Fallow period...

Hi all, sorry about the break in posts, a symptom of mid-notice period brain hibernation. I finish on Tuesday 22nd, have a few days off before the week-long Norway cruise, and will be starting work again on the 4th April. It's really good to have a bit of time to vegetate before getting stuck back in.

Rach found this remarkable and brilliant NASA satellite composite planet earth, well worth the large download (via torrent as well). Of course it's PC only by the looks of things, but hey, such is life. Leads me very nicely onto my rant.

I've had to give all work technology back (including tablet, bah!), which means we're minus a desktop computer. So I ordered an imac G5, direct from Apple, along with a cheap USB midi keyboard. Surprise surprise, their famous delivery issues have struck again.

They emailed last week to say delivery would be yesterday or today. It didn't come. After numerous phonecalls to their customer service operators, a supervisor, and the courier company, it turns out it is lost - it was shipped from Cork to Luxemborg by one company, and was supposed to be shipped to me by another. The first company claims to have handed over, the second have no knowledge. Marvellous. Apparently the complication is the midi keyboard - had I just ordered the mac it would have been fine, but it being 2 items makes all the difference. God only knows how Amazon manage.

Anyway, as I'm only going to be at home for one more day before the trip, I thought I'd change the delivery address so it goes to Rach's work. Simple? no no no, their system doesn't allow for that - they're going to try and make a few phonecalls to warehouses and delivery firms (I'm imagining post-it note on box will be the process), but they won't guarantee it will work, nor will they guarantee a delivery date.

I know that if/when it arrives it is still going to be a brilliant computer, but my advice to anyone buying a mac would be to get it from a dealer who has it in stock rather than from Apple directly. You would think that they would be delighted to cut out the middle man, but today's experience coupled with Stig and Phil's debacles last year, not to mention the widespread negative press I've read on the web today, shows that it isn't worth the hassle.



Wilco's new album is fantastic.