This Geek

God, I don’t know how anyone can function even semi-normally when you feel like this.

I’ve had a headache that just won’t quit since (I think) yesterday morning. At the moment it feels like I’ve had it forever. It’s one of those bastards that sits there dormant, until you do something silly, like breathe. Then it wakes up and slashes you across the top of your head with extremely sharp claws that leave scores that ache away into stillness.

And it happens in your sleep, too. You end up dreaming about this large purple dinosaur that does this “I love you” dance on top of your head…and every time his foot connects with the top of your skull, you feel it way down in your soul.

And for those of you who think I’m possibly a furry fetishist, I’m not, okay? I have two young kids, so sue me.

Yeah, that’s me.

Caught a nasty throat infection from my daughter… and just as I finished the round of doctor prescribed antibiotics, another bout of bugs caught up with me. Sheesh, I can’t win, I tell ya.

Been feeling horribly ill since Friday, took the day off today, went to see the doc, and now he’s booked me off til’ Thursday. Fun fun. It’s funny though, he always writes it up as ’sinusitus’, no matter how bad I happen to feel. Oh well, gotta blame SOMETHING I guess.

I can only hope that a different climate will sort my sinus troubles out.

I posted the following complaint at our local consumer complaints site (Hello Peter):

I had minor sinus surgery in November 2003. Today I receive a final demand for payment in the mail (17th Feb) full of threats about being listed in credit bureaux, and having summons issued and summary judgements, etc.

How about sending me a statement first?!

My wife received a phone call at the end of last week from the Glynwood, querying our postal address, since they had a returned mail containing a statement. Turns out they had addressed the envelope incorrectly. But then today I get a final demand (postmarked the 13th) that is perfectly addressed, with the letter inside correctly addressed as well. Strange indeed that the debt recovery agents have my address. Stranger indeed that the hospital hands me over when they KNOW that I have not yet received a statement. It’s not my fault they can’t address an envelope correctly, despite the correct information being supplied on their forms.

It gets my goat that these companies are so quick to hand people over and have them listed for debt defaults for no fault of their own.

In future, I will not deal with this hospital if they can’t do their administration properly. I would rather die. I’m so tired of companies like this being so quick to judge. Since we (as the customer) are always required to sign forms and contracts/agreements etc before we are helped, so should the companies be made to sign agreements with us, stating that if they do not follow the agreed procedures, they will be liable for nuisance fees and/or a fine.

South African companies need to catch a wake up.
Not everyone you deal with are crooks. You are driving legitimate customers away.

The above mentioned hospital is The Glynwood, in Benoni.

Something that I didn’t add (I didn’t have the space), was that I had a similar incident after the birth of my daughter, Megan, but with an entirely different hospital (different management group too). When I called the hospital accounts department to complain, the woman I spoke to said, “Oh, just ignore it. We don’t send statements, we just send final demands, it’s company policy”

What?!?

To be honest, the nursing staff at both hospitals were great, and I have no complaints about the actual care received. It’s just a pity that their administration blows fucking chunks. It’s them that leave the bad taste in your mouth.

A few years ago, I borrowed a CD from a friend of mine: Mike Oldfield, Songs of distant earth. I fell in love with this disc, and I listened to it constantly. I ended up keeping the thing for about a year, if not longer. Eventually, the love affair came to an end, as these things sometimes do, not for any fault of my own, or the album for that matter… jealousy intervened, and I had to return the CD (Actually, I got tired of the whining and pleading from the album’s owner, but I digress).

Years passed, and I forgot about the album, though I would sometimes hear a snatch of a refrain, and fond memories of our brief time together would come flooding back to me. One day, it happened to me again, but this time my friend (o jealous fiend) happened to be present, so I asked him if he still had the disc, and to me abject horror, he told me that someone had borrowed it and he had forgotten who it had been… the disc was gone forever.

After mourning the loss, and exercising self restraint (I had to prevent myself from throttling him), I vowed to get myself a copy of the album if I ever came across it.

More years passed with nary a sighting of the album, though I had looked at a few online retailers… nothing local to me though, and the international sites were too expensive for my taste. I wasn’t THAT desperate. My friend (o jealous heathen) called me on Sunday,

“Guess what I’m holding in my hand?” he said, almost breathlessly (say THAT 10 times fast). “Umm… the Rammstein dvd thingy you’ve been looking for?” I asked. “The Mike Oldfield you’ve been after for so long.”

I sat in stunned silence.

“WELL, GET IT!” I yelled.

So now I have the album back…and it’s mine…all mine.

It’s got this Mac only ‘interactive’ portion of the disc, which is fine, it doesn’t bother me, but to my chagrine, it refuses to play in my car mp3 player. Sucks to be me. Fortunately it’s easy to get around it. I just copied the CD, minus that damn track. I’m listening to it as I write this, just to verify that there are no problems with it (So far so good).

Can’t wait to hear it in my car tomorrow.

[Listening to: Crystal Clear - Mike Oldfield - The Songs of Distant Earth (05:43)]

I try to be courteous towards other people on the roads (except taxis). All I would expect from other road users in return, is that courtesy returned in kind. But no. It’s the general ‘Fuck You’ attitude of the South African driver that is bringing society down.

God, it pisses me off.

I just love the level of driver education in this country.

The law says that if a traffic light is not working properly, there are certain things you should do. For example, if a traffic light is flashing yellow, you should treat the intersection as if a yield sign was posted. If the traffic light is flashing red, or not working at all, you should treat the intersection as if a stop sign was posted.

Now that’s basic information during driver education. You learn that when you get your learner’s license.

From what I’ve seen, I don’t think many people have licenses at all. Or if they do, they were probably purchased from some unscrupulous individual, because there are so many people who do not appear to know this basic information.

I often see non-working traffic lights on my route to work. Every few months, the same ones break down, and it usually takes a week or two to repair them. It never fails to amaze me when I see how drivers treat non-functioning traffic lights: The lights just don’t exist for most people; They don’t even slow down.

One day I’m going to be rewarded by witnessing two like-minded individuals navigating the same intersection at the same time. I’ll stop my car, walk up to each smoking wreck, and laugh at each driver in turn. Then I’ll get in my car, and drive away. Emergency services be damned. A Darwinian ending is all that those gene-pool rejects deserve.

And I’ll just laugh… and laugh…

Welcome to the “new look” (again) MidnightReign.Org website.

This is obviously quite different to the previous layout, which is a good thing, I think. There are now far less things to confuse the issue. All you have to do is read, and comment (if you want). Maybe at some stage later on, I will add a downloads section, and possibly some other bits and pieces, as it takes my fancy. Another thing that I like about this particular engine, is that I don’t have to log in to the site to post entries: I can do it from my desktop, or even from my phone(!). You can still access the old website at http://www2.midnightreign.org/. I’ll leave that up for a while yet, but don’t expect it to be there forever.

There isn’t anything here to look at yet, but give me time. Since it’s much easier to post entries to this site, I’m hoping to update much more often than I did the old site. I know, I’m a lazy bastard, and I neglected the old site. Hopefully it won’t happen to this one.