Ring out the old and in with the new
Well, this has been quite a weekend of change and rather emotionally charged too. It started off on Friday night when I was watching an eBay auction. It was all Michael's fault that I was watching it anyway. Some days earlier, I'd been talking about missing snuggling him and so he suggested that I get a replacement. The only thing that's really able to replace a partner in the snuggling department is a teddy; unfortunately my very favourite teddy, the only one I would really consider, is a bit past his prime. He's already been stitched up several times and he's rather at risk of losing both his arms and ears due to the way he's been put together. Strictly speaking, he's not a teddy, he's a Womble. Orinoco Womble to be precise - the one that's shown first on this page. I had to explain Wombles a bit to Michael as he was unfamiliar with them and I told him that although Orinoco was always the main one, I much preferred Wellington, the small, quiet, shy and brainy one. A few minutes later, Michael gave me a link to an eBay auction which just happened to be for a Wellington toy. It had no bids on it and the opening bid was a very reasonable £4 but it was set at a 10 day auction and still had a good week to go. Cue a long impatient week of looking at it every day to check on the activity.
The auction was to finish at 8.47pm precisely on Friday night so as soon as we were done with tea, I hurried online to have a look and see how it was doing. There were still no bids but the listing didn't have a counter on so I couldn't even tell if there was any interest in it. Well, other than all of my hits anyway. I'd never left it so late to bid on an auction, usually I'd started bidding in the last 24 hours so I was getting a little anxious. I decided to wait until the last half an hour to see what happened. I have no idea why, I must have been in a masochistic state of mind that night for some reason. I busied myself doing other online stuffs and chatting in Yay for Queers until it got to 8.20pm and I went to have another look at the listing. Still no bids. Well, I couldn't wait any longer so I finally placed my bid of £4. As soon as that was accepted, I put in my maximum bid of £5.00 and then had to try and restrain myself from refreshing the page every other minute. I did it every five minutes instead. There were still no bids so it was all looking very promising.
When it got to ten minutes with no sign of any other activity, I was getting very pleased and excited that Wellington would soon be mine. I happened to mention in YfQ that I was eagerly watching the last ten minutes of an auction on eBay so of course people wanted to know what I was bidding on. I was then struck with the dilemma of wanting to show them while at the same time not wanting to jinx my chances of winning, or running the risk of them bidding on it! I began to wonder if I should raise my maximum bid because £5 was very close to the opening bid of £4 and I was willing to go higher. It seemed a bit silly to do that when there was no sign of any other interest so I just debated with myself about it instead. However, I did sign up for an IM alert if I got outbid. Just to be on the safe side as that would be quicker notification than an e-mail. Then it was down to five minutes so by now I was refreshing the page about every minute and my heart rate was rapidly going through the roof with excitement.
The last minute started and I began to refresh in earnest. It took two seconds for the page to refresh so I was counting down in twos: 58 seconds to go, 56 seconds to go, 54 seconds to go... And I was still the winning bidder. Then at about 30 seconds disaster struck. "You have been outbid." The current bid was £6.20 and I was prepared to go higher so I rapidly typed in £10.00 and hit enter. I expected to go straight back to the listing but I was greeted instead with the usual guff about entering into a contract and did I really want to do that and if so to click on the button to confirm it which was just taking up the last precious seconds, damnit! Finally I got back to the listing with 7 seconds to go and I was confirmed as the winning bidder. Refresh, refresh, refresh... 1 second to go and still the winning bidder. I refreshed again and the page gave 0 seconds left but didn't say that the auction had finished or who the winner was. Obviously the system was taking some time to register the ending but I was desperate to find out if I'd won or not and it took a few seconds for me to realise I had to refresh the page again to find out. It wasn't going to do it itself! Two seconds later and I got the notification that I had finally won and Wellington was mine. At which point my heart about gave out but I had to get myself together so I could go and pay for it. So now I'm waiting most impatiently for him to arrive at my door.
And then last night, my sister asked me if I would bid on a Sweep cuddly for her.... eBay is bad for my heath, I think. It's far too fraught.
So after all the excitement of eBay on Friday night, I decided to give myself more angst on Saturday as if I'd not had enough already. I'd been thinking for a while about changing my mobile phone network from O2 but as my contract wasn't up until July 8th, they wouldn't let me do anything about it until then. My sister and I had gone to Southport for the day for a change of scenery and we happened to pass a 3 shop and went in to have a look. The sales assistant was a very decent bloke and after he'd told me the tariffs and exactly what I'd be getting, he showed me a couple of handsets. I was a little unsure about doing anything then being as we were only there for the day but he assured me that it didn't matter where I set up my account, whether it was there or in town here. I took a while to decide on a phone as although I loved the look of the Sony Ericsson K660i, the buttons were ridiculously tiny and I thought the screen on the Nokia 6500s was a bit on the small side but the phone itself felt substantial and good quality in my hand. I ended up with the Nokia 6500s anyway, because it was the best phone I could get without having to pay more money.
When I got home, after I'd spent a good hour or two playing about with my new phone, I had to ring O2 for the PAC code so that I could transfer my old number across to 3. Of course, when I rang, the person I spoke to said that I'd have to be put through to the special department that deals with that kind of thing. They're the people who are extra extra nice to you and as persuasive as possible and come equipped with hammers and other torture devices to make sure that you don't actually leave. So the bloke I was put through to wanted to know why I was leaving them so I said that their service had declined rapidly recently and I was no longer impressed with it. He asked if there was a particular problem which is basically the fact that my bill is extortionate even though I don't use my phone; my calls and texts never seem to be covered by my free minutes and texts, and they've started charging for various things without actually letting me know that. Like, I now have to pay to listen to my voicemail which I think is ridiculous. So the bloke said that he would have a look and see if they could do me a better deal so I said okay, just out of curiosity and to make sure that I'd done the best thing in moving to 3. I was pretty sure I had but I always like to double check. He offered me a free Samsung G600 handset, which is the newer version of the Samsung U600 I currently have, with a new tariff which 200 minutes and 400 texts for £20. The tariff I'd just got from 3 gave me 500 units which I can use for either texts or minutes (1 unit is equal to 1 text or 1 minute so it's mix and match) plus all their free internet stuff like MSN messenger and eBay (uh-oh...) for £18 a month. So I said no and he tried to make me a better offer by throwing in 12 months free broadband at my home address. But I already have broadband - I mean, surely most people do these days? - so I turned that down as well. Finally he said he'd send me through the PAC code but it's coming in the post so it'll take up to 5 days to get here. He had said early on that they'd be sorry to see me go because I've been with them a long time; it's been about 10 years as they were the first provider I signed up with back when they were Cellnet and I've stayed with them since then, through BT Cellnet and now as O2. But not any more! It's quite the end of an era.
So today I've been playing about with my phone, transferring my ringtones to it and all my contacts. For some reason - possibly because the number hasn't been transferred yet or because it's a different kind of phone - my old Sim card won't work in my new phone so I've had to put all the numbers in by hand. It's actually been kind of useful putting it in that way because it's meant that I've been able to prune my contacts list and get rid of some numbers that I don't use or need anymore. I'm not good at getting rid of stuff though, even old contacts. I keep people's numbers on the off chance I should need them or so that I know who they are if they contact me. I've never claimed to be good with change! Even if it's just a new mobile provider. Or a new Womble.
The auction was to finish at 8.47pm precisely on Friday night so as soon as we were done with tea, I hurried online to have a look and see how it was doing. There were still no bids but the listing didn't have a counter on so I couldn't even tell if there was any interest in it. Well, other than all of my hits anyway. I'd never left it so late to bid on an auction, usually I'd started bidding in the last 24 hours so I was getting a little anxious. I decided to wait until the last half an hour to see what happened. I have no idea why, I must have been in a masochistic state of mind that night for some reason. I busied myself doing other online stuffs and chatting in Yay for Queers until it got to 8.20pm and I went to have another look at the listing. Still no bids. Well, I couldn't wait any longer so I finally placed my bid of £4. As soon as that was accepted, I put in my maximum bid of £5.00 and then had to try and restrain myself from refreshing the page every other minute. I did it every five minutes instead. There were still no bids so it was all looking very promising.
When it got to ten minutes with no sign of any other activity, I was getting very pleased and excited that Wellington would soon be mine. I happened to mention in YfQ that I was eagerly watching the last ten minutes of an auction on eBay so of course people wanted to know what I was bidding on. I was then struck with the dilemma of wanting to show them while at the same time not wanting to jinx my chances of winning, or running the risk of them bidding on it! I began to wonder if I should raise my maximum bid because £5 was very close to the opening bid of £4 and I was willing to go higher. It seemed a bit silly to do that when there was no sign of any other interest so I just debated with myself about it instead. However, I did sign up for an IM alert if I got outbid. Just to be on the safe side as that would be quicker notification than an e-mail. Then it was down to five minutes so by now I was refreshing the page about every minute and my heart rate was rapidly going through the roof with excitement.
