King Of Postage and eBay

Oh my, I am prolific right now. This weekend I sold no less than 70 items on eBay. Yes, seventy items. Nothing of any great importance - the odd DVD here, the occasional pair of ski trousers there, a 2001 calendar, and so on - but I remain very pleased (and slightly surprised) at the worldwide demand for my bits and pieces.

Spain, Germany, Czechoslovakia (as was), Australia, Russia. The demand for my items is universal. It is a wonderful thing. Since I sold most of these items for 99p plus postage, it's not really about the money (although a few items did go for a surprising amount), it's really about the space which these items are no longer taking up in my home. And that has to be a good thing, since if I don't put a move on I'll be crossing the two-year anniversary of "tidying up", and that really would be going on a bit long.

In any case, whenever a large number of items need to be posted, the King of Postage swings into action. And today your King has been vigorous, wrapping up parcels and packets aplenty. Many once-used jiffy bags were re-used, in order to save the many dolphins of the rainforest. Much brown paper was used in the wrapping up of the larger items. Sticky labels and sellotape in all directions, a veritable whirlwind of activity has been seen here for the past few days.

On Monday and Tuesday, many smaller items - the ones that fit in a postbox - were dispatched on their way to the eagerly waiting buyers. Today, it was time for the King to take the bigger parcels and packages to the Post Office.

Normally, the Post Office is a dismal affair, as much time is spent queueing behind ordinary non-Kingly people, often clogging up the place with non-postage related activities. People wanting travellers cheques, renewing their car tax, a confluence of nuisance and delay.

But today, upon entering the establishment... no queue. In fact, no customers at all. Clearly the place had been cleared in advance of the King's arrival, in order to ensure that business was transacted without delay. I very much approve of this situation. I walked straight to the counter (without even having to walk around the little maze-style queuing system around the back of the shelves of cardboard rolls and birthday cards) and offered my regal instructions.

"These all have stamps on already, apart from one," I said. The ladies behind the counter flushed red with obvious excitement at being in such proximity to such an accomplished King of Postage. I began handing my packages across the counter. A small faux-pas as one of the ladies made a motion to move one of the packages onto the weighing scales -- as if they were going to put all of my regal items THROUGH THE TILL LIKE SOME KIND OF COMMONER! Her more experienced colleague shot her a swift glance to indicate that this would not be good for anyone. I pretended not to notice this clear breach of Royal protocol, and did so with good humour, since it is of course not everyone who is accustomed to such Kingly procedures.

Package after package after package, and then, finally... the one item to be stamped. A clear honour for the postage staff, as you can imagine. "Small packet, Airmail, International Signed-For, please." An expensive high-rolling request at the best of times, but in the presence of the King, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Both ladies blushed with pride (and perhaps arousal) at being called to my imperial service in this fashion. Nonetheless they were able to secure the required sticky labels and barcodes, and even managed to type the crazy foreign address into their automatic computer.

Our business conducted, I thanked the ladies very much for their time, and bade them farewell.

"Hail to the King!", I am sure I heard one of them say, as I left.

Up Rather Early

From my window I see a wet and rainy city skyline. And I seem to be up rather early. I can only attribute this to the miracle of the clocks going back, but even so, being up at 8am is really like being up at 9am, so actually I guess that's still good.

I expect I'm going to be walking around, mentally adjusting for what time "it realy is" for a good few days.

Temporary Informational Posting

I think I'd go so far as to say that the move from AOL Journals is now complete! The posts from January 2007 and earlier that were missing their pictures are now no longer - missing their pictures, that is. And while I'm here, I've tidied up a few other bits and pieces, and changed the colours to something less nasty more pleasing too.

Only a few days of the old AOL Journals blog pages to go, then they disappear into a black hole in space. Perhaps the rest of AOL will join them before too long as well. Not that I'm bearing a grudge, or anything. Blogger (and Wordpress) have always been much better. :)

Urgent Action Required

I have become aware that my eating habits are costing me a fortune. Not directly, that is, but indirectly, in a sneaky and altogether entirely hidden manner, by way of my apparently innocent-looking fridge and freezer.

Between the two of them, these household appliances are costing me £220 a year in electricity. No kidding.

My kitchen appliances had escaped me and my power meter as I walked around the house earlier in the year, thereby avoiding my thorough audit of energy use. But now I have them brought to rights. I have now plugged in my little meter, and now I have the data, oh yes.

