blog dot will boyce dot com

Oh I do love DVDs! I went to the Trafford Centre on Saturday, it was really busy!. After enjoying the joys of finding somewhere to park for a good, oh I don’t know, half an hour we filled our water bottles and donned our hiking gear and set off for the actual shops.

Once we’d finally got there, and fought our way through the crowds, which were even more so than normal due to a book signing held by someone at ‘Smiths.. I have no idea who, and I really don’t care; whoever they were, they were causing quite the ruckus and it was really inconveniencing. For me.

First stop, the Apple Store! Once I arrived at Jobs’ Domain I was disappointed to find that is was full of impish minions. I was hoping for a preview of the iPhone but alas, they were not in stores yet and I settled for a play on an iPod Touch. By making said decision to settle, I forced myself to make another decision. That being that I would wait, somewhat impatiently, for ten minutes while some fat little kid, about 10 year old, fiddled with the iPod. Unattended! What is the world coming to? I should get a badge reading “I own Apple Products” granting me the ability to banish such non-customers from the “hot spots”. I also feel that I should get a badge reading “Get Out My Way” which, if disobeyed by others, shall vaporize said offender - seem fair to me.

The iPod Touch was, admittedly, amazing. The screen was awesome to use, and I really liked the pinch/zoom stuff. Very well done. I didn’t play for long because I already really really want an iPhone.

After all the iFun was over, we were hungry; to the foot court! We decided on a meal in Est, and it was very nice. Louise had a Margarita and a Coke, I had Spaghetti alla Carbonara and a glass of Penfolds Chardonnay, we shared a Garlic Bread (with Cheese!) and all in all is was lovely.. And very very reasonably price. Thumbs up for lunch!

On the way back to the shops, we grabbed an ice cream from the Wall’s Ice Cream Shop because they have Raspberry Sauce, Louise’s Favourite. I can’t remember what I got, I do remember it was shit. I do remember it tasted like it was burnt. I don’t know how you managed this, but they did.

We walked around for a bit, enjoying the lovely cool atmosphere and fresh air (</sarcasm>), until we got back to HMV. I went in, leaving Louise outside to finish her ice cream. I wandered leisurely, until Louise joined me again not looking too happy. It would appear some lads had felt it necessary to ask for a lick of her ice cream, then found it very amusing. Apparently finding them was out of the question so we continued to wander. After much wandering I reached the counter with somewhat full arms:

• The Alfred Hitchcock Boxset containing:
  1. Vertigo
  2. The Birds
  3. Rear Window
  4. Marnie
  5. Frenzy
  6. Topaz
  7. The Trouble With Harry
  8. Torn Curtain
  9. Psycho
  10. Family Plot
  11. Saboteur
  12. Shadow of a Doubt
  13. Man Who Knew Too Much
  14. Rope
• The 51st State
• Platoon
• Enter the Dragon
• Music and Lyrics
• Green Street (for Louise)
• Bridget Jones’ Diary (for Louise)
• Rumor Has It (for Louise)

It was a fun shop - and a bargain at £45! The Hitchcock Boxset being reduced from £90 to £25 being my most pleasing purchase

The next, and final shop, was to be Game. I left game with an absolute classic collection of games:

• Theme Park Inc
• Theme Hospital
• Sim City 3000 UK
• Rollercoaster Tycoon 3
• Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Splash
• Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Wild

Another fun shop.. Even more so if we account for the fact that this one cost me £0.. My favourite kind of shopping (I had money on my game card.. It came to ¬£30 or so)

As if all this action wasn’t enough, we briefly touched down at home before setting off to the Odeon @ Printworks to watch Superbad in The Gallery. The film was, well what I expected from a film entitled “Superbad”, and let us say, it lived up to it’s name. I will say one thing, it did have a fair few funny lines, but they did not make up for it’s complete lack of anything resembling a storyline, and if you disagree with me you are an idiot (as always). Either way, I was content, I had unlimited Tango (pfft, not Fanta), Popcorn and Nachos. I could’ve been watching Spiceworld for all I cared.

It was a long day, and I didn’t do much else for the duration of it except start watching a bit of Desperate Housewives.. As a result of which I’ve just finished watching the first season, and it was quite good, I must say. A lot better than I had expected - quite a good, in depth, storyline. I’ve started watching season two already ;-).

