This seems to be turning into a weekly thing...
3 July 2000
First things first: an update on the whole car thing.
On Sunday afternoon I had been playing with the idea of hopping on a plane and delivering the winning ticket by hand, but by Monday morning this seemed a bit over the top. So I called Fuji, and asked them what we should do with it. The ticket itself said that we should take a photocopy and then send the original to Fuji by recorded delivery, but I wanted to hear it from a real person. When I spoke to them, this exactly what they said, but somehow that reassured me.
Of course, as soon as the envelope left my hand at the post office counter, I immediately had second thoughts. The probability of the envelope getting lost in the mail was surely about the same as of us winning the car in the first place. Why hadn't I splashed out on a courier instead? What if the person I'd spoken to at Fuji wasn't a real representative of their marketing department, but an impostor who was going to intercept the ticket and use it for himself?
After an anxious afternoon and night, I called them again the next morning, just to confirm that it had arrived. It had. (A victory for common sense, or a lucky escape? Who knows...) They said they would be back in touch towards the end of the week once they had verified the claim, and sorted out things with Toyota. Unfortunately, when they did call on Friday, it was to say that the only person authorized to release a car is off on holiday, and won't be back until Monday 10th July. I'm sure we can wait, though.
Mobile Phonery
I thought the day would never happen. Neither did Abi. Even at the best of times, I hate getting phone calls. Using an answering machine isn't much better, because I don't like making phone calls either, and when someone leaves you a message, they generally expect you to call them back. So why would I conceivably want a mobile phone, so that I could be reachable all the time? The very notion is absurd.
...But somehow, while I had the loan of my mum's mobile phone while they were away on holiday, I sort of got used to having it around. While I still worked for the bank I used to have a pager, and although it had the same problem as an answerphone (i.e., you have to call back), it was kind of useful (sometimes) for keeping in contact with Abi. For meeting up after work, for example.
So, thanks to the friendly people at the Carphone Warehouse, I now have a state-of-the art WAP-enabled Nokia 7110 with a spring-loaded front cover (like in The Matrix). In the past I've been quite disparaging about WAP, mainly because it's being marketed as mobile internet (you know who you are, BT). While this claim is true-ish technically, the shortcomings of the WAP protocol itself and the size of the screens involved make it a thoroughly silly idea. Mini-services are the way to go, but nowhere but Japan (with the i-mode) seems to have got a proper clue yet. And anyone who seriously thinks that composing an email or text message on a phone's keypad is somehow clever, or a productive use of their time needs to spend some quality time in a padded room far from the rest of humanity.
Will I use the WAP features? Probably not. I bought the phone because it makes me look cool. Anything else is just a bonus.
And Finally...
...I've been playing way too much Diablo II. Not the most sophisticated game in terms of graphics, nor does it have a hugely compelling storyline. But what it lacks in innovation, it makes up in sheer playability. It's easy to pick up, but hard to put down. Check out Gamecenter for their initial thoughts on the game.
-Martin.
