I exceeded my 3 gigabyte monthly bandwidth allowance in the early hours of Tuesday morning. No real bother, the site would return on the first of the month, when the quota is reset. It was actually my friend Nav, over in a different time zone that first noticed my site down, added my URL as his personal message on MSN. I was annoyed, but knew it was going to happen as I had received an e-mail warning me I had less than 250mb of my bandwidth remaining. My friend in India, said it was the price to pay for Teg going international. I actually think it is a mixture of me logging on to check updates I had made myself. The main thing though now, is the site is back and I will try and better watch the bandwidth.

I am moving to Sky broadband. I contacted Orange (formerly Wanadoo, formerly Freeserve) on Thursday evening and was put through Elizabeth (with a strong Indian accent). Obviously an Indian call centre! Their system was down so they could not do anything for me. First she said I should call back in an hour, then changed her mind and extended the delay to two hours. I gave up and thought I would call from work today. I did and was once again put through to an call centre on the subcontinent. Then I was transferred back to James in the UK who tried with little real effort to keep my business with Orange. He could tell from his records that I had been signed up since 2001 and had broadband in 2002 (the second it was available in my area) but it was time to move on and I could get a much better deal with Sky. They offered me a wireless package for £12.99 which was laughable. How could they compete with £5 a month for 8mb, when the best they could offer me at that “reduced” price was 2mb. No thanks. Bye. So I requested my MAC code and should have it within 5 working days and switch over by mid March. Many of my colleagues have Sky broadband, including my manager, but it took one person to switch to convince me. Pav has had NTL broadband for years and actually was one of the first people I know to switch to non-metered access back in the good old dial up days. He had switched over recently and had had no problems whatsoever. Being the trend setter, what he does, I generally tend to follow.

Went to see Ghost Rider with Pav this evening. The showing was at 9pm, at the Vue, Reading but we got there early. So early that we were the first handful of people to be admitted to screen 4, after it had been cleaned. (Any one remember last Friday at the flicks?) It was nice to get there early for change and avoid the queues, usually it is always a rush. Plus it gave us to have a good chat before the Pearl & Dean music played. Right to the movie. Everyone must know by now I am a big fan of super heroes movies, particularly those inspired from comic books. However, I must be careful not to make this review to turn into something from the Eva Mendes Appreciation Society (it is her birthday on Sunday don’t you know!) Nicholas Cage is not the first person you would think of to play a superhero, or even perhaps more fittingly an anti-hero but he does pull it off quite well. The most interesting fact is from the Wikipedia page. Johnny Depp of all people had shown an interest in the role, but subsequently Cage, a fan of the comic book decided to also contract the production team and notify them of his desire to play the role. I am glad they chose Cage over Depp. I just cannot see the Pirates Of The Caribbean stay taking to the role with the serious conviction it requires. Overall entertaining movie, with good story and fantastic special effects. I perhaps wanted more from the final battle but that is a minor indiscretion. Eva Mendes is stunning as the love interest and actually becomes integral to the story. The last movie I saw her in was 2 Fast 2 Furious over Christmas. I still have not had a chance to sit down and watch Hitch. Even though it has been shown on Sky Movies countless times, I have never been in the living room just as it starts and do not want to pick it up in the middle. Plus you can forget about me buying or renting the DVD. Well renting the DVD is completely out of the question as Blockbusters closed down in Wycombe over a year ago. Back to the movie, definitely worth seeing if you are fan of either of the stars or comic book – super hero movie carnations in general. It was a blast, just do not expect too much and you will be impressed. I was.

We went to the Slug & Lettuce for a drink after the movie finished at 11pm. We decided to just chat about the year ahead and plan some of the things we are going to do. As we left, just before midnight, I recognised the man just outside, holding an umbrella. He was surrounded by a young blonde and the security guard (aka bouncer) was speaking to him. It was none other than John Madejski chairman of Reading football club. As we walked across the bridge, he went into the Slug. Talk about strange coincidences. I explained to Pav that I would most likely see him again tomorrow around 3pm at Ashburton Grove. My weekend had well and truly began.