A couple of weeks ago at work I got an e-mail telling me some marvellous patch would be installed overnight on my computer. “Do nothing!” I was told, “it’ll be great!”, I was told. So I did what I was told, and sure enough overnight my computer was patched, and then it wouldn’t boot. Nup. Complained about some missing DLL or something. Great.

From someone else’s PC I took a look at the e-mail again, and got down into the small print, the bit about “It’ll be great… but if it isn’t, here’s what you do”. Run this thing, make a boot disk, then try these steps to fix it. The boot disk worked, but the steps didn’t. I got hold of the local corporate computer guy to fix it, and he claimed he couldn’t, that I’d have to call… THE HELPDESK.

Oh god no, not the helpdesk. I had visions of being stuck on hold for half an hour before being told my computer would need a complete rebuild, thus knocking it out of action for a day. So I decided to wait for a time when I knew I’d have a day of not much to do. Such days are few and far between, as it happens. While I’m waiting for that, my computer hobbles along with the boot disk.

So given all that, I should have known better when on Wednesday night my machine at home piped up to tell me that Microsoft had a new Windows security patch for me. It would stop Al Qaeda breaking into my PC and pinching my registration for Snood.

And, being the optimistic bloke that I am, I let it go ahead and install it. Which it did. Then it rebooted, and as it did, I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning to find a blue screen, with a friendly message in the middle, something about a terrible horrible no good very bad program error in EXPLORER.EXE. Oh, f’in’ triffic. Thank you very much Mr Microsoft.

Update Saturday 7:30am. Hmm. It seems I was unfair to lambast Microsoft. Somehow the Klez worm had got in and littered my hard drives with lovely viruses. No wonder things weren’t working. Bloody virus writers, bloody bloody. Now scanning for viruses and setting up a firewall with much more enthusiasm than ever before.

Beep, beep, beep. It’s 7:01am and my alarm goes off. My right arm shoots out from the bed and hits the snooze button. I could really do with another 9 minutes, even if it’s not spent sleeping, but waking up properly.

Beep, beep, beep. 7:10am. I’m more alert this time, and co-ordinated enough to feel for the real "off" switch, not just the Snooze. I’m sure the alarm clock manufacturers design it that way - in order to turn the alarm off, you need to have enough awareness about you that you’re actually ready to get up.

I roll out of bed, stretch and yawn, and start the day.

It is common at restaurants around Chinatown to be served chilli peppers, generally in small slices around 2-3mm thick. They add a welcome bit of spice to the taste of the meal, and if (with my mostly western palette) consumed in small doses, my tastebuds have a good time.

Last night my lovely lovely companion and I dined at Bokchoy Tang at Federation Square. The rugby was on in the big TV outside, and unlike during the Melbourne Cup, this time they had found the big remote to go with it, and had the sound turned on. Live half time entertainment was provided and security was beefed up in preparation for a mob of rugby-loving revellers who never seemed to arrive.

Inside the restaurant the sound was somewhat muffled, and one could just make out a portion of the screen by peering through the gaps in the building framework. The food arrived and I made a start, deep in conversation, and perhaps not giving my meal the full concentration it deserved. Some rice, steamed beef and an ENTIRE CHILLI PEPPER were balanced on my chopsticks, and went into my mouth.

Well. Before you could say "call 000 and get me a fire extinguisher", I felt explosions erupting in my mouth. Searing heat engulfed the lower part of my skull. I must have looked a pathetic blubbering wreck as I tried unsuccessfully to suppress a semi-cough and a gasp, while sweat rapidly developed on my nose and upper lip. I suspect steam may have been coming out of my nostrils, too.

In the following minute or two (it was hard to tell - in some ways it seemed time stood still) my glass of water was emptied, and re-filled again by an attentive waiter, showing how good service can be when such an essential substance is supplied in such a timely manner, no questions asked, and no giggling.

For a while the heat continued to grow, a crescendo of such force that I feared my entire head might get blown off. Eventually it began to fade. I soldiered bravely on through the (quite delicious, I might add) meal, deciding at that point that the remaining chilli peppers would be left to one side. My mouth had had enough excitement for one meal.

Instant movie review: Matrix Revolutions. Visually spectacular, one would expect. Plot? Uhh, well they had a bunch of stuff to tie up, obviously. Probably less dialogue gobbledygook this time, more visual action. Yeah, it was okay.

Someone, and I can’t remember who (it might have been my sister, it might have been someone at work, it might have been the barber on Friday night), joked to me the other day that when all three Matrix movies come out in a DVD box set, it should be called The Matrices.

And as it was the first time I’d watched a movie in Gold Class… well, I could get used to that, definitely. It’s like combining the big screen of the movies with the comfort of your own arm chair and food served when you want it (though I was wondering if you can get it during particular scenes instead of times).

PS. I still think the whole concept of The Matrix was lifted from Doctor Who.

Judging from the small size of the pile in the supermarket tonight, I’m not the only one who watched Kath & Kim last night and thought "man, I could really do with a Pollywaffle". Even if they are made by those evil Nestle bastards, sometimes you just have to indulge, you know. Not that I will again in a hurry - it was not as good as I remembered.

Why do I have to be here at work today? WHY? On a glorious day such as this, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming and making me sneeze.

But can I be out enjoying it? No. Damn this money hungry capitalist economy of ours! Damn the greedy consumerism! Damn the filthy rich… oooh… look… DVDs… shiny… where’s my credit card?

No! No, no spending. I’m theoretically broke for a couple of weeks. Something to do with messing up my last BAS(tard) statement and over-paying the ATO five grand. Big f’ing oopsy.

Ahhh… it was Cup Day yesterday… first public holiday since June. It’s a good thing.

I broke with tradition, and rather than put a number of small bets on different horses, then lose all the money as they all came in at fourth position or later, I chose a single horse to vote for (as the kids put it) and simply cheered it on. My chosen horse was You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet - selected for the flagrant and decadent overuse of apostrophes, which are by far my most favourite form of punctuation. And sure enough it came thirteenth. So in that way I certainly wasn’t disappointed that my money remained in my wallet.

After having taken Monday off (well except for a "oh Daniel, pretty please bring that CD into the office" incident at lunchtime), and in the process achieving a year-long goal of a four day weekend, it was a rude awakening to be back at work today, I can tell you.

Obviously some people have great problems using their indicators. After all, when your hands are on the steering wheel, the switch is a long long way away, and so awkwardly placed too.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the first day of the month is when they let all the idiots onto the roads. There’s no other possible explanation.

For on Saturday afternoon I was driving down Glen Huntly Road, and I saw a car reversing towards me at speed. Apparently they’d wanted to get out of their parking spot, and go down a street 200 metres behind them, and couldn’t be bothered doing a U-turn. Idiots.

Then later waiting in the front of a line of traffic in Droop Street, Footscray, opposite me there was heavy traffic coming the other way. Some guy decided he didn’t want to wait for the rest of them, and drove up to the lights on the wrong side of the road, with his left indicator on. When the lights went green for them (with a green right-turn arrow, so I had to wait a little longer) he crossed the line of cars all turning right, somehow without hitting any of them, and went merrily on his way. Bizarro.

Add to this a range of people indicating as they drove along with no intention of turning or switching lanes, others turning or switching lanes without indicating (like it’s so hard to reach the switch), some straddling the bike lanes, double-parking in heavy traffic to have a conversation with someone on the road side. Yes, Saturday, a great day to be behind the wheel.

I was going to tell you how on Sunday at a set of lights I burned off a woman in a car that looked a little like an ex-girlfriend, but I’ve decided that would sound overly vindictive.