Fighting Fruit

Last night I decided to start paying for the Spotify Premium service (more on that later).  10 euros a month does not seem too much, and I get to play the songs on my phone and a large catalogue of songs for a relatively small amount each month.

Once I paid for the account I realized that I have an old iPhone in the living room hocked up to the stereo. I used this as an iPod for a while, but seeing as it has WiFi as well I thought that I could use it for streaming and not have to try and find a way of plugging the computers into the stereo.

I very quickly regretted that decision...  I had downloaded the application to my Android phones and got it working very quickly.  I was expecting the same with the iPhone - go to the app store and download the application.  But things were not quite so smooth.

First off it wasn't connected to my network.  So I logged into my router and added it's MAC address to the filter.  OK - I am not going to count this is my complaint against the phone, I have good security on my network and it takes time to allow new devices to connect.

So MAC address entered (though it's hidden away on iOS and not that easy to find!) I tried to connect.  Several times!  The pasword screen refused to let me use a mixture of upper and lower case letters, so the password was always incorrect.

In the end I had to switch between the letter and number keypad each time I wanted to return to lower case letters.  It took some time but I finally managed to get it to work.

Go to the app store and download the free app.  Err...  No.  It refused to let me at first.  I don't know what was wrong but if I tapped the 'free' button it turned into 'Install' - so far so good - but then when I tapped it a second time it returned to 'Free'.  I had to press and hold the install button for it to actually install.

It returned me to the home screen and the app appeared to be downloading and I thought that it would be fairly quick to do.  But no...  Apple has changed their terms and conditions again and so you have to accept these new conditions.  So I scrolled down the accept button and clicked it.  And then...  You have to start the damn process again!  I was in the middle of downloading the app, why on earth did not carry on from where it had left off!

So back into store, download the app again and...  iTunes AppStore password needed.  WTF!  You just let me accept terms and conditions without me confirming me who I am, but won't let me download a *free* application without my password.

OK, enter password and the app downloads.  Doesn't run, but it does download.  I assumed that it was an incompatibility between the app and the version of iOS so I plugged it into my apple to upgrade it to the latest version.

The upgrade went very smoothly - I really don't have anything to say about that.  I plugged it in and it upgraded.  Easy.

Seeing as the upgrade was going to wipe the whole machine I decided to download Spotify from iTunes rather than on the phone again.  That was another set of problems.  I got the password wrong twice (oops ;p) and it forced me to the Apple site to reset it.  After two attempts!  Fine.  Did that and signed in.  And it complained that the computer was not authorized for the iTunes account.  It didn't offer me the chance to do it. No it made me go through a menu to do it.  Where it told me that I could only authorize another two computers after this one for my iTunes account.  I hope that I can easily remove authorizations without having the machines - I have no idea which the other two are!

So after the phone upgraded I tried to use it and... No.  You have activate your phone.  The same phone I have activated two or three times in the past!  But, fine just do it.  Oh no!  You can't, the phone doesn't have a SIM card in it! WTF!  I am not allowed to activate the phone without a SIM card!  At this point I was seriously reconsidering the reuse of the kit.  But, I dismantled my new phone and stuck the SIM card in the iPhone.  And it didn't recognize it until a hard reset.  Even then it took some time to pick it up.

Sim card in, pin code entered and activate!  'This may take several minutes.'  That was an understatement, it took a bloody age!

My Desire has been annoying me a little this week - there are things that Android phone makers really have to address to really make the phones great. I was really wondering what an iPhone 4S would be like - especially the 64GB version.  But after the crap I went though last night with the iPhone I will not be buying a new version in the future!

Apple - It Just Works.  Eventually.  When you have fought with it for hours on end.  And swore like a sailer.  And ran lots of updates.  And swore some more.

But it is pretty (well the computers, the phones not so much...)

Too much of a petrol head...

I'm a petrol head (though the Top Gear wouldn't agree - never owned an Alpha and not likely to...).  I am not ashamed at this.  But this morning I am finding out that you can go too far, and am still paying the price...

