h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Half way through October, nearly. They say the future is just around the corner. Once my book is printed I will have to emend my conduct as to remove the molecules from my brain and blood. The blood of my brain will be free from any emollient. It will be clean from every foreign or naturalised South African molecule which might or might not contribute to the flowing of the writing juices. I shall have to think carefully of how to write sober. Can it be done? Is it possible? One shall have to wait and see.

In the meantime I have a task, there is a mission which I choose to accept. I plan to make Enquiries about my ADSL and the 10 megabit line that my exchange is wired for. I only have 4 megabits and it's pretty ropey at the moment, keeps dropping out. They say it's my hardware but it isn't because the red light is on on my router, which means there isn't enough banana pancake at THEIR end, sister. So I have to go to Telkom in Stadium on Main and then perhaps to my ISP. It doesn't help that I have lost my ISP password. That is blank idiocy on my part. I changed it to something I could "remember". Ha.

I am getting a far, far better Internet experience using my 3G dongle, than I ever have with the ADSL in my flat. The ADSL is dodgy at the moment, so I'm using the dongle; I just uploaded a 7MB file to YouTube in a matter of a few seconds, whereas with the ADSL it takes ages to upload stuff to the Net. I am considering my options.

Just watched two episodes of House from Season Eight that I don't remember at all, even though I've watched them at least twice before. How very strange. You'd think I'd remember the detail of Hugh Laurie speaking Chinese. Oh well. That was interesting.

I should learn Chinese really.

There's a new technology called LTE or something, which enables speeds up to 60Mb/s in theory, although they say you should expect 15 Mb/s on average.

I'm making up my mind... I'm going to take out a contract with my dongle and hope to get it LTE enabled, then I'll have megafast Internet! I'll have to see how much data I need monthly though. You don't seem to be able to get an unlimited dongle contract like my ADSL is unlimited. But if I ever ran out of data, I could always just use my ADSL, although I'm thinking I might even cancel that contract, with Telkom and MWEB, to pay for the Vodacom or Cell C or whoever I end up with. I'll go to Claremont this morning and find out what's going on. Also to the printer's to inspect the first pages of my book as they come off the press. That's exciting.

But even more exciting is the possibility of having much, much better Internet connectivity. I uploaded a 7MB file up to YouTube and it took a matter of seconds, I just clicked on it and expected a long wait, and it just happened. So! I will go around and price the contracts, I think I'll try Vodacom and Cell C, and I already know that Vodacom's LTE is enabled in this street.

It will be excellent having much faster internet speeds but if it's capped I'll have to get a bandwidth meter.

OK I've got a console bandwidth monitor nload which is easy to use, I'm monitoring how much bandwidth I'm using, because I'll have to select a cap for my broadband, and I've got to factor in any downloading I might need to do, such as applications and files of other types. Who etc. We could suggest one movie a week, which is way more than I download, so that would be 4gigs a month, and that would cover Who as well. I don't know. I was on 3 gigs a month before in Stellenbosch, I don't know.

It appears that I've downloaded 138.63MB so far but I don't know when that starts from.

There's some REALLY crap music being made at the moment in the Christian scene. Really, really crap. They're still using that disgusting harmonic cliche. Oh it's terrible. CRAP.

I'm streaming radio at the moment and monitoring how much bandwidth it's using. It's using quite a bit. It seems that the most data I can get in a month is 3 gigs, which is really pushing it a bit. I might have to see if Cell C have anything better. I don't like having a cap on my internet usage, not at all. 5 gigs I think would be a realistic minimum, 10 gigs would be better, but it all gets rather expensive. Hmm. Difficult.

I'm wondering whether to keep my ADSL as a back up in case things went tits up with the dongle. It's more monthly expense, that's all.

If I went over three gigs in any month, I would then just switch over to ADSL for the rest of the month. I couldn't be without internet.

Of course I could use the dongle for surfing and use the ADSL for downloading; but then what's the point of having superfast internet if you can't download your and watch them all in one session?

Hmm.

OK I was turned down for a dongle on contract for purely bureaucratic cock-up reasons, which is annoying, but that's what you pay for the sunshine and braaivleis.

Spoke to a very nice man at the Municipality and there's a place in Wynberg I can go to and pay for my car licence discs there. I'll do that this afternoon if I can.

They couldn't send out Wilfie's disc because the payment was wrong for Daisy. That woman at Cape Town Municipality has brought me to a bit of trouble because she was thick; also of course the postal workers are on strike and that means (for some obscure reason) that I can't pay Cape Town by EFT. Mad.

Welcome to South Africa. It was always crazy like this.

Chris van der Vyfer, the man I spoke to. Homosexualist I think. Very nice man, I always get on famously with homosexualists.

I'm reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus in French. OMG it's SO beautiful. Oh Lord. A man of mind. He had people to talk to. I have no-one; they all run away from me. So I dry up. Feck it.

But Ludwig did his work while away from people; in an isolated hut in Norway; and in an isolated hut in Ireland. I need people around me, to appreciate me, but I cannot work around people; I too need to be alone with my God, to work. But I need to work for someone, you see. Helga was my perfect muse. I was in love with her, of course, but she was unattainable; the perfect combination for artistic and philosophico-theological endeavour. But Helga took fright, and fled, and ran from me; and now I have no-one. All alone. It kills me.

Helga is the first and only person who I am convinced REALLY understood and appreciated my work. At Aberdeen they were all too much in awe of me, to make contact. Whereas Helga was just perfect for me. She SO WELL understood my work and thought; and she SO WELL appreciated my endeavour. How I loved her for that. God, I loved her so well for that appreciation.