I was woken up about 9.30am, by the phone ringing.

Apparently the college where I'm going to install the network and stuff has received their ADSL setup kit or whatever, so now I can go and do the work.

I said I would look at doing it on Monday.

I got out of bed a bit later, watched some tv.

My mate I play snooker with called me, he wanted to know if I'd called the guy that wanted his tv/vcrs connected up. I said I hadn't.

I got off the phone, and got back to watching the tv.

I had a shower, and started getting ready to go out.

About 12.45pm, I called the guy, he told me where he was, and that he was going out now, but that I could go around there after about 1.15pm.

I left, went to the tax place with the letter I got last week telling me that I had to put my tax in or I would get fined.

I went there to get an appointment to have my tax done, the woman asked if I had my stuff right then, because she didn't have an appointment.

I said I did not have it, so I made an appointment to go back at 2.30pm.

I went to McDonalds, got some lunch.

There were far too many people here, and all the newspapers were gone.

I left here, and I rode over to the guy's place.

I had forgotten what number his house was. I pulled over in the street, called his house. The guy wasn't back yet, so I spoke to his wife, and she told me the number. I rode down there.

I went in, had a look around.

The guy has a DVD player, sat decoder, vcr, and they need to be connected to the tv, with has 3 inputs. Easy.

I started working out the cables I would need.

I had to get an extra set of rca leads up to the tv, this was easier said than done, the stuff was in/on a corner cabinet, and it had a shelf on the top at the back, so it wasn't a matter of just reaching around to where the cables came out, that would have required being a contortionist.

I got the cable through, and the guy turned up.

Apparently he had just had his floor repolished, it had been booked to start today, but they had a spot earlier, so they rang him, and he had to rush to get everything out of the room, and that's why the equipment was all unplugged.

He'd dragged everything back in, but not known how to connect the stuff back up.

I connected it up, noticed that he had video and audio inputs from the sat decoder connected to the inputs on the tv, that won't work.

I fixed that.

I then went about trying to work out how he had the stuff setup before, so he could record, watch videos etc.

I realised I didn't need that cable I spent 15 minutes putting up the back before, so I pulled it out again. Then I thought I needed it, so I put it back again, then I realised again that I did not need it. Argh.

Anyway, the dvd went straight to the tv, that worked.

One output of the sat decoder (the scart ones) went to the tv. This didn't work. Turns out the connectors labelled inputs were the outputs, so I put them back in, that was working.

I put the a/v output from the vcr to the tv, that worked.

I put the rca a/v out from the sat decoder to the input on the vcr, that worked.

What had been causing issues, was that the guy was telling me he put his vcr on channel 13 when he wanted to watch the satellite, but that can't be right, because there was no rf lead between the sat decoder and the vcr. I even tried connecting one at one point, but it didn't work.

It was all connected now, but the free to air reception was terrible.

I looked at the cable, it looked all corroded.. no, it had paint on it, that's not going to work real well though anyway.

The guy went and got another aerial cable from somewhere else, when he got it, the plug on the end came off the cable.

It was now about 2.10pm, I said I had to go, because I had to go to the tax appointment, and that I would come back.

I said I would go and get the parts I needed to make a new cable after that.

I chatted for a couple of minutes in the doorway, trying to work out what I needed to get for him to make the cables.

I left there at 2.15pm, and came rushing home.

I came in, grabbed everything I could possibly need, and I took off to the tax place. I got there at 2.35pm, not too bad.

I apologised for being late, the woman didn't really care, she was doing something anyway.

We went through, I gave her all the details she needed, I signed a couple of things, paid, and then left. I think it took about 1/2 hour. She reckoned I'll get about 2/3 of the tax I paid back.

I went over to the hardware place.

I wandered in, and up to the cable section.

I grabbed the connectors I needed, 3 male, and 1 female, all they had on the shelf.

I was just working out the cable to get (they have 3 different types of aerial cable), when someone spoke to me.

I turned around, and it was my mate (who drove us down to the radiohead concert)'s Dad, who works at the hardware place.

I was just about to get him to cut the cable for me, when his radio went off. I said I would get him to cut some cable for me in a minute. He wandered away to speak to someone on the radio.