Filling the bike up with feul the rubber hose spring suddenly sprang having the effect of both ripping the nozzle out of the tank, and forcing the lever into my hand spraying fuel all over my bike.

Ten minutes of rinsing the bike down I noticed that my nice, new, expensive, red and white Dianese gloves were also damp.  So much for keeping them looking good as long as posible :(

So now I am sitting at my desk stinking of petrol.  Feel sorry for those I work with - it's an open office :)

Stace

Biker attitudes to boys and girls...

As many of you know from previous posts I have recently replaced my aging Suzuki SV650 S with a Yamaha R6.

Before taking the plunge I joined the R6 forum to try and get some information.  When I join an online community these days I join as Stacy.

In order to be polite I posted pics once I got the bike.  I was surprised at the replies. A lot of welcoming and people comments on the bike itself, and one comment asking when I was going to pose nude photos.

[quote]got any nudes with the bike?[/quote]

My answer:
[quote]Err, no nudes... I like my bikes with fairing[/quote]

When did it become OK to ask these types of questions? And talk about giving bikers a bad name...

And to think in a few years my little niece is going to start using computers...  I just hope she has sense.

Two thought provoking entries

I've just read a couple of entries from two people:

Mixed Emotions by Chrissie
Gay No But I Am Queer by Julia

Chrissie's posting deals with her divorce finalisation having a date in court now, and the emotions that that brings up, plus looking forward to the future.

I really wanted to put something supportive in the comments - but when the window came up nothing was there to type. I ended up putting something that's probably comes across as trite - and for that I appologise.

I think there are two reasons why it wasn't happenning:

1) I can only empathise... As yet I have not going through anything like this, and have no idea what to say to people.
2) It's a little close to the possibilities of home at the moment. This afternoon I have an estate agent coming to value the house this afternoon, and to tell us if we should refit the kitchen if we are going to sell later in the year

Ergo I'm a little numb. Mrs Stace is struggling. She accepts me for who and what I am - but therein lies our problem. Even is not dressed she knows that I am not a man, even if I never transition she knows that I am not a man. She sees the inner me. And she is not a lesbian.

Time will tell if she can get over it I suppose. I dressed for the first time since telling her on Sunday - I duscussed it with her first. She asked me not to wear a skirt, I agreed.

We spent time cuddling during the evening, and she got her own back on my by flicking my bra strap open. We were both nervous, but made it through unscathed. This has allowed me to hope that she can come to terms with me - but it's a long way from a done deal, and as put above has nothing to do with whether I transition. Time will tell, as will her therapy that starts 1st March.

Then there was Julia's post.

As I put in my comment there I have never wondered if I was gay. From my ealiest memories I knew I should have been a girl, and spent an amount of time playing with girls when growing up.

When it comes to attraction though it is more complicated. I am not attacted to men in boy mode. In any way shape or form. However, in girl mode I have had my share of crushes - Phillip Scofield, Pierce Brosnan and recently David Tennent to name a few. But all of them in Femme mode. I can't imagine being with a man as a man - that does not fit in my head at all. As a woman however, that's different. Stacy definately has crushes on both men and women.

This is something that I have not yet told Mrs Stace or my parents. It confuse me as I've always said that male me and Stacy are one and the same person, but does this invalidate that point. It's hard enough for me to get my head around it, it seems very odd and weird... Is it?

Stace

Christmas 2009 (and new year)

It just hit me that I meant to do a post on Christmas, but it somehow slipped my mind... Better late than never.

This year we went for Christmas in a vacation park in the south of NL with all of my in laws (Parents, sister and brother in law and their kids). We took a very nice house (even though it's only a holiday home I think it was as big as our house...) and whilst Mrs Stace and I finished our working weeks to leave on Christmas Eve the rest went and started the fun.

After dropping the cat off at the cattery and re waxing the table he decided to sprinkle with fear of his travel box we were off. Much less traffic than I was expecting and we got there just in time for the park to be handing out pressies for the kids, and mulled wine for the adults.