My little chest freezer uses 95 watts. All the time, apparently. That's not good. My big fridge-freezer uses 135 watts. All the time, apparently. That's even less good. Long story short, this is costing me money.

Even though these appliances were "A" rated for energy efficiency in their day, that was a long time ago. Nowadays, an "A" rated fridge freezer, or even an A+, which is new, could use as little as 250kWh/year. (In non-geek speak, that's about £30 a year of electricity.)

£30 instead of £220 gets my vote. If I actually went out and bought a new freezer, it'd pay for itself in about a year. Well, if it was a cheap one, anyway. Maybe a couple of years for an expensive one.

I suspect, though, that I may have to curb my free-wheeling international playboy two-freezer lifestyle if I am to save as much money as possible.. er.. I mean, if I am to save the environment as much as possible. After all I do care about the toucans and the monkeys and the dolphins.

Can a man live with just one freezer? I wonder. And what am I to do with the old ones, which apart from being complete oil-burning hogs of things, are otherwise perfectly good and have absolutely nothing wrong with them?

Amazing mobile blogging test thang

I am posting this from my phone. Soon no part of my day will remain unblogged. Good eh?

How To Move

One of the annoying things about AOL UK is that they're often just not very good at things. For example, on the news that AOL Journals was closing down, the best advice they could offer was "how about you copy and paste your blog into Microsoft Word?".

Happily in other parts of the world, they try a little harder. So it is over at AOL America where they've actually partnered with the nice people at Blogger to offer an almost completely automatic, super-simple-to-use way of moving your blog from AOL to Blogger all in one go. It even saves all the comments that people have left on your blog, too. The especially good news is that even though they've not told anyone in the UK about it, it actually works just fine for our blogs too.

Pay a visit to http://www.peopleconnectionblog.com/2008/10/08/transferring-your-aol-journals-blog-to-blogger-com/ to read more. And don't forget to bookmark our new home at http://antnoise2000.blogspot.com

Warning! Warning!

I'd just like to apologise for being a moron and pointing everyone towards the wrong web address for where this blog is moving to after the no-good heels and bums at AOL close everything down on October 31st.

So, that new address for all your balloon-loving adventures is http://antnoise2000.blogspot.com/ and not the other one which I got wrong a few days ago. (Blush.)

If you pay it a visit right now, you'll see about two month's worth of most-recent entries from here, and the even older entries will be moved over during the next few weeks. Enjoy. :)

Right Said Fred

In recent weeks I have become the subject for much unjust and unfair criticism due to my curtain choices. May I present, exhibit A:



Yes! Garfield. All hail Garfield. All hail the curtains of Garfield, pictured above. Although they are a bit faded, and as you'll see from the picture above, kind of hung in a less than excellent way.

I don't care if anyone else likes my curtains. Criticism of my styling choices only reinforces my desire to keep them. So I was not swayed by anyone in any way when I decided that it was time to replace these curtains with something else. I was already planning on doing so. Yes.

So I began scouring the internet for alternatives. First I checked eBay. And I found these!



These curtains would be nothing less than fantastic, I'm sure. They are also Garfield, but probably less faded and altogether equally as excellent. However, in these modern times I must think not only of myself, but also of other people. After all, if I bring several fantastically hot supermodels home, and they insist on sharing my bed, as is to be expected in line with my obvious sex god status, the Garfield curtains may kill the mood. Perhaps I need something more neutral.

And so it was that I set out into town, determined to buy some new curtains. And also some curtain hooks, which are also important. Happily, while scanning the carefully-laminated pages of the Argos catalogue in my local emporium, I found some excellent curtains. I also took the time to pick up an electric screwdriver, a foot-pump (for blowing up some inflatable furniture which I found while tidying up - but that's for another time), and some curtain hooks (described as 'suitable for all curtains and curtain rails', and how could that be bad?)

The sounds of the great Bernard Cribbins began playing in my mind as I returned home and began my quest to replace my existing curtains with new ones.

"Right said Fred, both of us together, one each end and steady as we go...

Tried to to shift it, couldn't even lift it, we was getting nowhere
And so, we, had a cup of tea..."

First problem. These curtain hooks "suitable for all curtains and curtain rails" don't fit my curtain rails. It turns out that what I have isn't a curtain rail, it's a curtain track, which, by the way, is different. Now I KNOW that I have the right hooks for these rails somewhere around here.. I'm just not sure where.

"Right said Fred, give a shout to Charlie, up comes Charlie from the floor below...

