After the hassle I’ve been having with AOL, I have decided to change my provider to BT. This wasn’t a decision I made lightly as I was getting a connection of:

When I was looking at a change of provider, I did a check and it said that my postcode could get up to 3mbps whilst my phone line could only mananage 0.526mbps. I stopped short the first time and decided to hold off a bit with AOL, but then my connection went again and again. I know it was AOL as one of my neighbours also had the same problem and is also with TalkTalk who took over AOL, whereas a neighbour in between us who is with BT kept her connection.

Yesterday, my provider changed to BT after a hitch, and I have just run a speed test as it was a little fast downloading a program earlier. This is the new result:

I definitely made the right decision to change.

Courtesy of Wil Wheaton

I am completely hacked off with the way FaceBook is playing up at the moment. It’s not just me. Half the applications don’t work, and the chat keeps signing people out and in again. I have just sent a message to Facebook to their ideas section:

The idea that I have is to sort the bloody thing out so that you can allow us to use it. You are going to end up losing a lot of people if you don’t deal with this. I’m sure MySpace and Bebo can use the custom.
Maybe more servers or getting rid of the crap applications. It is utter stupidity not being able to get on. Please let me know that you will deal with this.
Thank you very much
Alastair Forbes

I am hoping that this will get a response that at the least tells me what is happening.

Had counselling yesterday – 21st July. Took the kids with me because there was no one else who could have them at the time. They stayed in the waiting room with a DS each while I went into the other room with my counsellor. Was difficult this week. Hoping that it’s going to improve over the next few weeks.

Dropped my phone again yesterday and have just ordered a new screen for it. Why didn’t I take out the accidental damage cover when I brought it?? Grrrr. Too late now tho. My daughter has said that I can borrow her phone until my one gets fixed, which was really nice of her.

Last 2 nights I have fallen asleep on the sofa. Tuesday morning my son came down and found me asleep, and last night I woke up 3am and decided to go to bed. Both times I had been watching 24 season 3. I think I should start watching them earlier in the evening rather than about 11pm.

Lost my internet AGAIN last night for hours. I really need to change providers. Waiting for my MAC from AOL, so that I can change. I have been having a shop around to see what I can get. BT offer my postcode up to 3mbps (megabits per second) where the average in the country is 5. I did a telephone number test and it said that I could only get 0.5mbps which is slightly faster than dial up, anmd I know I am getting faster than that. I have done a speed test:

This shows that I am getting a download of 2.28 megabits per second. So what do I do? Do I go for BT and hope that they can give me my 3mbps connection and get a wireless dongle for hotspots across the country so I can connect where I want to for free. Or do I go for Virgin Media where I get fibre optic broadband of up to 10mbps which is really fast – but no dongle. Arrrggghhhhh why isn’t anything easy?

My wife, Talishia came back from Bloodstock on 18th August, which was our wedding anniversary (13th) and when she came in, she said that she was going to her Pagan pub moot. This struck me as odd seeing as though she was really excited about spending the time together before she went away.  I gave her the anniversary card that I brought her and said that I couldn’t really afford to buy her a present but the tattoo she was getting would be my present to her as it we had agreed the week before that it was to signify our never ending love for each other and I refused to let her have my name tattooed on her even though we had sais that there was absolutely no chance in hell that we would ever split, we loved each other too much. She went to the moot and when she got back, she said she was tired and was going to bed. I promptly switched off what I was doing and said I’m coming too. She said no, I’m too tired. Bearing in mind that for 13 years, if she was tired, she would go to sleep on the sofa and go to bed with me. I just felt that this was odd and it must be that she was exceptionally tired.

On Tuesday, she said that Terry (who she had gone to Bloodstock with) was passed out drunk most of the time and if it hadn’t been for these group of people she met, then she would have had a crap time. One of the guys, Dave, even gave her his MySpace details and MSN address which I thought was really nice. SO I helped her find him on myspace and set up her msn to talk to him. Later on I said to her “what do you want to do tonight as it is Tuesday and our evening together”. She said “No, that’s fine you play on your computer game as I am tired and will probably go to sleep early. So I played Diablo II for a bit while she was chatting to Dave online. At about 11 pm as usual, I switched the game off and lounged on the sofa to read. 11.30, she said goodnight and went to bed. I frowned as this was most unusual for her.

Wednesday, she went back to work, and in the evening, she got straight back onto the computer and started talking to Dave again. I was a little … annoyed, but I let her get on with it as she had not long met him. I said about watching a film together, and she said that she had a bad day at work and as it was the first day back she was absolutely knackered, and she went to bed relatively early. Alone. I went to bed just after 2am and put my arm around her, but she shrugged it off. I felt that this was an instinctive reaction as I had made her jump, but I didn’t want to make her jump again.

Thursday she had the tattoo done, and it looked really nice. Thursdays is our evening together, and I asked of she wanted to watch CSI New York as we were part way through season 3 and we watch a couple of episodes every week. She said that her day at work was awful and that her tattoo was hurting her, she was going to say a quick hi to Dave and go to bed. 12:15 am she went to bed. Alone. I tried going up to bed, and she said that was really tired and could do with going to sleep on her own. To say I was peeved would be an understatement. “That time of the month” I thought. That plays havoc with any woman’s feelings.

Friday, my sister came round with an anniversary card and apologising that it was late. I so wanted to ask my sister if she had noticed a change in my wife, but I felt I was being paranoid. Talishia came home from work after my sister had gone, and I gave her the anniversary to read. It was a really nice card and well thought out with sentiment. Talishia looked at the back and said “nice”. Inside I fumed. I said “you haven’t looked at it properly” So she looked at it properly, and said “nice” before turning her computer on. I went to give her a kiss, but she pulled away and said “I smoke, and I haven’t brushed my teeth to get rid of the taste or smell”.

