Portugal: Electrocuting Oneself ... Bumba Feckin Shizzle-Plop

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The past week's adventure starts off with some good news. You may recall a while back I mentioned that I was charged for a toll rd journey twice from Tavira to Faro ... it should be €2.30 for a journey and they charged me €4.60, plus a whopping €0.64 tax on top of that. Out of a matter of principle, I complained and wrote emails to various companies until eventually I was told I'd get a refund for €2.30 so give them my bank details. I did this and made it clear that I also want the tax back, so €2.62 in total please. After a month of not hearing anything, I finally logged into my bank account and saw the €2.30 refund ... woohoo. Didn't get the tax back but who cares, I get a free tuna toastie 😊


As we're talking about cars, I am finally all legal with mine now. I've got my registration document, which is nothing like the V5C ... its a teeny tiny little leaflet .. not even that, a pamphlet with a few details on that fits in my palm. That's my proof of ownership which I must keep in the car at all times with all the other docs. With this done, I was able to pay my road tax ... 4 times what a lot of drivers here pay, because when you matriculate a car it's treated as a brand new vehicle for purposes of tax, plus its a bigger car. The cool thing is that I paid the tax through an ATM machine. The ATM system here is much more advanced than in the UK, its called MultiBanco and you can do so many things like pay your taxes ... epic.

Right, the last time I went to Cambridge in March I picked up a few things from my loft, including all my old casette tapes. I have around 70, some music and some movies that I used to record when I was in high school, I used to turn on Sky and play a movie then feed the audio signal into the hifi system and record it onto cassette ... by the time I got back home from school I'd have 2 casettes double-sided filled with the movie. There's a cool gangster one with Sylvester Stallone, dunno the name of the movie and I've only ever 'listened' to it. I also have a lot of awesome trance tracks on casettes which I wanted to listen to again. I have a casette player here and decided to give it a go. The 1st thing I noticed was the feeling of anger coming back when I had to rewind the casette tape and wait for it ... only to find it went in the wrong direction and I had to wind it the other way .... and wait .... swear words ... wait some more ... more swear words. Eventually I start playing it and after a few minutes the tape gets caught up in the player and tears apart ... destroyed. I move onto another cassette, same thing happens. This upset me as I have awesome tunes, so just like the old days I became a micro-surgeon, slicing casette reel and joining them together, bringing this baby back to life ... man I never thought I'd be doing this kinda thing again.

Wed last week I went all the way to Albufeira to buy some grass, not the illegal kind ... artificial kind for my balcony. I've converted it into a garden now. Whilst in Albufeira I shopped around in makro, various furniture stores an I even found iceland. I was walking around and heard this proper scaus accent which made me forget I was in Portugal .... so I just randomly asked this employee if she's willing to put a smile on my face .... she said she'd try, and I could have directed the convo down another path as she's scaus and would probably have been up for it, but I didn't, I just asked her for crumpets .... they had them and I've been enjoying my twice-toasted crumpets for breakfast all week with yogurt and olives on top 😊

On the way back I wanted to go to this computer repair center which also has macs for sale ... I've been having overheating problems again with mine with the temperature increase and was looking at macs, ridiculous prices but I wanted to go check it out and to see if they know whats up with my machine and why it cant even handle an internal temp of 50 celsius before acting like a retard. Anyway, the Algarve Computer center, according to their website, has 3 branches, in Lagoa, Quarteira and Almancil. I saw the almancil branch on the map and thats the closest one for me to get to. Im driving there and phone to confirm the address as it wasnt on the site for this branch, and the guy says "oh, Almancil branch shut down in the past" .... hmmm ok, u're computer guys, update ur feckin website. He says Quarteira is open until 6pm and Im running out of time so I do a uturn and head to that town. I get the address off the website and go there, up and down the street, up and down, cant find it. So I phone him up again, "oh, our branch is no longer there, we moved somewhere else in Quarteira" ... aaarrgghhh, u're computer guys, update ur feckin website. Finally I end up where he said, park up where he said, and a dude comes out of this shop in front and tells me I shouldnt park there because its his mattress shop and if I dont want to buy a mattress Im stopping somebody who does want to buy a mattress to park there and he has 4 kids and mattress sales are going down and .......... So I nod, smile, turn around and try to find the computer store ... no luck. I call this dude again, and this time he comes out and tells me he's standing out of the shop, and I see him. This shop isnt a shop, it has no sign outside, its just a hole in the wall ... not even rectangular. I follow him inside but somehow I manage to end up in a garage and I hear his voice thru another door "this way" so I come back out to find him. I go inside and theres a broken down building with paint and diy gear everywhere, 1 desk in the middle which he sits in, no computers, no nothing. So I ask him where the PCs are at, and he says "oh, they're in the Lagoa branch, this is just the pick up and drop off point" ... bumba feckin shizzle-plop. I left it and went home.

