Call the EYE TEE guy

Have you ever stood, one hip leaning on your new washing machine, cup of coffee abandoned on the bench, thumbing through the manual?

Your fucking washing machine is beeping erratically. Two king sheets, one small shaggy rug and two rather large knickers loll in weak-tea-coloured water.

Remembering my mentor of old (Brad) sprouting RTFM, I turn to that wonderful little chapter called “Trouble shooting”.

There I find a cute, remarkably small table with “Problem, Solution” type headings.

I ignore the imaginatively translated English and find where it says:

“Irregualr beeping exudes from washer.”

Eyes jump across to the “Solution” cell and find: “Power off machine at wall and wait 30 seconds” (Thirty seconds is the all time "required period" needed to repair the ills of the universe!”)… So, okay I wait 30 seconds. Switch on again. . . . . .

That’s it! I stand, hip still on the washer, coffee replaced by whiskey and listen to the irregular beeping exuding. Back to RTF EMMING. At the bottom in small italicised font we see: if above does not solution consult your local service company

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Guess what the trouble shooting section of the manual for our new wireless internet connection thingy says at the bottom of the trouble shooting page?

And guess where our brand new PCMCIA card and wireless thingy is? Nestling back on the shelf where our "Local Service Company" was not prepared to try and solve the problem.

Spring?

Today the birds were singing when I got up at 6am. The first time this season. Spring MUST be on the way.

Touch Typing

You know your child loves you when:
You see him (16 year old Evan) frantically typing an ancient manuscript, well part manuscript actually. About twelve years ago I started writing a book. I heard Evan and Alf discussing my book and how it could be part of this blog. I was surprised when Alf said "We don't have an electronic copy. I have searched for it many times". He is so sweet. He cares about the silly thing more than I do. I really thought he had saved it somewhere ( i think I wrote it in Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS).
And back to the touch-typing son who loves you. Evan is actually typing the book for me? Nope not for me? I'm not sure who for yet. Perhaps we can sell it on Trademe. Do you think it could fetch a good price? Poorly written, half book about a South African black man in apartheid South Africa. I don't think so. Many books have thrashed that topic to pieces.

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Just trying to come to grips with actually writing something that anyone can see. Trying to make it even remotely interesting is another thing.

Here I am!

Dis me.