I was woken up by the phone ringing at 9.30am this morning (and to think I got an alarm clock for Christmas, like I need one), I decided I could not be bothered getting out of bed, because by the time I got across the room to the phone it would have stopped ringing. I rolled over and tried to sleep more, but it was too hot, so I just lay there half asleep and annoyed.

My mobile phone rang at 10.30, it was my mate wanting to know where I was (since I didn't answer the land line) and what I was up to. He'd just finished at the doctors and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the club (where I was the other night) for a couple of games of snooker and lunch, yeah, why not, I'm not doing anything else, excecpt going to spend the day looking at this broken computer.

So I crawled out of bed, starting getting dressed, as I pulled my shirt on, I could feel something scratchy in the sleeve, I pulled it away a bit.. holy shit! there's a spider in my shirt, no, wait, there's 2 spiders in my shirt, no, it's only one, and a skin it has discarded, how long has this bloody spider been living in my shirt? actually, I didn't think that, at the time I was mainly thinking "shit!" as I pulled it out, the thing fell on the floor, I had web all over me, I then pulled the skin out, and checked to see there was nothing else in the sleeve.

Grabbed an empty tiny jam jar I had hanging around, and trapped the bugger in it. I was going to put it in the sun to cook it, but I'm not that mean, I'll let him die a slow death of starvation or suffocation instead.

Finished getting dressed, jumped on the bike, and headed down to the club (I've already broken my rule of always wearing my jacket, oh well, I'm only going 'round the corner.. ). Parked up the bike, wandered in. I thought I would have a go at the pokie that gave me $20 the other night, but I found it was turned off, hmm.

Went upstairs to the snooker/pool room, found my mate, had a couple of games of snooker, got whipped, wandered down had a free lunch (well, there's no such thing as a free lunch, you have to be a club member, and that costs $4.40/year), put a dollar in the pokies on my way to lunch, won nothing, after lunch went back up, had another game, and I won, first time ever.

During one of the snooker games, my mate asked me if another mate, who I was planning to start an ISP with, had told me about his world trip, yeah, I knew about it, he also asked me if I knew that the plans of starting the ISP were on hold until the guy comes back from his world trip in 9 months, hmm, no, I didn't know this bit, and didn't really appreciate hearing it second hand. Oh well, I guess this just means I'll have to get a job this year then, instead of starting a business.

After this, we both decided to head up to Wyong, where he lives, and where the Internet Cafe I used to work in is. I popped in to the shop where people can pay for their Internet accounts, and collected a payment, I thought for a second "gee, I could keep this $60, and no one would be the wiser", but I had no intention of keeping it, which was lucky, because sometime between me leaving the shop, and popping in to home to collect my cd player (and the spare batteries) the shop called the cafe to find out why someone who didn't work there anymore had come to collect money.

I put my cd player on, jumped back on the bike, and headed for Wyong. about 1/3 of the way there the batteries ran out. D'oh. I couldn't be bothered to pull over and change them, so I just kept going. Got to the Internet Cafe, as I was about to go in, my phone rang, my precision driving mate had received a phone call to tell him his ADSL was setup, could I come around with some cat5 and set it up, yeah, sure, when I finish up here, which will probably be about 10pm. I wandered in, and was immediately told that I was about to be rung to find out why I was collecting money. Far out, try to do something nice for someone. So I threw the money on the desk.

I then had a chat to find out what was going on, and what the best price I could get on and ADSL plan was. I can get it for cost, as long as I watch the download, fine, I don't download much anymore, I mainly want it for the upload anyway. Now I need to have a discussion, and arrange for disconnection/removal of this crappy ISDN service.

I grabbed an ADSL router too, a Cisco 675, I need to fiddle and see if I can get it working in Aus, apparently these ones only work in the US because of the VCI/VPI settings or something.

I left from the Cafe, went to my mates place, had a look at a computer he was having problems with.. 5 pin ps/2 header on the motherboard, but only 4 pin connectors.. I had a look around on the internet, found both the pinout details of the header, and the port, pulled all the pins out of the plug, reaaranged them to match, plugged it in.. hooray, a working mouse. Also, the USB doesn't seem to work. Tried the other connector.. fine, one dead USB connector, hmm.

At this point the phone rang, another mate was at my precision driving mate's place, trying to get his ADSL working, apparently the sync light is just flashing, hmm, that sounds like the service is not connected. Can I come and have a look, yeah, I'm already coming there later, oh and "we" are travelling down to Sydney for New Years, (whoever the royal "we" is).

I then tuned in my mates new dvd/vcr combo, so he can watch Foxtel in the bedroom, that took a couple of minutes, by this time his wife had arrived at the train station, so he took off to pick her up. I finished tuning it just as he got back a few minutes later.

We then travelled to the Tennis Club for dinner, he shouted me dinner for fixing the mouse for him, and working out the USB problem, that was cool, so far today I've spent all of 1 dollar. I decided to shout the drinks. While in there, I bumped into an old mate I went to TAFE with years ago, apparently they're looking for some new employees where he's working, I think he wanted me to push for more details, but I don't really want to do tech support, and I think I would have difficulty working with him.

The other people I usually go to dinner with at the Tennis Club turned up while we were halfway through our meal, we finished our meals, and had a chat to them before we left, as we headed out, I decided I wanted to put a dollar in the pokies, since I had forgotten that I already did at the club this morning, won it up a couple of dollars, but then just played it back to my dollar, took it and went.

Headed back, had a chat for a while, my mate told his wife how the guy I was planning to start an ISP with is planning to head overseas, so we got to talking about visiting China etc. I was getting tired, and knew I still had to go look at this ADSL rubbish, so I changed the batteries in my cd player, and took off, about 3 seconds later the spare batteries I had just put in went flat. D'oh.

So I rode to my precison driving mate's place, had a look at the ADSL router, yep, sync light flashing, no service, maybe this stupidly long phone cord is causing it. tried putting it really close to the phone port, no diff. Got the Cisco router out of my bike, plugged it in, no WAN light. He called up the provider to complain, they asked to talk to me, told them the details, no phones on the line, no cordless phones, no alarm system, nothing that will muck with the line. "Oh, well I'll log a call with the telco then".

Fat chance of getting them out to sort this out before next year. So I plugged everything back, and left the router with it's sync light flashing, told my mate to just check every now and then, when it stops flashing, I'll come 'round with some cat5 and set it up. Watched him play Rainbow Six 3 on the suXbox for a while, then went outside, had a chat and a beer for a while, then came home.

Just gone through all my spam/email for today, there was a reply from Abit about my motherboard, apparently it's still in warranty, groovy, now I just need to chase up the people I bought it from 3 years ago.

I've got a shocking headache, and I'm sick of looking at this monitor. I'm going to bed. No idea what I'm going to do for New Years, I'll call a few people tomorrow, but I think I'll end up sitting at home, getting pissed, and watching the fireworks on the telly, it's a lot easier and cheaper, and there'll be more alcohol involved.