Blogphen

For those who don’t know, Star Trak is the GPS-based real-time bus tracking system used on the more popular routes in the East Midlands.

While most people text a number (at an outrageous cost) or look at an Infopole, they also have a web gateway which I normally use before leaving home.

However, the system has been down for maintenance the last few weeks and as a result I’ve been missing buses right, left and centre. It seems I get a larger share of Sod’s Law than most as 9 times out of 10 I find myself wandering down the street and seeing the big dark turquoise thing go flying past.

Of course, I then can’t check the Infopole to see how long until the next one!

In other news, I went shopping yesterday. I only go shopping (the kind that I enjoy) twice, maybe 3 times a year. I always know where I’m going and go straight there with no messing around. However, despite the fact that it never takes more than half an hour, I can certainly spend a lot in that time! I spent £150 in total on a USB Bluetooth dongle, a USB hard drive caddy, a 300GB drive to go with it and a USB Freeview box (in the post, apparently!).

I’m not a big fan of USB but on a laptop it’s about the only way to connect stuff to it!

Anyway, my stop! Ciao for now

…for having not updated for 11 days!

Last week I spent the entire time looking after my sister. She’s hell! Mum and dad were up at the Whitby Folk Festival doing one of mum’s art shows and as a result they needed me to look after her for a week. Not only did I miss two fantastic parties while they were away but even when I did get out (as part of my job), my sister started moaning that I’d been gone out too long and she had to make stuff herself. Shock, horror!

Anyway, enough about last week - the sooner it’s forgotten the better!

When they came back on Saturday I was straight out and over to Shell & Froggie’s to meet up with Karl and SteveP and go down to the Sawley Beer Festival at the Harrington Arms. Fantastic time!

Anyway, link fest over - time to go. Have fun

Right after posting my last post I nipped back on the UCAS website and noticed Track was open…

I’M IN AT SWANSEA!! :-D :-D

Yeah

See the screenshot of the UCAS website

It’s 0650 as I begin writing on a dull Thursday, 17th August 2006 morning. Last night I didn’t get a wink of sleep, instead spent five and a half hours tossing and turning.

Today is The Big Dayâ„¢. Today is A-Level results day. Last night I had the brilliant idea that I’d get so hammered I wouldn’t care and would go to bed, waking up in the morning with such a hangover that I’d end up caring less about going to college than the headache. However, that didn’t really work, I just didn’t sleep and am just feeling sick now!

This morning I decided it was futile waiting to get back to sleep so I got up at 0530. At half past 5 in the morning I logged onto UCAS. It wasn’t until about 6:15 that they changed the site to provide the details about clearing. It’s entirely possible that I was the first (or one of the first) students in the UK to see published details about courses with spaces and I’ve used that to my advantage - I’ve been getting details of unis with the course I want along with their phone numbers so I can call them as soon as I find out that I’ve failed! (you’ve got to love the optimism here, eh?! ;))

It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. I think this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Before now, I’ve never really given a shit about results day - at SATs I just couldn’t care less, at GCSE I was on a coach going from Canterbury to London (got results by phone but still didn’t really care) and at AS it was exactly the same as my yearly report had said just a month or so earlier.

So far this morning I’ve been shaking, I’ve been laughing and I’ve been crying. I’m not entirely sure what’s up with me but sleep deprivation will probably be playing a large part round about now!

So, we shall see. I am going armed with my handy sheet of stuff and I’ll be in at 0930 on the dot 

I had a very random email yesterday from my feedback form on my website. Apparently someone called Khyle Fryer was quite over-awed at the fact that he/she had found somebody else in the UK called Khyle (and that spelling in particular).

While it’s nice to know that my name isn’t as unique as my mum wanted it to be, it’s completely flummoxed me as to how to respond to that email. Most likely I’ll send a link to Khyle.net which says the most about me personally.

I might also mention Khyle Sutfin in America, a female newscaster with a local station. Already knew about Sutfin but not Fryer!

In other news, it’s only Tuesday but already I’m “excreting fired clay oblongs” (shitting bricks!) with regards to Thursday. As my Messenger screen name says, “I wish people would shut up about Thursday until… well… Thursday”. Of course, that just attracts idiots who want to annoy me! Still, it’s true. Not a fan of nervousness!

Bye for now!
Hyphen.

Well, if you’re wondering where I’ve been recently, my answer to that is “ill”. I know I’ve not written since Wednesday but meh. Thurs I had a driving lesson and an OTNP with the ever-wonderful Fear and Lornie.

Then on Friday I came down with an absolutely awful bug. It was literally one of the 24-hour things which meant I was sick the whole morning then had diarrhoea for the rest of the day. Spent most of it in bed and only after having a bath in the late evening was I feeling well enough to actually sit at the craputer. Granted, I’ve got a craptop so I could have brought it to bed but I don’t know as it would have been suitable resting on my stomach when I’m feeling so sick. So instead, I streamed movies and episodes of The Simpsons over to the PDA to watch there 

I do hate being ill, it’s not one of the nicest experiences in the world. What really didn’t help was the fact that I’d got so much planned for Friday. During the day I was meant to go out and meet BeaverJoe and probably go up to Matlock for a day of geocaching and photography. In the evening I was meant to go down to London with Shell and Froggie to see ktremain and do some ‘caching down there.

However, after puking first thing in the morning and feeling better for it (assuming it was the Vodka from the previous night), I got as far as the bus stop before my guts opened up again So alas, I evidently couldn’t go out that morning. In the evening I was still feeling like shite so had to abandon all plans of actually going somewhere in favour of a comfy warm bed and a sick bucket!

Mind you, I got to spend today food shopping (which isn’t always all that bad) and had the honour of trying to sell my grandma’s house.

