It was a case of third time lucky on Sunday night and in the end it was very much exactly what the Doctor ordered, literally. As a big fan of time travel and all it’s ramifications, the plot appealed greatly but also the quality of the acting to add emotional depth to all of the main characters. All in all everything I had come to expect from the show, a action packed opening, a major moral dilemma and ultimately alien hardware which was far too dangerous in the hands of humans. Bring on next week. I pop into the chat room over at Torchwood TV blog straight after each episode, so if you are around please stop by.
On the bounce of watching all this digital television I made a impulse buy. Rare for me I know but on Sunday I thought, I might as well go for it. It was on offer and considering that I have got £20 credit on my credit card. (Purely for switching to payment via DD). I headed over to the same site from which I bought all the components for my PC, back in June last year. The fantastic Over Clockers and found the item. It was on offer of the week, so with an extra £12 off. Fantastic. Bargain. I went for the twin tuner device, just what I need to tape MOTD2 on BBC2 and watch Torchwood on Sunday evenings. The perfect plan was to order late on Sunday evening, have the order process and dispatched on Monday and delivered to my office this morning. Perfect. Nothing could go wrong and as I took the device home, I took a quick picture before ripping open the box and tackling the installation.
My Dad was helping me out and I disabled the chipset fan on my board. For months it had been making a crazy rattling noise. Disappointing when you consider my plan was to have a noiseless build, but I had put up with it until now and thought I had resolved all my problems. I was wrong. When I put the machine back in situ, the onboard sound card failed. The reason? The chipset fan keeps vital components on the motherboard cool, when the temperature reaches a particular threshold, the motherboard sends a warning to the BIOS and will force a reboot. On the reboot the sound card is no longer installed. Damn. I spent most of this evening trying to figure this simple problem out. I had to Google various forums and message boards but have found a solution. A workable solution. That will have to wait for the next posting. For now, the message is quite clear. If it ain’t broke don’t even attempt to fix it. I am glad I discovered the real reason for this problem. Having already used system restore, a feature I have never touched in XP (or any other version of Windows when it was available, just ME I think!) I was extremely close to rebuilding my machine. Something realistically that I can only hold off until the end of year. Thankfully over Christmas I will have more time on my hands to get the job done, rather than just over a weekend. I am in awe of a colleague on the helpdesk, who will rebuild a work machine at a whim, or rather drop of a Windows XP CD.
BBC News had the streaming headline that Michael Jackson was attending the forthcoming World Music Awards in London. I thought little of it, even though I was speaking to a big MJ fan on the telephone at the time. It was 6.25pm on Sunday 29th October. I should have been over at Is It Scary?. An MJ event with a Halloween theme, held at the C&C club in Central London. I had been there for an event earlier in the year and was keen to go again even if I did not have a costume to wear. Various other things got in the way and I could not make the trek over to the West End. From what I hear it was a great turn out. Never mind. There is always next year.
On Monday evening, like any other Terry came on and asked if I had bought a ticket for the Awards ceremony. Of course not, I had not intention of attending. Well that was the moment that thought quickly turned from disappointment to joy. Tickets had been released already but they were seated and towards the pack. Terry was holding out for standing tickets, offering to sell me his seated ticket should he be successful in purchasing a ticket once they go on sale. Now, long term readers of this blog (I can count you all on the fingers of one hand) will know that I am a big fan of Jackson. One of my biggest regrets has been, not having the opportunity to see him live. Now I find myself close friends with some of the most prominent fans in the country, I feel perfectly place to at least be in the presence of a living legend. I thought 2006 could not get much better. All the fantastic things I have done and seen. What would be the ideal birthday present for me? To see a man, an American musician and entertainer whose successful music career and controversial personal life have been at the forefront of pop culture for the last quarter-century. Ironically the same quarter of a century that I have spent in the world. What a way to celebrate the most momentous personal moment in my life, with the comeback of the King.