Christmas morning we got up when my little niece woke up. (Not with exitement of pressents, that's done on Dec 5th in Holland - Sint Klaas). Got up and went to watch the look on her face when she saw that the 'Kerstman' (Santa Clause) had indeed still been overnight (we stacked the tree with the pressies that Mrs Stace and I had taken with use)

It was fun doing the lying for her. I remember my parents telling me the same lies when there were presents at my grandparents house... Santa knew that we would be there and so dropped all the presents off. And look! Santa even left presents for everyone! Spent the afternoon opening the presents and taking lots of photo's of the kids opening theirs.

We had booked a restaraunt for Christmas Dinner, and that's where it all went wrong. It started when my nephew started to get a temparature and feel bad. He was not quite one at the time the poor thing really couldn't come out. So feeling guilty we left my brother in law looking after him with the prospect of soup and bread for his christmas dinner.

Got the the restaraunt (I'm sure I've spelt that wrong :) ) and we could find nobody to seat us for 10 mins, started to think was this such a good idea... Found out that they were not quite finished from the 3pm sitting... We were eventually seated. Waited for the waiter for drinks. And waited, and waited a bit more. There was only one waiter for the whole room (+/- 100 people or so at a minimum) and it was taking him 5 mins to fetch a couple of bottles of wine.

Then the starter turned up. Before the drinks (how often does that happen?). We had been seated for 1/2 hour and it was 50 mins since we *should* have been seated. The drinks arrived midway through the starter and we started to try and enjoy it the best we could.

Finished the starter, got the soup, and half way through someone came to lay to table with steak knives and cuttelry for the main course. We commented that they must be in a rush!

Finished soup (8:15, been in the place for 1 1/4 hours) and waited, expecting to see the maincourse start to turn up. 20 mins later the table next to ours got their main course.
20 mins after that someone else on the table got a plate. 20 mins after that the last 2 people on the table got their food. In the mean time nobody else in the place had eaten. It's now 9:15 and we were not seeing the funny side any more...

Then a table got their dessert. We were still waiting. At this point the two tables behind us gave up and left. A table of old folks in front of us said they were cancelling their main course as they couldn't eat so late. 9:30. We asked were our food was. It was coming.

Another tables leaves. We asked again. It's coming.

Waiters are walking to the kitchen and coming back empty handed.

The live music (I use the term loosely) started again, we groaned.

At just gone 10, three hours after arriving we decided that we were going to leave. Cue a small argument with my father in law and a waiter that we diffused. He paid for the drinks (more than I would have done for them ruining our christmas dinner) and we left.

Whilst you may think that they could have been busy and that we were not giving them enough time I think I should point something out. It was a set menu, that you had to make a decision about 3 weeks in advance. Being served at two sittings, at a time they decided. And they still couldn't cope!

Walking out over the icy dekking they had in front of the door I found the limit of grip in cowboy boots on ice and hit the deck a little hard. Great. We got back to the house to find that my brother in law had really enjoyed his soup and was nicely full. We started to eat all the snacks in the house as there was nothing else to eat. Staying to look after his child he had actually had the better evening. Poetic hey :)

So that was my Christmas Day... I must say I still emjoyed it - the rest of the day outwieghed the food situation, and once we had had some snacks and a couple of drinks we could see the funny side...

Still going...

Hmm... I was going to try for a post a week... On the way home from work today I had a head full of idea's for what to write. Then when I opened the post window... Nothing... Gone... Empty head.

Let's see what comes out when I start to write...

Overall I'm in a swinging well this week between my two states of happy and depressed.

On one hand I had a review at my job today and it went great. Not only are they still happy with me (always good in this climat) but we also got to talk about my short comings (mainly that I am too short with people when it's not going great) and my lack of self confidence. It actually felt good to open up (a little at least) and made me think maybe I do need to speak to someone professionally. (Generally happy)

It also made me think that maybe I should talk to my other half more - but that is not always easy to do when you don't actually know what you want to say... (Currently depressed)

Hmm... Lots to think about - which doesn't actually help matters...

I was actually aiming for a happier overall tone to this post... See if I can find something nice to add at the end of the week.