After straining, heaving and complaining, we was getting nowhere
And so, we, had a cup of tea..."

But then.. success! After looking through every drawer in the house, eventually I find the correct curtain hooks in a carrier bag at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen. And apparently they're not called curtain hooks, they're called curtain "gliders". Which, by the way, is different. But no matter, because I've found them. And so, back upstairs we go.

"Charlie had a think and he thought we ought, to take off all the handles...
And the things what held the candles... but it did no good, well I never thought it would..."

I very carefully attach the 'gliders' onto my new curtains, and try to get them onto the curtain rail.. And suddenly... disaster! No good! These 'gliders' are for a curtain rail which is ever-so-ever-so-ever-so-slightly smaller than the curtain rail already screwed to the top of my window!

I could give up right here, resolve to visit my local hardware shop tomorrow, and buy curtain "gliders" of the ever-so-ever-so-ever-so-slightly larger size.. But that would mean admitting defeat. And I already have hundreds of perfectly good gliders which it would be a shame to waste.

No problem. I happen to have a spare curtain rail. It's been stuck underneath the stair bannister for the last ten years as I couldn't find anywhere better to store it. But I still have it - ready for just such an occasion. So I just need to replace the rail. Easy.

"OH right, said Fred! Have to take the feet off, to get them feet off wouldn't take a mo...

Took its feet off, even with the seat off, should've got us somewhere, but no...
So Fred said let's have another cup of tea and we said right-o."

The rail doesn't fix onto the wall using the same fixings as are holding up the current rail. So I'll need to change those fixings as well. Not a problem, I actually have some fixings of the correct size, because they were in the same bag as the curtain hooks. I am nothing if not organised.

"Right said Fred, have to take the door off, need more space to shift the so and so...

Had bad twinges taking off the hinges, and it got us nowhere
And so, we, had a cup of tea.."

Soon, the old fixings are removed, and the new fixings are up in their place. Of course this isn't a hard job for someone of my DIY expertise, and so this is swiftly followed by the rail going up. And it looks marvellous, just ready for my new curtains and the 'gliders' which are already attached to them. Nothing can go wrong.

"Right said Fred, have to take the wall down, that there wall is gonna have to go...

Took the wall down, even with it all down, we was getting nowhere
And so, we, had a cup of tea..."

Turns out that there curtain rail which I've just spent ages screwing firmly into place is UPSIDE DOWN, which, by the way, means that the curtains won't go on! Unless I too hang them upside down, and that doesn't sound like a plan at all. Time to unscrew the whole lot, turn it around, and screw it back up again.

"Charlie had a think and and he said "Look Fred, I've got a sort of feeling...
If we remove the ceiling... with a rope or two, we can drop the blighter though!"

With the curtain rail fixed to the wall the right way up, the gliders slide onto the rail very nicely. I screw the end-bits firmly into place (which stops the curtains from sliding off either side of the rail) and step back to admire my handywork. The curtains open and close very nicely. Apart from the one on the right which is hanging a little strangely... why is that? Oh, I see, it's because some of the gliders actually aren't on the rail at all, they're hanging off... No, that's fine, I'll just unscrew the end pieces, take the curtains OFF the rail - again - and then put them back ON the rail - again.

"Right said Fred, climbing up a ladder, with his crowbar gave a mighty blow...

Was he in trouble, half a ton of rubble, landed on the top of his dome
So Charlie and me had another cup of tea and then we went home."

And after all that, it was actually fine. Look:



"I said to Charlie, 'We'll just have to leave it standing on the landing that's all.'
You see the trouble with Fred is he's too hasty.
Now you never get nowhere if you're too hasty."

I probably will buy those Garfield curtains as well, just in case I change my mind in future.

I'd just like to say how much AOL sucks

I've never been a great fan of AOL, especially not since they got bought up by Carphone Warehouse and that Charles Dunstone fellow whose oily salesmen attracted my ire a few years back. Now if it isn't the cherry on the cake that they go and announce "Hello everyone, you know your blogs? Well we're deleting them all in 30 days. If you want anything you've written then you'd better back it up - we hear copy and paste is good. Ta-ta."

Needless to say, this means a new home must be found for my important writings. Personally I've always liked Blogger, so in future make sure you check http://antnoise2000.blogspot.com for all your Balloon-Loving adventures.

At the time I write this, there's only going to be this post there, but I'll copy over all my old posts during the next few days. Trust me, it'll be much better, really.