I am made of win!

[girlyswot]

So, I took my parents to the station this morning for the start of their holiday.  When I got home, I found that the internet connection was running incredibly slowly (which does happen when you live in the country).  I tried restarting the computer, and fiddling with the phone line, to no avail.  A call to my brother yielded the useful suggestion of disconnecting the router.  When I reconnected it, it died. 

So, a quick trip to PC World for a wonderful replacement router WITH WIRELESS (so I can finally get the internet on my laptop).  Half an hour fiddling with cables and connections.  Ten minutes searching for a torch so that I can have a chance of seeing what I'm doing behind the built-in computer desk.  Five minutes following the setup instructions on the installation CD.  Only to be foiled by the need for the ISP, user id and password.

But I am not daunted by such things!  I know my mother well enough to be sure that somewhere in her office there will be a piece of paper entitled 'Passwords' which will have all the required information for any identity theft you could imagine.  Not just one piece of paper, it turns out.  A whole file.

The best part of an hour spent in huge frustration.  There are a range of possible id's and passwords and it's not even completely clear which ISP is in use at the moment.  Finally, the all important letter from the ISP with an arrow pointing at the password and a note from my mother saying, 'letter l'.  Great.  On the password list, it definitely says 1.  I'm clearly not cut out for a career in identity theft.  ;)

However, I am now online and feeling a ridiculous sense of pride in this achievement.

ETA: And for my next trick I chased eight very stupid sheep* out of the garden.  Just call me Wonder Woman and be done with it.

*How hard is it to remember that the way back into the field is under the gate, not through the wire mesh?  Though it is very funny watching them fling themselves into the mesh (just about wide enough for them to get a head through) and then have to extract themselves.  Plus I like to collect the wool they inevitably leave behind in this exercise.

Comments

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

I'm English (living in Australia) so what I want to know is what the American meaning of torch is!

[zia-montrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for us a torch is something with an open flame--like the torches in brackets at Hogwarts or the Olympic torch. Or the sort of hand held torch one might have grabbed back in the day to head down into the catacombs.

As said, the British 'torch' is equivalent to our 'flashlight'.

I've heard many a British climber call their headlamps 'headtorches', but it still sounds funny. : )

[rdprice29.livejournal.com]

Yep, as someone who's unfortunately only spent a week in the UK, I agree with zia's explanation as to what a torch is. A stick with pitch on the end, with open flames ablaze, that an Indiana Jones type figure lights to light his way to his certain doom. XD

Or a flashlight, in US terms. ;p

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

The open flame ones are called torches too - we tell what is meant from the context.

I know what you mean about things sounding funny. Here in Oz, thongs are a sort of footwear (what we call flip-flops). In the UK it's another name for a dodgy sort of G-string (at least when it's something being worn). Even after 15 years here, I still giggle when people talk about wearing thongs!

[zia-montrose.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention that example. My husband and I ran into a bike tourer from Oz over here once, and being enthusiastic about bike culture, we were conversing and checking out her paniers. Husband asked "So, what's the one thing you couldn't have lived without on your trip?" She responded enthusiastically, "thongs!" We thought that was pretty candid of her--until she pulled out a pair with a smiling face. LOL!

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

My first contact with the term was a footballer reminiscing in a chat show about his mother. He said she would keep him and his brothers in order by throwing a thong at them! Fortunately my husband, who had spent more time in Australia than me, was able to translate because I thought it was very odd of a woman to throw her underwear at her sons.