityTV shows). The other day I felt the need to go pee (yes I’m going into detail with this), but I was too busy on my computer and didn’t want to disturb my train of thought. The urinitory window of opportunity begins.

Time goes on. The train of thought is still gliding along the tracks. The urinitory window of opportunity is still wide open and everything’s going okay.

More time passes.

Now this is when I don’t know how easily girls can relate to this, so for their sake I’m going to explain it [please note: I take no responsibility for any sexist remarks or any messages blaming women for the following on the comments below this post, heheh].

The train of thought still has some distance to go, but there’s a perfect stop up ahead which won’t disrupt things too badly. The urinitory window of opportunity is virtually over, but there’s still time for the “emergency eject procedure”. As the urinitory window of opportunity closes, the start of the internal pain begins. It’s now or never.

Suddenly, you stop everything that you’re doing and make a mad panic dash for the bathroom. But at this point you’re not panicing because you know that the emergency eject procedure is what will keep you safe. This is the moment that a guy will whip his zipper on his jeans down, ‘eject’ and then proceed to fill the bowl.

I ran into the bathroom. I quickly lifted the seat (or ‘hatch’ if you prefer, as it fits in nicely with the whole ‘emergency eject procedure’ thing) and quickly went to grab my zip.

But there was no zip.

I pulled and I tugged and still could not find the sodding zip! I looked down and realised that my jeans were fastened with sodding buttons!!! Now when a guy is stood in front of the hatch, with the urinitory window of opportunity completely gone and the emergency eject procedure has completely failed, you have two options;

1. Hold it in and endure the onslaught of pain, or…
2. Wet yourself like a little child

Well obviously I would have gone for option 2, but I was consciously aware of the fact that the reason I was stuck in this mess was because these jeans were the only clean pair I had. They’re too loose, their uncomfortable and they have no sodding zipper!

Whilst being loose around the legs, they’re not that loose around my waist. I’m not saying I’m fat, but pulling the jeans down was not working. After half a minute of attempting that, I tried going for the buttons. Now whoever decided that buttons were a good idea on jeans is an idiot! Now please forgive me ladies, I don’t mean to be sexist, but the jeans I’m wearing must have been designed by a woman! No sane man would ever design an emergency eject procedure which requires more intellect than that required to complete a rubik’s cube! We’re men. We’re not designed to think quickly and/or efficiently when our urinitory window of opportunity has closed.

To cut a long story short, I finally managed to get the buttons undone and complete my urinitory processes, despite feeling like I’d had an alien inside my stomach that had managed to burst out of my chest.

So basically, my feelings are that fashion absolutely sucks, and there’s something to be said for comfortability and functionality. These jeans feel like Microsoft - lots of people seem to wear them, they’re not easy to use and cause far too many unecessary problems. I want a pair of Apple jeans; Comfortable, simple, easy to use - and in the words of Steve Jobs: “It just works”.

I wish I didn’t have to wait till Friday for my mac to arrive. Anyway, I’m gonna have to end here. I’ve gotta go pee.

And I’m planning early this time - because with these jeans there is no urinitory window of opportunity!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 5:36 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.