Additional Odds and Sods.

So.

My er stubbornness with Gigabyte technical support paid off. They replaced my motherboard with a slightly better one. More importantly the Blu-ray ROM drive I've been fighting with since last Christmas is now working as it should. Okay I had to install Vista, (which was surprisingly straight forward) but so far I've had no problems. 

The job hunt continues. Nothing to report really. I think it's too early to say if things have picked up or not. However there is an interesting anniversary coming up soon.

I was poking around on the BBC website again. Yeah it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. I saw this report about retail sales over Christmas. Obviously I'm going to interpret this as supporting what I said about "icing on the cake" in an earlier post, and the thing about HMV's sales increasing simply due to the lack of competition. The other news of Waterstones sales, despite being having a de-facto monopoly on the High Street, dropping away seems to reinforce what I thought about this organisation. That, ultimately, if it survives it will be down to pure, blind luck. And to think I was joking about being a retail analyst. "Go on givvus a job. I can do that."

*Reading over the last few "Odds and Sods" I've realised that I seem to be referencing a certain, discredited, Movie series. You know the one. This is entirely accidental. Now a few years ago this may have been considered quite a cool(ish) thing to do. So much so, people were able to build entire careers (in TV, comedy and cinema) around it. Now, in these more informed, less naive, post prequel days? Well it's a complete social no no. They can't (or shouldn't) be mentioned in polite company. Or in impolite company either. Ever. I'm sure we've all been there though. Someone, unaware of how circumstances have changed. blurts out a reference, expecting an appreciative response. Instead it's greeted with an embarrassed, slightly disbelieving silence. Now If you haven't experienced this, think of the silence you'd reserve for people freely admitting they like Chris De Burgh. 

Only worse.