Matt’s Journal

The call me Mr Internet, Internet is my game. If there is something cool, I know about it. If there is something new, I have already used it. Never been hacked, never been conned, never been victim of credit card fraud with my online payments………until now.

I have recorded the message I got on my voicemail, you can listen to it here.

They said that because I hadnt used the card for 6 months it was probably a credit card generator, they knew I was genuine and that I was liable for the purchases, they will send me notifications on what they will do, I sign them and it should all blow away. The account is closed, I never used the card and didnt intend to, I should have closed it earlier.

Doh!

I watched the game at a mates house tonight, the best way to watch footy….with your mates.

Anyways, I had placed three bets, one for the Germany match, one for the Trinidad and Tobago match and one for the England match. I had staked £2 on each one and had to get the first scorer and the result right.

As the day passed, I saw my first two bets goto waste. The England match came on, England go 1-0 up with a nice goal from Joe Cole, I think in the back of my mind that I could be in with a result if the result goes onto be 2-1 to England. Sweden quickly equalise and I hope that England score one more because a) I want them to win and b) if the result stays as it is, I win £100.

Seven minutes from time, Steven Gerrard comes on and scores……”could this be it?” I ask.

30 seconds from the end of the match, what do you know?

Course not…….match ends 2-2.

I suppose England dont have to play Germany now, but still!

My parents had gone to France to see out the sale of our apartment in the alps. I had taken them to the aiport last Thursday, leaing at 4am so they could get there in time for their 7am flight. The journey was pretty easy both ways and I made it home quicker than expected.

The pickup however was a different story.

On the monday night, I had to be at Stansted Airport at midnight to pick them up. I arrived about ten minutes to the hour, parked the car and then went into the terminal to meet them. The drive up there was pretty annoying because there was (surprise, surprise) thick fog covering the whole of the south of England. I had driven slowly and surely making sure to take the correct turnings when needed.

OK, back to the airport. Inside the airport I walk over to one of the screens. It notifies me that their flight from Turin will be landing in 5 minutes, I think thats fine and sit down for them to touch down, grab their baggage and then meet me. I look over at the screens again and notice that some of the other flights are being delayed and some even diverted. Slowly the more recent flights start showing up as diverted, diverted to other airports. A man walks up beside me and tells the people around me that he has just been told that the runway has been closed and that all flights will be diverted elsewhere, what do you know….the flight from Turin has been diverted to Gatwick Airport…..what…the….fuck.

I start to worry about what to do, obviously I cant phone them because they are still in the air. I decide the best course of action is to return to the car and wait there, that way I can be prepared for a quick getaway. The problem with this was that I had only passed my driving test three weeks previous and didnt have a clue in what direction Gatwick actually was, otherwise I would have jumped straight in the car and dashed to pick them up.

After getting into the car, the phone rings, it’s my stepdad. He tells me that they have been diverted blah blah blah and asks me what I would like to do. He says I can either go home and they will make their own way home or I can drive over to Gatwick and pick them up. I decide that I want to pick them up, my stepdad tells me loose directions and I get on my way.

Half of the journey to Gatwick was fine, I am familiar with the M25 and I am able to navigate my way to the Dartford Crossing (crosses the River Thames for non-Brits) without a problem. However due to the heavy fog, the other side was quite a different story. Not knowing my way after the crossing I am looking out for signs for the M23, this will take me to Gatwick and the end of my journey.

As I am driving on the motorway looking for this turn-off I see that the road splits into two separate junctions, I have to make a split-second decision due to the speed the sign comes up and the impossibility of seeing the sign until its right on top of me, I dive right and hope it’s the right decision. I decide that it isnt and I turn off the first road I can find so I can come back the other side and then try again. This road however isnt a normal road, it merges with the M20, I end up driving for 25 miles until I find a junction to turn round in. There are no signs for the return to that motorway so it takes me yet another 20 minutes to find my way back to the M20 and then onto the M25 again.

I get back to the Dartford Crossing and turn round to start the second half of the journey again. What do you know? I made the correct decision the first time but didnt think to stay on the road and see where it went, I should have stayed on instead of trying to turn round at the M20.

I know this is getting long so I will summarise the last part as best as I can.

I find the M23, the fog is thick but I manage to find Gatwick. I pull up at the pickup point and call my parents to see where they are. I am informed they still havent gotten their baggage and that it shouldnt be much longer. I then wait another 3 hours in the pickup point as my parents battle to find their luggage, it turns out that the airline have lost the baggage and are trying to find it. They feed the usual bullshit like “Maybe they werent loaded at Turin”, “Perhaps they are still on the plane” and “Some other airline may have them.” - All these still dont bring the bags out do they?!

It hits 5.00am and the bags are found, where were they? On the plane still. The airline are c**ts of the highest order. I then have to direct my parents to where I am parked and get an irate earful because I didnt park in the right place (even though I told them 5 times where I was when they asked beforehand).

