F**king Technology

9 December - Two down at work today so the rest of us were very busy all day, I worked the south side again and was thoroughly exhausted at several points during the day. My brakes have been wearing thing a bit over the past week and i'd planned on taking it in for a tuneup on Saturday but after I did the southside and we'd just had a super rush the front one went completely (it later turned out that the pads were worn out) and it was making a funny sound (they're disc brakes, which I don't really know how to adjust them properly) - luckily, I'd just picked up a trip that was dropping off right next door to Simon's Bike Shop and I managed to run it in there, grab a rental bike (for free, because i'd bought my bike from him) and carry on, only losing a couple of minutes in the process. The rental bike does the job but it's really strange, it has raised handlebars and small wheels and you are completely upright when riding, it feels like i'm driving a truck, but, all sorted out and I got my bike back at the end of the night. Very good decision to buy the bicycle from Simon's, he's a complete wanker as is his crew of mechanics, but free services and a free rental whenever I need it and h's smack bang in the middle of the downtown core so always accessible. Had a bit of a chance with Dimitri after work and he expressed his feelings that he may not be cut out for it - he likes the exercise but he doesn't really enjoy the stress (after all, he's a laid back kind of guy) and also expressed his doubts about how much he feels he is contributing to makingthe world a better place whilst doing the job. Something i've considered as well, it's just a 'job' that is a small cog in the wheel of the "machine" and it's not really doing bettering the world in any way. But, it's also fun and relaxing (in a sense) and it's not something I plan on doing forever so i 'm not going to fret about that aspect of the job at this time.
After coming home I went to do my usual re-syncing of my PDA to get the latest news from home and abroad and it somehow took it upon itself to do a hard reset, completely wiping everything off it. Haven't done a backup for ages because it's been, for the most part, a standalone device. Nearly all of my files were on the storage card and all my emails are being stored on gmail but all the settings and applications i've set were wiped and had to be reinstalled and all of my calendar items and over two year's worth of task history and all of my contacts (email addresses can probably be recovered from past emails but all phone numbers and real addresses are gone which is very annoying). Also, the one active file which I had stored on the PDA's memory, which is now gone forever, was my budget spreadsheet. Not going to go into detail over it but it's loss has disrupted one of neurotic habits and compromised the results a very long term social experiment but it's gone and there's no use crying over something that can't be changed.