Dilemmas

[selenay]

I'm trying to decide whether I spent some money and replace my trackball. It's done faithfull service for nearly five years, but the left button is getting flakey. It takes at least a couple of clicks to get any response and it frequently 'drops' the click if I'm trying to drag something around the screen. Grrr. Does this sound like a wear-and-tear thing? It's getting very annoying.

I'm probably going to replace it.

Damn.

I think that I put out eight job applications today. Go me. Tomorrow I'm going to chase those eight job applications because this whole "apply and never hear anything again" routine is getting old. I'll also be calling the agency that is supposed to be looking out for roles for me and didn't return my calls yesterday or today.

Grrr.

Why do I have the feeling that nobody wants to speak to me, never mind employ me?

And why do I have the sneaky feeling that I'm going to wind up taking a job as an accountant?


In better news, the Tour was very exciting today. Yes, I rushed home just so that I could watch the important stuff live. Must remember to book days off for the mountain stages next year.

I had a feeling that Lance would make a move today. He usually makes a move in the opening mountain stage and, more often than not, gains the yellow. True to form, that's what happened today. I have to say that Armstrong is still looking like the strongest man in the peloton.

There were some big surprises today. Mickael Rasmussen is having an amazing Tour - at the moment, he looks like the biggest threat to Lance's Tour. He stayed with the lead group the whole way through and was the only one who looked as fresh as Armstrong at the end. He's a pure climber, though, and just didn't have the sprint to outpace Valverde and Lance to the line.

Valverde looked good today and he did a great job of sticking with Lance. Definitely one to watch for the future.

The biggest surprise of the day wasn't Ullrich getting dropped and losing time - it was Vinokourov getting dropped. What happened Vino? He was the man that I thought could be the biggest threat and...ouch.

Hopefully he just had a bad day and can attack tomorrow, because he seriously needs to make up time. He looked great, fresh and sitting on Lance's wheel, but he just seemed to hit the wall very suddenly halfway up. Very sudden and very sad to see. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for his form tomorrow.

Another mountain stage tomorrow, although not a mountain-top finish like today's. Should be interesting, though :-)

Comments

[gmul.livejournal.com]

If you like trackballs, replace it. Easy! :-) If you have had it a while it's unlikely you'll get a lot of extra service out of it even with a strip down and good clean of the internals. It might be possible to replace the switch mechanism, depending on exactly what it is, but it's not going to be an entirely trivial exercise if you don't have easy access to the right bits.

You think agents are ignoring you now? Just wait five years until they're desperate for someone with a skill that you've just mentioned in passing on your CV as having heard of once, *then* they'll call you! (I had just such a call a couple of weeks ago, no really - they had been sitting on my CV since 2000!)

Also, I phoned my solicitors today to chase up what's going on with the house sale, since the buyers should be ready to exchange any day. Now, this a company I chose because you're supposed to be able to do pretty much everything online - download the forms, check progress, etc. Eventually we managed to establish that they'd sent me a letter to ask me if I was happy to complete on the 20th. What the zarking heck are they doing sending me a letter for that? They have both my phone number and my email address (both of which are used to good effect by the estate agents). If it was something that needed signing then fair enough but it just needed a simple yes/YES DAMMIT! answer. So I'm going to have to phone them again tomorrow to make sure they've actually done something. I wonder if they'll actually have got the house address right on this letter, since they've not managed it on anything so far. [sigh] Gits.

[selenay]

If you like trackballs, replace it.

::glares at trackball::

After a week of not working properly, it's behaving itself perfectly now. I love my trackball so I will replace it, though. I've seen a lovely wireless one by Logitech. My current one is a Logitech and the only issue I have is that it's sometimes hard to find anywhere on the desk to stash it because of the cord. And the wireless Logitech is five pounds cheaper than the Microsoft version...

You think agents are ignoring you now?

*g* I'm having visions of an agency tracking me down in Canada in five years time, desperate to pursuade me to return to London for some insane salary :-) So, did the job they offer sound interesting?

Today's job hunt went better. Got offered an interview, except the place was sixty miles away and I'm not in a position to relocate. The guy from the agency was good about it, seemed friendly and thought that I would be a good candidate - something to do with good academics and a good phone manner - so he'll be keeping an eye out for me. Yay! And I found a couple of posts in London that I could apply to directly, which is much nicer than constantly applying to agencies.

Of course, I also got a rejection because my university ain't good enough. Pah. Not 'red brick'. Obviously, we'll ignore the fact that the OU regularly scores above most red bricks for teaching quality *sigh*

[sigh] Gits.

Indeed.