In other news, today I became affixed on wanting to buy a wall clock. Not entirely sure why, there are more important things to buy! Wanted a Tesco Value one but apparently they don’t exist…

Also in the headlines, Khyle got a job. I’ve been in talks with the founder of t-shirt firm 105db with regards to designing an online shop for him. However, he’s left it damn late to finally ask me to do it before I bugger off to Uni! I do have the job though and he’s paying me for the privilege 

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Boring day tomorrow - either I can get up early and spend all day in Staples (Nottingham) making sure mum’s artwork gets photocopied properly or I can sit at home and do nothing. Still don’t know which one is worse.

They’re an odd breed! Just got on the Commuter Xprss (their spelling, not mine!) and they’re all perfectly sat down each side, two seats to each person. In EVERY row of the bus!

So of course, I come along, dressed in yellow (everyone else is wearing a suit or other formal dress) and am forced to sit out of place on the back seat!

Thank goodness there’s no require to PROVE you’re a commuter!

Oh, they’re the bane of my life!

Today I had a single task to complete - set up our late Grandpa’s computer for my half-sister to go on the Internet and use eBay.

I got the computer at 0930 when Dad brought it back from Mamma’s. After spending about an hour arguing with Windows ME about what a modem and a network card do, I realised a reformat was on the cards. After arguing with the machine about whether it was going to boot from CD (it won; I had to create a boot FLOPPY!), I finally just reformatted.

At that point though, mum decided she’d nab an hour of my time to fix her computer’s wireless connection. In the end I realised the only realistic and permanent fix would be a reformat, something I wasn’t prepared to do at the time. So instead, I plugged her in with the unreliable and interference-stricken cable leading upstairs (the reason I gave her a wireless adaptor in the first place!).

It then took nearly 2 hours to reinstall WinME on my half-sister’s new machine (233MHz, 64MB RAM - not good enough to run XP by a LONG shot!) including installing AVG and hopelessly searching for a free firewall which runs on the OS. Failed on the last count (they all only run on XP/2K these days) and I’m not too happy about her being connected unprotected but it’s not my problem any more…!

I then got roped into setting up Dad’s ex wife’s TV, VCR and DVD which didn’t please me.

Then when I got home I was required to type up an email for mum (because she’s too slow/crap to do it herself…) as well as doing some photography for her…

In conclusion, a lot of help and not a lot of thanks. Heck, they didn’t even celebrate System Administrator Appreciation Day this year, claiming it was merely a “joke”…

Sorry to be so negative. Just annoyed at the moment.

On the 19th mum and dad are off to an art festival in Whitby. On the 19th I had planned a trip down to Stevenage (down south) for an ntl.talk party. However, as mum was starting to worry about who was going to look after my sister, I offered to cancel my plans and take charge.

Since then, mum has decided that we can’t be trusted alone at home. Apparently I’m going to get an ASBO for playing my music too loud, I’m going to abuse my sister in some form or another and that I’m going to burn the house down. Hence she said today that she’s going to stay at home and look after us unless some “major rules” are put in place. Apparently she’s going to get our godfather to come across every day to see us and make sure we’re not dead or in trouble with the law. What the other ‘rules’ are I’ve yet to find out but I’m sure they’re going to be equally stupid.

To be fair to her, I can see that she’s worried. I can understand that she doesn’t want us to get into trouble or do something drastic to the house so we’ve got nowhere to live. However, what I fail to understand is why she’s being so Draconian. I’m 18 now and I’ve looked after her before without dying or anything. Granted, I’ve not looked after her for as long as a week and a half before but it’s not anything I can’t handle.

As a rule, mum has never trusted us with anything. Every time she goes to an art show (even if it’s only for a few hours and coming back in the evening) she locks us in, takes the key and leaves a list of everything we need to do (including brush teeth for god’s sake…). She doesn’t seem to understand that we’re growing up. I’m 18 and my sister is 14. We’re perfectly capable of looking after ourselves. My ex-girlfriend and plenty of my other friends have been babysitting their little siblings as early as 12.
I’ve not tried discussing this with her yet because I know from past experience that she tends not to listen to reason. She also has a tendency of mollycoddling us, not wanting us to come to any harm. Unfortunately, that tendency seems to cloud her sense of reason.

All I’m asking from her is a bit of trust for once. If she doesn’t feel she can trust us, she needs to let us prove her otherwise. It’s important that she and dad go to this art fair so she can bring in some money which she’s always moaning she doesn’t have. It’s important that she gets out the house and actually enjoys herself (she’s not left the house and had fun for 12 years because there’s nobody to “babysit” my sister and I). It’s important that we’re able to show we’re able to look after ourselves. It’s no wonder my boss keeps saying to people behind my back that I’m a “mummy’s boy” and that “he won’t be able to look after himself at Uni” if mum doesn’t give me a chance to actually learn how to.

I’m sure I’m not asking for much.

Well, how nice it is to get to write my first post!

I’ll be honest, I don’t know why I bothered to set this up. I have the feeling it’ll turn into one of those things people read but then I forget to update and then everybody else forgets about it and yeah…

Yesterday I went Geocaching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching) with my dad and Mamma. Found the first two. No. 1 was in a field full of cows (and subsequently also full of what comes out the other end…). The second was in a pond in East Leake. Thankfully it was dry! The third, however, we were unable to find. Looked like someone had nabbed it as the GPS put us right on top of it and the clue definitely said we were in the right place. Still, part of the fun is the hunt (though you can’t help but get piddled offwards when you can’t find it!)

Today I might go for what I call a “ZigZag Day Out” - buy a ZigZag bus ticket and see how lost (damn!) I can get myself! That’s right after I get a haircut - I’ve been needing one for about a month now…!

Anyway, bye…