Let's start at the beginning
Never lie at a right angle.
Today started strangely. I woke up some time after dawn and found that I turned myself 90° during the night so that my head was now pointing towards the window. Logical conclusion: it was the earthquake disrupting the earth's magnetic field. [Hark at Mr Compass. –ed.]
I got to school just before 9am, but with time for the delivery of the TV running out before I had to go to class, I got Tracy to phone Gome. I learnt that they don't start work until 9am, which meant a 9am delivery was never going to happen. Then while I was pretending to teach Class 13, there was a knock at the door. It was Tracy who needed to get the delivery receipt. Then during the next class I got a text message saying that the TV was in the gatehouse.
I got it home and plugged everything in. Could I get the DVD player to run through it? No. I got some message saying "No sync detected", which means as much to me as the same message in Chinese. I went back to Gome with the Chinese version of the message to see whether they could solve the problem. But their limited English and my limited Chinese got nowhere, so I phoned June. As I was trying to find one of my DVD players in the shop, the assistant gave me her phone. It was Tracy. I assume the shop assistant had phoned her. Anyway, a worker (I hope there's more than one in this country because this guy has to be everywhere) will come out tomorrow afternoon.
I transferred the TV back to this side of the room so that I could connect it to the aerial. I don't normally bother with TV, but I felt I should make sure that the basic function of the TV worked. I couldn't plug the cable into the socket. I had a look at the old cable and then realised that the metal ring had snapped off. I managed to prise it out with a pair of scissors and auto-tuned the telly. I see that CCTV 9 is still showing the same programmes that were on when I first came to China. Well, they look like the same programmes.
Just to be a masochist, I'll probably put the TV back in the other corner once the DVD player is sorted out.
CCTV 9 News said that the cable run by Chung Hwa, a Taiwanese telecomms company, had been damaged, taking out somewhere around 90% of its capacity. Asia is the most badly affected region, but the damage is also affecting other parts of the world. It might be three weeks before things are back to normal.
Today started strangely. I woke up some time after dawn and found that I turned myself 90° during the night so that my head was now pointing towards the window. Logical conclusion: it was the earthquake disrupting the earth's magnetic field. [Hark at Mr Compass. –ed.]
I got to school just before 9am, but with time for the delivery of the TV running out before I had to go to class, I got Tracy to phone Gome. I learnt that they don't start work until 9am, which meant a 9am delivery was never going to happen. Then while I was pretending to teach Class 13, there was a knock at the door. It was Tracy who needed to get the delivery receipt. Then during the next class I got a text message saying that the TV was in the gatehouse.
I got it home and plugged everything in. Could I get the DVD player to run through it? No. I got some message saying "No sync detected", which means as much to me as the same message in Chinese. I went back to Gome with the Chinese version of the message to see whether they could solve the problem. But their limited English and my limited Chinese got nowhere, so I phoned June. As I was trying to find one of my DVD players in the shop, the assistant gave me her phone. It was Tracy. I assume the shop assistant had phoned her. Anyway, a worker (I hope there's more than one in this country because this guy has to be everywhere) will come out tomorrow afternoon.
I transferred the TV back to this side of the room so that I could connect it to the aerial. I don't normally bother with TV, but I felt I should make sure that the basic function of the TV worked. I couldn't plug the cable into the socket. I had a look at the old cable and then realised that the metal ring had snapped off. I managed to prise it out with a pair of scissors and auto-tuned the telly. I see that CCTV 9 is still showing the same programmes that were on when I first came to China. Well, they look like the same programmes.
Just to be a masochist, I'll probably put the TV back in the other corner once the DVD player is sorted out.
CCTV 9 News said that the cable run by Chung Hwa, a Taiwanese telecomms company, had been damaged, taking out somewhere around 90% of its capacity. Asia is the most badly affected region, but the damage is also affecting other parts of the world. It might be three weeks before things are back to normal.
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