The last minute started and I began to refresh in earnest. It took two seconds for the page to refresh so I was counting down in twos: 58 seconds to go, 56 seconds to go, 54 seconds to go... And I was still the winning bidder. Then at about 30 seconds disaster struck. "You have been outbid." The current bid was £6.20 and I was prepared to go higher so I rapidly typed in £10.00 and hit enter. I expected to go straight back to the listing but I was greeted instead with the usual guff about entering into a contract and did I really want to do that and if so to click on the button to confirm it which was just taking up the last precious seconds, damnit! Finally I got back to the listing with 7 seconds to go and I was confirmed as the winning bidder. Refresh, refresh, refresh... 1 second to go and still the winning bidder. I refreshed again and the page gave 0 seconds left but didn't say that the auction had finished or who the winner was. Obviously the system was taking some time to register the ending but I was desperate to find out if I'd won or not and it took a few seconds for me to realise I had to refresh the page again to find out. It wasn't going to do it itself! Two seconds later and I got the notification that I had finally won and Wellington was mine. At which point my heart about gave out but I had to get myself together so I could go and pay for it. So now I'm waiting most impatiently for him to arrive at my door.
And then last night, my sister asked me if I would bid on a Sweep cuddly for her.... eBay is bad for my heath, I think. It's far too fraught.
So after all the excitement of eBay on Friday night, I decided to give myself more angst on Saturday as if I'd not had enough already. I'd been thinking for a while about changing my mobile phone network from O2 but as my contract wasn't up until July 8th, they wouldn't let me do anything about it until then. My sister and I had gone to Southport for the day for a change of scenery and we happened to pass a 3 shop and went in to have a look. The sales assistant was a very decent bloke and after he'd told me the tariffs and exactly what I'd be getting, he showed me a couple of handsets. I was a little unsure about doing anything then being as we were only there for the day but he assured me that it didn't matter where I set up my account, whether it was there or in town here. I took a while to decide on a phone as although I loved the look of the Sony Ericsson K660i, the buttons were ridiculously tiny and I thought the screen on the Nokia 6500s was a bit on the small side but the phone itself felt substantial and good quality in my hand. I ended up with the Nokia 6500s anyway, because it was the best phone I could get without having to pay more money.
When I got home, after I'd spent a good hour or two playing about with my new phone, I had to ring O2 for the PAC code so that I could transfer my old number across to 3. Of course, when I rang, the person I spoke to said that I'd have to be put through to the special department that deals with that kind of thing. They're the people who are extra extra nice to you and as persuasive as possible and come equipped with hammers and other torture devices to make sure that you don't actually leave. So the bloke I was put through to wanted to know why I was leaving them so I said that their service had declined rapidly recently and I was no longer impressed with it. He asked if there was a particular problem which is basically the fact that my bill is extortionate even though I don't use my phone; my calls and texts never seem to be covered by my free minutes and texts, and they've started charging for various things without actually letting me know that. Like, I now have to pay to listen to my voicemail which I think is ridiculous. So the bloke said that he would have a look and see if they could do me a better deal so I said okay, just out of curiosity and to make sure that I'd done the best thing in moving to 3. I was pretty sure I had but I always like to double check. He offered me a free Samsung G600 handset, which is the newer version of the Samsung U600 I currently have, with a new tariff which 200 minutes and 400 texts for £20. The tariff I'd just got from 3 gave me 500 units which I can use for either texts or minutes (1 unit is equal to 1 text or 1 minute so it's mix and match) plus all their free internet stuff like MSN messenger and eBay (uh-oh...) for £18 a month. So I said no and he tried to make me a better offer by throwing in 12 months free broadband at my home address. But I already have broadband - I mean, surely most people do these days? - so I turned that down as well. Finally he said he'd send me through the PAC code but it's coming in the post so it'll take up to 5 days to get here. He had said early on that they'd be sorry to see me go because I've been with them a long time; it's been about 10 years as they were the first provider I signed up with back when they were Cellnet and I've stayed with them since then, through BT Cellnet and now as O2. But not any more! It's quite the end of an era.
So today I've been playing about with my phone, transferring my ringtones to it and all my contacts. For some reason - possibly because the number hasn't been transferred yet or because it's a different kind of phone - my old Sim card won't work in my new phone so I've had to put all the numbers in by hand. It's actually been kind of useful putting it in that way because it's meant that I've been able to prune my contacts list and get rid of some numbers that I don't use or need anymore. I'm not good at getting rid of stuff though, even old contacts. I keep people's numbers on the off chance I should need them or so that I know who they are if they contact me. I've never claimed to be good with change! Even if it's just a new mobile provider. Or a new Womble.