Bookmarks for September 5th from 08:06 to 16:31

These are my links for September 5th from 08:06 to 16:31:

D.I.Y.

My Sony Ericsson k750i mobile phone started sucking its battery dry every eight hours or so. I only got it in December so I brought it back to KPN’s Primafoon shop where a woman asked me to hand it over. She looked at the front. She turned it around. She looked at the back.

She asked ‘Do you have insurance?’. When I said ‘no’, she said they’d have to send it off to repairs, it would take three weeks and they didn’t have a replacement phone. By this point I started losing my temper. I do have a very short fuse.

I told her that was no use to me and she pointed me towards a 3rd party repair shop a few hundred meters further down the road…

… where I was told they’d have to send it off to repairs, it would take three weeks and they would charge extra because I hadn’t bought the phone from them. I said that was no use to me. They told me maybe a software upgrade would fix it, but it wasn’t something I could do myself. They pointed me towards a Sony Ericcson service centre on the other side of town…

‘You’re all making me walk all over town, dammit,’ I said and legged it out of there in a very bad mood and went… home where I dug up the USB data transfer cable, downloaded the latest firmware (‘not something I could do myself’), flashed the phone and…

Problem fixed.

Dutch travel tip: stay at home, it’s free!

I had a double scare today when 1. I couldn’t remember whether I need a visa for America. (I don’t) 2. I couldn’t find my passport. (I found it)

Looking for visa information I hit upon some Dutch travel tips for the USA. Halfway through I found this eye-rolling passage:

‘Overigens mag u in restaurants ook gewoon vragen om een glaasje water; dit is (meestal) gratis, en niemand kijkt er raar van op. Dat scheelt toch weer een dollar of twee. (You can ask for a glass of water in restaurants, most of the time it’s free and nobody will be surprised. That’ll save you at least a dollar or two.)’

Elsewhere on the page we are told not to use your mobile phone, or the hotel phone to ring The Netherlands, because it’s really, really expensive!

Or you could just go and, you know, ENJOY yourself.

There for you

It was, quite possibly, the last sunny day of the season. I woke sixish, immediately registering the throbbing in my head. The nausea. Not again.

Another day down the drain. I don’t know how much of my life is lost to this affliction, but it’s a lot. What a waste.

As the hours pass, the light became unbearable. I fetch a bucket from the kitchen, fill it with a layer of water – something learned in early childhood, I’ve always been a proficient vomiter. On my way back I pick up my mobile phone. Cross-eyed, I tap a few lines, send off text messages with no regard for the early hour in his part of the world. My inner-bitch wants mankind to suffer like I do.

I’m sure I’ve woken him, or disturbed a quiet breakfast. We ‘talk’ in brief spurts for while before he says he’ll ring me ‘in a few hours’. When the cafeine kicks in.

Later, still prone, but bucket unused, I take his call. I’m surprised by the sound of my own voice. I sound small.