I stood around for a couple of minutes, contemplating going around to the next aisle to get the ruler and the cutters, and just cut the cable myself, but I just waited, and after about 5 minutes, my mate's dad came back.

He asked me what I was up to, and we had a brief chat.

I told him I wanted 4 metres of the quad shielded rg6 cable, over kill, but it was only $1/metre, and the next stuff, at 68c/metre, looked really cheesy.

He measured up the cable for me, and cut it. I thanked him, and said I'd see him later.

I wandered up to the front of the shop, got in the line.

The guy in front was buying a laundry tub/cupboard. It scanned as $238, and he claimed it had a sticker of $138 on it.

The checkout chick got on the radio, and a guy from that section came up to try to explain to the guy that he had the wrong one.

He then said it was easier to just show him, asked if he wanted the $238 one (well, duh, if he did, you wouldn't be here), so he picked it up, and they both wandered off back to that aisle.

I put the connectors and the cable up, the chick rang it up, and I paid for it, about $12 worth.

I came out, chucked the stuff in my bag, and took off. I rode back to the guys place.

I went back inside, got out the stuff I needed.

I wandered back into the room where the gear was. The guy pointed out the big C band dish in the back yard.

I sat and looked at the lengths, I think my mate's Dad gave me about 10 metres, there's certainly more than 4 here.

I cut it into 2 lengths, about 1/3 and 2/3rds each.

I terminated the 1/3 length, it was to go between the vcr and the tv. I made the cable up, and then realised I'd terminated it with a wrong end, I'd made it male to male, which I needed to go between the vcr and the wall, and longer.

I took the end off, put the right one on.

I then put the cable in, between the vcr and tv. It was at this point, I realised why the reception was so bad. When the guy had brought all his devices back into the room, he must have had a go at putting the stuff back together, but got a bit confused.

He had the lead that should have gone between the wall and the input on the tuner of the vcr, going between the tv and the input of the tuner on the vcr, and he had the cable from the output of the tuner of the vcr going to the wall, instead of the tv.

I made up the longer cable, ran it through, plugged it in, and the reception was back how it was before he moved the stuff.

It's still not great, but it should be enough signal for a digital stb to work, that he mentioned he was thinking about getting.

I went and had a look at the other equipment now. It was the same story. He'd had to rip all the gear from here out.

I had a look, it was close to being right, execpt that he had his wireless video transmitter plugged into the output of the tv, instead of the output of the sat decoder attached to the C band dish.

(The output from the sat decoder attached to the C band dish is transmitted to the tv in the garage, where his Chinese wife likes to watch tv while she works, there was a sewing machine and some other stuff setup in the garage).

I fiddled around, and connected the stuff up properly here, sat decoder to the vcr and the wireless transmitter, vcr to the tv, and the aerial to the vcr. Same issue with the aerial cable in here, this is where the cable with the end that came off came from.

We pushed the tv right back near the wall, so we could get the dodgy cable out, but he had a male/female extension cable in the wall, so it was no good.

I looked at the other cables, the one with paint on it, and the one with the end that comes off.

We put one of those back in, and I said I would make up another cable for him, and drop it in.

He paid me for the parts I bought at the hardware, he then asked me if I drink Scotch, or Whiskey. Do I ever? :-)

I said I drink anything. He went over to the bar I hadn't noticed before, and picked up a big bottle of Whiskey, and asked me if I would be happy with that.

I was very happy with that. It's worth more than the bit of work I did. I said I would make up another cable for this room, and drop it in to him at some stage.

We had another chat about digital set top boxes, and then I left.

I decided to stop in at the supermarket on the way home, and get something for dinner. That was fairly uneventful.

I came home after that.

I didn't really do anything useful, watched some tv, and finished off the last of the bottle of Scotch I was drinking this week.

Dad came in for a chat about 9.30pm. Wanted to know about details of customers, in order to work out what to tell the bank, to get credit card processing facilities.

We sat and chatted for about an hour, about customers, work, getting the gear sorted etc. I said I would chase up what was happening with the gear tomorrow.

I went through some email after that. I realised I had arranged to go and do the networking on Monday, when I'm supposed to be at the annual general meeting of one of the seniors clubs, giving a talk on how the internet works.

I'll have to ring them tomorrow and move it.

I sat and watched a bit more tv, and then I went to bed.