Saturday, my family turned up, and Talishia decided to show off her tattoo before she went off to work on a “Late-Sleep-Early” as I call them. At  the time of writing this I can see someone out of the corner of my eye watching everything I am typing. They are relatively short and wearing a flowery dress. She is intently watching the words. I will see if I can get more details without moving my head. What the Late-Sleep-Early refers to, is she goes to work 14:30-22:00 does a sleep in, and then works 07:30-14:00. When she showed the tattoo, she said it was an Egyptian Ankh as she always loved the Egyptians and wanted to have that as she liked it. This wound me up, but I couldn’t say anything due to my family being there and I am not that rude. (Or at least I try not to be). After she left, I felt like saying that about the Ankh, and also if they had noticed a change but I again, felt it was just paranoia. This paranoia kept me awake nearly all night.

Sunday, Talishia came home, and said … “We need to talk”. She then told me that she no longer loved me. She no longer felt that our marriage was right and that we should finish. She said that she had been feeling like this for a while! (Could have fooled me) She gave the usual “it’s not you, it’s me”.

She must realise I am not stupid. I know that she has decided to split with me because she wants to jump into bed with this 24 year old bipolar bisexual guy that she met for four days, and she has made it clear that it’s over and that there is absolutely no chance of reconciliation. I have been trying to save this marriage something just moved behind me – I heard it and I am alone in the room I have been trying to save this marriage as I am unwilling to just throw away 13 years of my life for nothing. Well, I can’t say for nothing as I have two absolutely wonderful kids.

My marriage is now, unfortunately beyond saving. I confronted her about Dave and she admits snogging him at Bloodstock, and has said that she plans to get together with him when they go see Disturbed in October. I told her that she is the one to go, and that I am keeping the kids. She told me to ask the kids whether they wanted to be with me or her, and I hit the roof. You NEVER ask children to choose between parents, that is plain wrong! I also said that I will not have her parade her new boyfriend in front of the kids so they will stay with me. The fact that she is working also makes it unviable for her to have them. I am disabled and cannot work, so they are better off with me, and I have wonderful neighbours who are willing to help me out if I need it.

Talishia is now looking for a flat and went to look at one on Friday that looks promising. She is getting a surprise from me on Monday though. It is time for me to stop being a door mat and her walking all over me.

It is my nan who keeps moving.

Eee, I’ve been a bit on the busy side for the last couple of weeks so I haven’t really had time to write a blog. Thought I might write everything down now.

The kids both had their sports days. They were on the same day. Our son’s was in the morning, and our daughter’s was in the afternoon. With our son, there was a course of non-competitive games such as goals, basketball, running with a beanbag, hockey. Then they had a 100 metre sprint. Our son won his race by a smidge. Our daughter’s had no non-competitive stuff, it was all racing which was good. She was in three races, her relay team came 3rd, and she came third in her own race, so they were both happy and so were we.

My son had his acheivements evening and he got a certificate for Secondary Pupil with most consistently good behaviour so we were happy with that. We have yet to meet his new teacher, and not sure what they are like. Our daughter has another male teacher for year 6 which is unusual for a primary school, but I like male teachers, they don’t tend to suffer with PMT. lol

We finished the Star Wars game, and it was a cracking end. Darth Malas (the bad guy) walked through the door and was set upon by Jarek StarChaser (human male soldier / elite trooper) and Fuh Fett (human male mandalorian soldier), while Naob Marr (Miraluka female force adept) swirled stuff around him and blasted tables and other shrapnel at him. Phuc Mei (Kel-Dor male Scoundrel / Ace / Deep Space Pilot) was shooting at him, before managing to lose an eye when his weapon exploded on him, and C2-1E (Droid masculine programming – originally C2-1B but after upgrades and being blown apart was now an E) was attempting to heal people as well as take pot shots at Malas. Deebo (Ewok male soldier / sniper) had blown a hand off when his rifle malfunctioned, then tried to escape. He got to his powered glider and was getting away. Jarek dealt the killing blow. Malas dropped to his knees, grinned and said “I win” before dropping to the floor and his barradium detonator attached to his heart went off with the power of a 10 megaton nuke instantly obliterating everyone in the room. Deebo was flying by this point when the airbourne shock wave brought him down. He survived the fall, only to see the ground rippling towards him at a very fast speed. He hid behind a rock and tree which disintegrated a fraction before he did. No survivors. They called me a few names.

We have now started Vampire – The Dark Ages. Going to see what that is like.

Talishia finally started hew new job today, so she is happy with that, and it gets her out of my hair too. Don’t get me wrong, I love her, but too long under each other’s feet with her complaining about not starting work was getting very stressful. Hopefully we can get the money sorted out near enough straight away so that we have no major problems that last a long time.

I had the results of my M150 course through today. I had a pass of 85 which is great. I can rest now and get on with some stuff. Yahey.

And that’s all I can think of for the moment.

I have been sorting out my main website as it is time it had a change. I had done a quick rendition when I started doing my last course, so now that I have finished I can do it up properly. It’s going to take me a few days to do it as I am giving it a complete overhaul. Deleting some of the virals that no longer work, and also putting on my own amazon page. I am going to try to advertise that so that it will get me more traffic. If it gets me more traffic, then it will get me a bit of work too. I hope.

This is from http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk