Saturday 24 November 2007

Internet rations

After my internet hiccup on Thursday night, I took the opportunity to quickly read over the service terms. I really should have done so earlier, but taking such initiative would have been highly uncharacteristic; perhaps even diagnostically so. The bit that jumped out at me is that 3 will quietly start charging me £0.10 per MB of internet usage the moment I exceed the 3GB/month contractual limit. This is £100 per GB. £100 per GB is a lot. One slightly panicked phonecall to customer services revealed that I have about 300MB left in-contract; cutting back is called for.

Accordingly, I've switched back to reading for hours on end; I think I'll finish the excellent Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana before bed. Dad got a nice boxed set of Greene hardbacks for Christmas last year, so I don't expect this will be the last time we meet. It's also dawned on me that I've missed about a century of cinema so far, so I should probably be getting on with watching a few films. I'll need to make a list; suggestions welcome.

Apart from some platelets in the morning and a couple of shots of asparaginase after lunch, today was pretty quiet. Dr. Tansy popped in while mum was visiting and gave her the usual update on how there's absolutely no way my treatment could be going better, and I had a little nap after dinner while dad was up. There's nothing interesting scheduled for tomorrow, as far as I can remember, so I think I'll just read for a little while now. Good night.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

My knowledge of film isn't spectacular, but I can name a handful of movies that I enjoy and watch pretty often:
-2001: A Space Odyssey
-Alphaville (A cool 60s scifi/noir movie that's sort of like The Matrix's uncle. Jean-Luc Godard directed it, it's pretty neat)
-Dr. Strangelove
-Hook
-The Host (Korean monster flick, great stuff)
-Leon The Professional
-Taxi Driver
-Closer
-The Five Obstructions
-Adaptation
-Anything by Wes Anderson
-Anything not mentioned already by Stanley Kubrick
-Artificial Intelligence

That's ~30 hours of film right there, but I could probably give better suggestions of notable albums than films. If you're interested in any, I can suggest Pet Sounds (Beach Boys), Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan) and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco) off the top of my head.

worker bee said...

Hi Simon, greetings from one of your mums friends in Argyll...The MacIntyres. I have a daft picture of your mum on my flickr site, won't tell you where, just go look for it. Check out which package you are on for your 3G internet thingy, I had the same thing happen but turns out I was on the wrong tarrif, after a squillion phone calls, I got it sorted.
Flickr site is www.flickr.com/photos/howbeg. Good luck with the treatment, lots of lit candles for your recovery here
christine

Anonymous said...

Simon
Hi from Bermuda.
Have called in at jennifer's work to read your blog. Raymond has been telling me how good it is and I'm most impressed.
We're all rooting for you and send our love.
Joan, Paul, jennifer and Alistair

James McShane said...

Hi Simon,

Manchester finally logged on and it wasn't easy (Helen not the only one).


All the films sound good , but try the radio on Wednesday for Celtic's game in Europe, will be watching it with my Dad and thinking of you - hope to see your Uncle James D in New Year no doubt still working his way through the Turkey sandwiches. See you soon.