In other news, NatWest have sent me a funky Card Reader which lets me do fun stuff like login to online banking more securely and generate 8 digit one-time-use numbers.. Its funky and I like it

Phew, I think that’s all I’ve got in me.. My eyes hurt.

So you can get the full impact of this story, I’ll start a few weeks ago, when I originally ordered Sky and booked the day off work to wait for the engineer.
Friday the 18th of August; my initial installation date. I rang Sky, made sure they knew we don’t have a phone on the land line and that they engineer had my mobile number. I did this at 1130, knowing the Sky installation was scheduled between 1200 and 2000. At 1400 I rang sky as I had still not been contacted by the engineer with an arrival time estimate only to be told that the engineer tried to ring me on 1220 when we was stood outside my house…. He had tried to ring me, on my mobile. After much arguing with the…. person…. on the phone, and him refusing to let me speak to his manager after he was insolent towards me, I reluctantly rescheduled for the today, Saturday the 1st of September. Their first available weekend slot, bollocks if I’m taking another day off work!

A few days later my new confirmation letter came from sky, confirming my scheduled installation date and my contact number… My home phone number. I rang sky again, this time to my surprised the customer service rep was very helpful (and british!). He told me that there was no record, what-so-ever, or my mobile number of their system. He also said he didn’t know how they’d managed to not add it, because it’s the easiest thing to do. He sorted the contact number out and a few days later I got a letter confirming my installation date of 1st September, and my mobile number as the contact number. Sorted… I thought

Today finally came, as days tend to. The sky engineer called at 0755, on our home number to confirm he’d be there between 0900 and 1000. There was a phone plugged in as it happens, but how hard is it to ring my mobile?? The engineer turned up at 0815 and got us all out of bed, only to tell me that we couldn’t have the four boxes we’d ordered. Oh no, he can’t install a box in my bedroom because it’s too high. I live in a fucking terraced house. I spoke to someone at Sky and they refunded my old order (¬£150), which will take 3 days, and charged me a fresh ¬£100 for a 3 box installation and the engineer got under way. I was not a happy chappy.
After speaking to the engineer, he suggested I ring an independent Sky Installation company, as they were not bound to the same rules as he was, so I jumped on yell.com and made some calls. Eventually I found a company willing to do my installation, for ¬£150. ¬£100 of which was to pay for the Sky box. I said I’d call them back, and rang Sky again. I explained to them my predicament, and would it be possible to purchase just the box from my Engineer today, and have the Independent company do the installation at a later date. The guy at customer services said he could get the Special Heights team out to do my room, and despite my telling him I’d already asked the engineer about that he said it was the best plan and we went ahead with it. Another ¬£50 on my card. My new Sky Installation date; the 14th of September. Some time between 0900 and 2000.

Between waiting forever, engineers with vertigo and the fact I can download a film in less than five minutes, I’m starting to think this has been way too much hassle. I am really not happy with Sky. For me it is too late, they fucked me around and I want some compensation. My advice to you: DO NOT HAVE SKY PERFORM YOUR INSTALLATION

…that is, indeed, if you must get Sky at all.

Just went for my lunch.. Went to Greggs. On the way back I was walking through the Preston Outdoor Market and some little chavvy bastard rode his bike into me. “HA” was his only response before riding off again.
Not being one to provoke and/or aggravate such situations I quickly nipped through one of the stalls and stepped out just in time to knock the little cunt off his bike. “HA”.

I executed the maneuver so smoothly and with so much class that I didn’t even care that he called me a Cock Munch. I felt like Jason Bourne and that was good enough for me

In other news, I just checked the Manchester BBC News Page. A Rape, a mugging, an assault, more rape, a shooting, a hit and run, another rape and yet another assault. Busy night crims!

So, this weekend I am visiting Cas. If you’ve been a reader long enough you’ll know that Cas is one of my old mate’s from my time served at Liverpool University (ljmu) and he lives in Lincolnshire.
A good few weeks ago I was sat at work, and I got a phonecall, from a number I didn’t recognise. I answered. “Is that Boycie?”.
It’d been a while since I’d been called that I thought, but “Erm.. Yeah it is..” I replied curiously. “Alright man. It’s Cas..” he said. He then went on to explain his predicament which had left him with a ¬£1000 voucher for PC World, and 5 IBM Tablet PCs.. Not the worst of Predicaments. So I agreed to come help him spend money and setup tablet pcs, and a few weeks later.. Here I am. I guess I’ll start from, well, the start…

Day One

I finished work on the Friday (which I guess would be day zero!) at the usual time, and got the train home, getting back for around 1900. Cas was working until 0000, and was going to let me know his plan then. At 0300 I feel asleep after speaking to Cas and he reported he was coming to get me that night.

At 0500 I was awoken from my slumber by Cas informing me had arrived at my house. By 0530 we were back on the road, en route to Lincolnshire. Our final destination; Sibsey, Northlands.

After what was probably a 3h-3h30m drive, we had eaten a McDonald’s breakfast and arrived back at Cas’ house.
At 1030 we decided the best plan of action would be to get a 2h nap, then set off for PC World at 1200. We both set two alarms, and hit our respective sacks, ready for a long day ahead.

At 1130 Louise woke me up, as she had woken up and wanted to ring me. I didn’t feel that tired, but still though the idea of taking the full advantage of the remaining half an hour I had in bed until my alarms starting going off seemed far too good to miss.

I remember hearing the alarms go off, for the most part. Regardless of this, I woke up at 1700 and we managed to rush to PC World which closed at 1800 and make the required purchases. We left with a TomTom One XL, an Acer Media Center PC and a Packard Bell baseunit (that will be acting as a fileserver). By 2100 we were back at Cas’ house, terminal pcs and new hardware in hand. It’s now 0215 and I’m still going - but for how much longer I don’t know. Think I’ll probably call it a day soon and get up early tomorrow so we can get USB Wireless Jobbys for the Terminals, and some XP Tablet-age for them too. After that it should be plain sailing!

Stay tuned for day two…. Oh yeah, and one thing I didn’t mention is that I’m writing this blog from by brand new shiny white Macbook! I am definately a self-confessed fanboy now! OS X FTW! I shall comment more when I’m back home.

Day Two

So much for getting up early. 1130. Damn. So I rushed out of bed, and we continued to rush onto PC World to get more bits and bobs. We just about managed to get a terminal running xp and we had to set off for home. Long drive ahead.. Made longer by the fact that about half an hour in I realised I had forgotten my MacBook charger.. Disaster! We got back to Manchester at about 1900, and Cas had to shoot straight off as he was driving to London tonight too. Good weekend, and I’m sure we’ll be doing it again.

Well, I finally got around to it. I took some photos of my bedroom in Manchester today, but first, we’ll go back a few days - as you are due an update!

Went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the IMAX on Wednesday. Thought the film was OK, but the final√©, the bits in the Department of Mysteries, was all done in 3D and was excellent! IMAX is impressive enough, with the screen being a whopping 8 stories tall and the width equal to the length of two double decker busses! Your average IMAX Projector is a monsterous 1.8 tonnes and stands six foot tall! If that’s not flabbergasting enough, the lamp of the IMAX projector provides a blaze of glory so intense that it is as bright as the surface of the sun! Intense!
As you have probably guessed, I was a lot more impressed with the IMAX than the actual film being shown, but that is to be expected when the film in question is Harry Potter related! I’m not gonna review it, find a real website for that kind of stuff

Next stop - Friday. Back to the cinema! This time we were sitting in the Odeon Gallery and watching The Simpsons Movie. For those of you woefully unaware, The Gallery is the Cr√®me de la Cr√®me of Cinema Seating. ¬£16 buys you Unlimited Pop Corn, Nachos, Soft Drinks and a big ass leather chair on which to watch the film (which is on a raised balcony above the commoners!). The view, the comfort and the food is all awesome, and definately works out much much much better value than buying a “standard” cinema ticket! As for the movie - it contained all the quality simpsons comedy we have come to expect and love!

Didn’t really do much over the weekend. Jon Butler came to visit from Friday til Sunday, but was out all day Saturday with a friend. I’m sure details can be obtained from his blog. Finished off the weekend with a trip to Ikea. Ross bought a sofa, and I got some bits and bobs, such as a Bonsai Tree and some Cactii for my desk :). Photos can be seen in my gallery, along with some other photographs of my room, here.