My stepdad drives home and we get in for 6am. I have 2 hours sleep and then goto work. I was like a zombie for the first half of the day and my boss allows me to go home. I sleep from 2pm until 9pm, wake up for a couple of hours and then return to bed at 11pm, trying to fall asleep again. That proves difficult as my parents manage to invite the neighbours in for a drink and I have to hear every word they say due to the openness of my house.

So, as you can tell, I wasn’t a happy camper.

Here are some pictures of what my journey was like:

Wow, what a day. Today was spent wrestling with a half ready database trying to output the correct entries for a paper mailing we were due to send out. We have roughly 17,000 contacts and I we wanted to setup a query so that the mailout was sent to a) Everybody who had been added to the database in the last 3 years b) Was flagged in the database as being eligible for a mailing c) Had to be in either Europe or the UK (basically excluding the world).

The query itself was fine, the results however werent. We had people who were flagged as “Do Not Mail” in our old database cropping up in the query results on the new one. Going in to check, the flag is not there…..great.

I get on the phone and talk to the database company, they say they will look into it and then come back 30mins later saying it is all fixed, apparently there were only 35 people in the query who came up as this. This was wrong, we found people who had no address being touted for the mailing, myself included for some unknown reason, it was complete bollocks.

The thing is, it got to the point where I started to think “is it me?!” and was so frustrated I sat on the floor and had 10 minutes time out from it all. People in the office were saying that they had never seen me like it before, I had got so frustrated that I was sitting on the floor trying to take time out.

I had never used the old database, I only picked up the new one this Monday and I was knee deep in Admin functions that I really wasnt prepared for, I’m the web designer for heavens sake!

I said to my boss “I am going to go home, listen to some loud music and destroy something beautiful”, that was greeted with some laughter, so that brightened me up.

I did go home and listen to some music, I blasted some Panic at the Disco! on my iPod on the way home but unfortunately didnt get the chance to destroy something beautiful.

If you are wondering what that SQL statement looked like, here you go:

SELECT A1.CONTACTID, A1.NAMELF, A2.ADDRESS1 A2_ADDRESS1, A2.ADDRESS2 A2_ADDRESS2, A2.ADDRESS3 A2_ADDRESS3, A2.CITY A2_CITY, A2.STATE A2_STATE, A2.POSTALCODE A2_POSTALCODE, A2.COUNTRY A2_COUNTRY, A1.NAMELF FROM CONTACT A1 INNER JOIN ACCOUNT A4 ON (A1.ACCOUNTID=A4.ACCOUNTID) INNER JOIN ADDRESS A2 ON (A1.ADDRESSID=A2.ADDRESSID) LEFT OUTER JOIN E1TB_CONEXT A3 ON (A1.CONTACTID=A3.CONTACTID) WHERE (A3.ACCEPT_MAILING=’T') AND (A4.CREATEDATE>:DateTime0) AND ((A2.ROUTING<>‘World’) OR (A2.ROUTING IS NULL OR A2.ROUTING = ”)) ORDER BY A1.NAMELF ASC

I am also trying to write a small piece for the NewOrder Newsletter but I just cant get round to it, sorry to all those involved for my lack of creativity, im sure you all understand the situation im in as you have probably had the same or worse!

Off to bed, im shattered.

Following on from the post below, I was doing some work and fired up my FTP software today. Suddenly I realise that I cant drag and drop any of the files. Assuming that the virus had maybe changed some of my settings, I looked high and low for a solution to my problem.

I installed various registry fixes, I used Windows’ inbuilt “System File Checker” to see if there were any .dlls out of place, I even used System Restore and rolled back to last Friday in my attempt to figure it out.

I then stumble across a forum where someone points out they had to re-install their mouse drivers, they also mentioned the middle scroll wheel. I push the middle scroll wheel down and what happens?…….it sodding works!

I am going to cry.

I get an hour for lunch. Normally I only go into the high street just to accompany my workmates because I bring in my own lunch.

Well today I actually needed something. I have been suffering from a little heaviness in my ear so I wanted to by some Otex ear drops to break down the pressure and allow me to hear properly again.

So I pop into Boots. I wait patiently at the counter and when I am served I ask for Otex ear drops:

“Sorry sir, the pharmacy is closed for lunch. If you would like to come back at 3pm, we will be able to serve you your product. Try the other pharmacy round the corner”

Three o’clock?! Three fucking o’clock! Who has a lunchbreak that spans that timespan?!

I suck it in and head for Lloyds Pharmacy. Again, I wait patiently only to be told:

“Sorry but the pharmacist is on lunch til 2pm, if you would like to come back then.”

What cheek, I get one bloody hour for my lunch to do my daily errands and the inconsiderate bastards can’t serve me.

Luckily the Mrs was able to get some for me.