Fun with Gadgets

Gadget No 1: Gymform Total Fitness Electronic Muscle Stimulator

On Friday morning my muscle twitching thing arrived. So after half an hour of changing around straps and batteries, I was able to switch it on and try it out.

If you want to know what it feels like to have your arm muscles twitched from the outside by tiny electrical impulses, imagine two mice sitting on your arm, repeatedly hitting it with miniature hammers. A succession of slightly stinging impacts, each followed by an involuntary jerk.

After ten minutes, I had sore biceps and two days later they still ache. I suspect, rather than sitting in front of the television having my muscles slapped by invisible mice, it may be easier to stand in front of the television lifting a weight.
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Gadget No 2: Nokia 1100 (1)

Later on Friday I bought a new simcard for my old, redundant mobile phone. It wasn't for me - it was for Paul T to have a temporary phoneline for a month before BT can install a landline.

After changing around batteries and chargers, it started working. It did everything he needed - basic talk and text. Except ring. If fact it made no bleeps at all. A small detail.

Waiting for the phone shop to open (three hours late), I made an appointment in SpecSavers to have my eyes tested for spectacles. My distance vision has been getting more and more blurred for months now.
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Gadget No 3: Nokia 1100 (2)

The new phone is actually identical to the old one, except that it beeps and the built-in torch works. Precisely why a cheap, bottom-of-the-range phone should have a torch, I'm not sure. But for the first time in 17 months owning either, it came in useful - reading meters in an unlit cellar.

Paul T had called me on the newer handset to arrange helping him move house. So on Saturday we transported seven rooms worth of boxes and furniture down stairs and into a gigantic removals lorry. And then up different stairs into two rooms halfway across town. The result was slightly cramped.

We did have help. The three-man removals firm who took the traditional care in transporting breakables like houseplants and irreplacible vinyl records. I say 'three-man' - more like two men and a boy of about 10 with the strength of an ox on steroids.

In retrospect, doing all this with a sprained ankle may not have been a brilliant idea.
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Gadget No 4: Motorola Talkabout

One of the power contacts of my old phone seemed to be bent slightly out of place, which might explain it's ringinglessness. so, carefully with tweezers I bent it back. And now it won't switch on at all. So having replaced a nonworking simcard in a working handset, I now needed to get a new handset to go with the simcard.

The card is currently sitting in my brother's old handset - a comparatively bricklike affair - while I wait to see whether it's 14 hour charging procedure still works.
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Gadget No 5: Nobby (Simon's Computer)

Simon M greeted me with the news that Richard Briers had died. It was only after he mentioned exploding cocaine that I realised he'd said Richard Pryor. Another of those small details.

He made us some tagliatelle with avocado sauce (as always, excellent and not enough) while I locked horns with the computer I built for him months ago. Somehow, in spite of cleanup software and a firewall, both the main and backup windows installations had become infected and slow.

I tried:
(1) Running antivirus software. It failed to find any viruses, trojans or spyware. Despite being slowed right down by them.
(2) Using Novastor Recover to install my basic Windows 2000 setup. Didn't work - the ghost file simply not recognised.
(3) The same to install my baseline W2K setup. Nope - same problem.
(4) Using the W2K disc to install the OS from scratch. Huh - speaking of scratch, the disc was damaged.
(5) Installing Windows 98. No - the computer folded it's arms, looked haughty and said "Shan't".
(6) Downloading more antivirus software. Unfortunately, a virus (whichever it was) instantly redircted Explorer to a dead URL, wherever I tried to go - sort of Catch 22.
(7) Reinstalling the old antivirus software from disc. For some reason, it worked - more or less. Still some popups, still some slowing, but it works well enough to be used until I can fix it properly.

So we ate ice cream in front of a roaring log fire, watching a TV show about burly young men in shorts fighting in mud. Apparantly it's called "Rugby" and it's a field game with rules. The rule about pushing your head into the buttocks of the man in front is a little unclear, and I'm not sure how many points you get for forming a human pyramid, but it all looks very macho.