In 2013 I spent that weekend with a busted toilet...
Last year I spent that weekend and a large number thereafter with a busted thumb... sure the actual "busting" took place three days before, but it was still in the general vicinity.
This year it was my iPhone that busted itself. Well, when I say busted, I decided that the public holiday Monday was the right time to finally get around to installing iTunes on the laptop I've had since about May, and finally upgrading my iOS on my iPhone.
However it was probably a rookie mistake on my part to be upgrading the iOS at the same time that I was moving a bunch of files from one external hard drive to another (and cleaning the house at the same time, but I don't think that last bit was actually related). So when my phone had been through all of the things it needed to do and was at the last stage of disconnecting from iTunes, rebooting and reconnecting, it got stuck on the rebooting stage and I was stuck looking at the white Apple logo.
I eventually gave up looking at it and went to play some Assassin's Creed, but several hours later, it was still on the Apple logo.
So yeah, fucked phone. You never quite realise a) how much you rely on your phone to do, and b) how naked and vulnerable you feel without a functional phone. No alarm clock, no podcasts to listen to to and from work, no ability to just randomly check something on Google... and no entertaining ways to waste time. In short, I didn't like it and I don't recommend it as a lifestyle choice.
And I had to endure that for three whole days from Monday to Thursday which was the earliest appointment I could get at the Apple Genius Bar. I don't know if it would have been any better if I'd just gone in without an appointment (I doubt it).
On the plus side, when Thursday finally did roll around, it took me longer to walk from work to the Apple Store than it did for the pleasant ethnic bearded hipster to take my phone out the back and bring it back again in a functional state. I assume they have a machine out the back that just brute forces new software onto the phone no matter what it's doing.
I will also say that if you ever want to be simultaneously amused by and despair at humanity, go hang out in an Apple Store some time before noon and watch the Geniuses help little old gents and ladies with their technology issues. It's adorable but also at the same time there's an element of face-palming.
Even though it was back to "fresh out of the box" status, I was completely convinced that I was going to lose something in the transition, since this was a new copy of iTunes and I hadn't pulled all of my photos off the phone properly, and maybe I would lose my notes or my contacts or my photos... but no, it was all fine and fully functional. So now I have a functional iPhone, complete with the new (but now technically kinda old) iOS8.
Speaking of iOS8, while I don't really give a crap about the new Health app all that much, I was intrigued to find that it just started tracking my steps without me even asking it to. And in the last couple of days I've taken 15,555 steps, or walked 13.08km, and that was only really with one morning walk and two walks home. How accurate it turns out to be (since I think the numbers might already be a little bit rubbery when it comes to counting steps), I have no idea, but it'll be fun to keep an eye on. Plus it has a graph, and as I think I've mentioned before, I do love a graph.
On the down side, as I was walking back from the Apple Store, I managed to essentially trip over a crack in the footpath and fall-down-go-boom, down I went. It wasn't as bad as some of my previous falls, but I did scrape my knee a little and I'm glad I already have an appointment with my chiro on Monday, because I think I shook things up a bit.
Also in the "what the fuck" column, I sincerely need to buy a set of earplugs. Well, hopefully I don't need to, but Wednesday night my problematic back door neighbours (I need to come up with a consistent name for them, because that just sounds wrong) decided that it was a good time to sit outside and talk and drink from 9pm to 4am.
If it had just been the talking, then maybe I would have been fine, but even the occasional outburst of laughter and/or shouting, I slept, as they say, fitfully... right up until the point at 3:30am where they always seem to be over-taken by demonic entities (or just get too drunk to function like reasonable members of the human race), and there was increased volume of music, some drunken yelling, dropping of bottles into (I'm guessing) a wheelie bin, tuneless singing and some sort of banging (possibly against the lid of the aforementioned wheelie bin).
Had I had a functional iPhone, I would probably have called the police much earlier in the evening, but I would have had to get up, fire up the laptop, find the non emergency number for the police, then call them and it all seemed like too much effort.
As also seems to be the case when this has happened before, everything went quiet some time after 4am when they all dragged their drink soaked asses off to bed, so I got at least two hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I finally gave in and wrote the note I've been threatening to write since all this shit started, and dropped it in their letter box on the way home on Thursday night. I tried for a slightly humorous, "I don't want to be that guy, but" kind of vibe... so we can only hope it has some effect.
I don't think they would have seen the note until Friday, but I almost felt like I was being pranked on Thursday night... because while they were outside talking up until around 10:30, everything went quiet for about half an hour and then suddenly there was the sound of running water. They appeared to be using the hosepipe to "fill" the swimming pool at 11pm. Seriously? If the hose had been IN the pool, fine... but putting it on the edge of the pool so there's the continual sound of running water. That has all the earmarks of being punked in the most passive aggressive manner.
Fortunately it didn't stop me from getting to sleep eventually... but I'm hoping for a disturbance free night tonight.
Work continues to be all kinds of mental... good for the most part, but on occasion all kinds of frustrating. Although the fact that I reached a particular level of sleep deprivation on Thursday led for a couple of instances of hysterical laughter.
Oh, and for the official record, this is my 3,500th blog post!
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1 comment:
Congratulations on the milestone.
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