I have fuck all to say about 2011.

I suspect it’s almost like having dementia but with a heightened awareness that your mind is going to pot. I’ve had a fairly privileged education, went to public school for the majority of my formative years followed by a couple of years at a world class university. In amongst all that, there were the internships and work experiences. There’s a lot of information in that squishy grey matter encased in my cranium but it’s not really being used to it’s full potential and I don’t like that.

With every day that passes, I feel like my brain cells are atrophying from lack of use. Although I’m reading a lot, it’s all a bit passive, nothing is being practically used at the moment. I was reading Silent Spring the other night and several things popped up in my mind with regards to the Water Framework Directive and REACH but I couldn’t remember them in any great detail. Had I been reading it a few years ago, I’d be able to knock off a mini essay about each directive without much effort. In the end, I resorted to looking them up on my iPhone. As fond as I am of my iPhone, it can’t replace my brain.

I dunno, maybe I’m just greedy. Maybe I should just blow my money gallivanting around the world and then kill myself. I’d rather meet an untimely demise while climbing Everest or cage-less shark diving than end up in a nursing home, unable to control my bowel movements in forty-fifty years time.

Normally, I’d take a gamble and purchase footwear online. I’ve never had any issues with wrong sizing, but this time, I thought I’d pop into a physical Sports Direct at one of the delightful retail centers near me. Well, what a tedious experience that turned out to be.

Having had a look at trainers online, I knew what I was after and found the pair I liked in the store pretty quickly. I asked the first person I found for some assistance who then radioed someone on the walkie-talkie to come help me. I waited a bit, looked at some hideous footwear and it became pretty apparent that no one was coming. So I asked the next person, he too radioed someone and again I waited. The hideous shoes still looked hideous and I was getting nowhere. I asked another person and guess what? She also radioed someone to come over. I asked why she wasn’t able to assist and it turned out that the shoe corner wasn’t her responsibility and that the bloke who was in charge of that area was in the other corner helping someone else. She later nipped off to hang some clothes. It seems to deal with sports shoes, one needs some sort of special qualification?? I went over to the other corner and there was no one there, so I returned back to where I’d picked out my shoes and tweeted my annoyance.

Finally, someone came, I requested my size six and lo and behold, they fitted fine. Should’ve just ordered them online as usual. While waiting around, I could feel my blood pressure gradually rising, if I had to wait any longer, I’m sure I would’ve thrown a temper tantrum worthy of a YouTube view. I mean, really, how difficult is it to nip round back and pick out a pair of shoes? It’s quite a big store, spread over two floors and it wasn’t like they were understaffed either. There were two just lingering on the staircase chatting.

I had purposefully gone in during a quiet period so that I could get in and out in about 10-15 mins, but the whole ordeal seemed to suck up an hour. Anyway, hopefully I shouldn’t need any new trainers for another ten years and if I do, I shall be purchasing them online. I prefer to interact with retail staff a little as possible.

I’ve been taking The Tube more often than usual over the past week or so and every time I’ve been on, there has always been something wrong with the Bakerloo line. The worst is when you’re at the platform waiting. Waiting without an announcement or notification on the iPhone about minor delays/severe delays/part suspensions*.

Sure, The Tube was once a pioneering marvel in rapid transit systems but over a hundred years on, you wonder whether parts of it are still stuck in the mid-1800′s. Plenty of cities have since surpassed it in speed and efficiency. As a life long Londoner and intrepid traveler, it does pain me to say that The Tube is among the worst metro system I have used, along with Paris Metro. Paris Metro might be marginally worse as you have to lift up a latch to exit the carriage, at least it’s automated on The Tube.

I’m trying to think of something positive to say about The Tube, but the best I can come up with is that once in a while, when you’re stuck between stations, the announcement can be quite entertaining.

*Delete as appropriate.

Last month, I got an email from McAfee telling me that the subscription for my anti-virus was going to expire soon (4th Nov 2011 to be precise) and that I should renew it soon. I had better things to do and quite quickly forgot about it. Anyway, I figured I wouldn’t be charged in any case as I’ve got a different card from when I renewed by license the last time (in the past 12 months, I’d managed to loose my credit card twice!).

This morning, I got an email from them telling me that they have received payment for renewal of my license. I didn’t want to renew it. Previously it was free as I’m an HSBC customer, then they charged around £24 last year and now the cost has gone up to £40-something. I got home this afternoon and logged into my McAfee account to find that auto renew had been switched to on and I’m pretty sure I had switched it off to start with. I went on to check my credit card details and well I never, they seem to have somehow automatically updated the details in line with my current card. HSBC has obviously passed my details on.

Some might say that all this is just to make one’s life easier, but quite frankly, I find it rather intrusive.Thankfully (I might be saying this too soon), I managed to contact them via online chat and my refund request has been put through. I should expect to be credited between 5-10 days.

In addition, Skype for some reason has changed my top-up option back to auto-renew. You really need to keep an eye on these things.

Opened the package, phone in excellent new condition eventhough it’s a refurb, connected to iTunes as per instructions and restored the backup from my 3GS to 4. While that was going on, I contacted O2 via webchat and conversed with “Charles”. I asked him where he was based and surprise, surprise, India! Asked him to remove the bar on my account and activate my SIM. He did as he was told and said that I needed to wait up to 2 hours for my phone to connect up to the network.

Three hours later, back on webchat I went and this time chatted with a “Benjy” who went on to tell me that “Charles” lifted the bar but didn’t activate my SIM. So he went and activated my SIM and told me that I now had to wait a further 2 – 24 hours until I was able to make and receive calls. About 30 minutes later, I get an email from “Benjy” telling me that my SIM was for a different number and that I would have to go into an O2 store to sort it out. Unfortunately, all the O2 stores near me shut at 5:30pm – 6:00pm so that wasn’t an option.

I didn’t trust “Benjy” so called up O2 and spoke to a real person, can’t remember what her name was, probably a Jane or Janet or something. She made no comment about my SIM problems (I just asked to activate my SIM), gave her my mobile no. and SIM code and that was that. A few minutes later, yay! I could see “O2-UK” on my phone. I thought all was well, but I couldn’t make or receive calls from it! A few minutes later again, I was able to make and receive calls, but now I didn’t have data access!! In the end, I manage to solve the data issue by reconfiguring the cellular data settings. It was just one palava after another.

To add to these connection woes, iTunes kept crashing during the photo optimisation process when I tried to upload my photos to it. Lost count how many times I tried. Some googling revealed that iTunes 10 has a bug and you have to deselect “include videos”. I’ve managed to circumvent the lack of vids by using the VLC player app which unfortunately has been pulled from the app store.

Shiny, shiny goodness

While the iPhone 4 has more features, I still prefer the shape of the 3GS. For me, the most striking difference between the two is the retina screen on the 4, it really is noticibly sharper than on the 3GS. Text is really crisp and images vivid. Those blues and turqoises from my Seychelles pics really pop! Speaking of which, I got a Case-Mate Pop case in red for it.

For those who are going to ask why I didn’t just wait for the iPhone 5, well, I would’ve been iPhone-less for a few months. Cant’t possibly be having that.