A couple of weeks ago I installed a security alarm system in my apartment which I ordered off eBay, all wireless. Works a treat, but when I was installing the sensors on the doors/windows I noticed that I already had sensors ... this was rather odd as there was no alarm here, I thought maybe in the past there was. So I ripped these out and chopped the electric cables right down to the wall (they had live electric going through them, I really wasnt sure what these were for). I installed my sensors with adhesive and sealant, and everything was fine. Few nights ago its too hot and I cant sleep, go to turn my AC on in the bedroom and it doesnt work ... go try it in the lounge and it doesnt work. The 2nd bedroom was fine, still worked. I couldnt figure it out until I remembered these sensors I chopped. To test my theory out I went to the 2nd bedroom where the AC is still working and that also had a sensor in the window. I ripped that out and the AC stopped. So I went to reception to ask them about this (should have done this 1st) ... and was told "oh yh, the sensors are so the AC units switch off when a door/window is open, to save on electric" ... nice idea but this never worked for me otherwise Id have been wiser, Ive had the units on with the door open in the past.

Now my problem is that Ive chopped these electric wires down to the wall and Im thinking "shit, I need to smash through the plaster now to get at these cables" ... in the end I fixed it, I had to rip out my new sensors which were glued into place, and I left in each room about 3mm of cable, tiny amount to cut with a knife and needle-nose plier and join together ... I was careful like a micro-surgeon as I knew I only had 1 shot at this ... feck the wire up now and Im screwed ... so I took my time and did it. Only thing is, even with my electric off I kept getting shocked when I was touching the wire ... and like homer simpson I kept having a doh moment and trying it over and over, wondering why there's still live electric, maybe being powered from a source up in the roof where the fans are ... so rather than doing things the right/safe way, I put on rubber jesus shoes and gloves, and get to work ... the shocks weren't too bad like that ... I survived. Glued my sensors back into place, and it's all working well 😊 Afterwards I looked at my phone and I had 20 sms messages, I thought "hooray I have a friend, and they desperately want to get in touch with me" ... nope, these were messages from my alarm system. It also texts me when my power goes off and on, so every time i was cutting power and restoring to test things, I was getting texted ... "AC power down" ... "AC power recovered" ... "Battery low" ... "blah blah blah".

Onto the weather, absolutely scorchio these days. It will cool down later in the week thank f^ck, coz its been hot man, and the mosquitos are out and Im getting eaten alive, especially at night when Im asleep. Went to play basketball with my friend on Saturday evening and was getting attacked .... I kept slapping myself between shots ... started using repellent now which I dont like to use, chemicals I hate, especially like yday when Im at the beach and put sun lotion on, then later the DEET repellant .. all thats absorbing inside me. Still, its great to be in the sun ... today after the gym I went downside poolside with my laptop and ate/drank from the poolside bar/cafe which is now open ... and my internet wifi travels down there too so awesome.

Last night I was cooking sugary things in one of the bars by the river ... rice pudding (kheer) and halwa ... the punters had a go too. Got told off by one girl who ate it then asked me what was in it, and when I said "sh!t loads of sugar and butter" her jaw dropped and told me I should be disclosing this info before getting peeps to eat something, lols. I dont like eating sugary things tho, I just make it for other peeps.

I will end by mentioning this phone call I just got from MEO, which is like Virgin Media. I joined them 6 months ago on a 2 yr contract for TV, internet and landline (free local calls and after 9pm international calls). I pay €55 a month for this and I also have a vodafone mobile package, very basic 100 minutes or texts (not 100 each, combo) and 600mb data (i use less than 100mb per month) ..... which I pay €16 for per month. Now, this MEO dude has been trying to call for days but its a private number which ive been ignoring ... I decided to answer and he tells me about something called M4O which is adding onto my existing package a mobile service where I can transfer my vodafone number to them ... and for €80 a month I get all 4 things, with 2000 minutes, 2000 texts and 200mb data. And check this, I get not only 1 mobile number but 2, each one with this plan, so I can have 4000 minutes per month, thats like 167 hours of chitchatting, madness. its a great deal, especiall considering if I transfer 2 vodafone numbers over, I get €10 per month discount for a yr, so its only €70 a month ... and add €5 if i want to up the data from 200mb to 700mb ... id be paying less than i do now for everything and pretty much unlimited phone usage. Only caveat is that Id have to start my MEO contract again, so the last 6 months get wiped out and I start a brand new 2 yr contract from now .... thats what Im not liking. Also, do I need more numbers? I have 6 numbers in my apartment already:

- UK personal (O2)
- UK business (Orange)
- Portugal personal (Vodafone)
- Portugal alarm system (Vodafone p&g)
- Portugal landline (meo)
- Portugal 3g dongle (meo)

I must dash guys, I went to the gym 6 hrs ago and Ive STILL not had a wash ... i must get in the bath.

Until next time compadres !!

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