The latest beta of Windows came out last weekend… and I don’t care. Yes, I downloaded it as soon as I could. Yes, I’ve installed it on a virtual machine. Yes, Microsoft has declared “Beta Keys for Everyone”, so the world should be running on Windows 7 Beta – but no, I just don’t care.

The Washington Post has a nice, well balanced review of Windows 7. I advise you to read it, since it’s taken a fairly mature approach of looking at how the average user will feel about the upgrade. Instead of looking at one particular feature and either screaming abuse or singing its praises, David Murphy has tried to cover the breadth of changes and how they really impact him.

Part of the problem is that I’ve just got used to Vista. I’m now comfortable with the sidebar taking up a valuable two inches of my screen real-estate, and I haven’t had an un-expected UAC prompt in months (yes, it is still enabled; but I’m used to – nay, demand – the extra confirmation when I perform a proper administrative task).

I’d still like to see what Windows 7 would look like fully powered on my machine – having only run it in a VM situation so far, I haven’t had a chance to play with the proper shiny effects – but it’s not my number one priority. Sorry Microsoft!

Today did not start out well.  Possibly due to this cold (which I just can’t seem to shake) – or possibly due to staying up a little too late watching Spiderman (the animated series) – I completely slept through my first alarm, and therefore shut off and ignored my second alarm, assuming I’d be awoken again in half an hour…

At 8:15, I finally wake – scream – and hit the shower.  It’s not too bad – I can be at work in 10 minutes after I leave the shower, so I’ll barely be late.  Of course, the car is frozen over – but thanks to the hot water trick, I can de-ice it in about 30 seconds.

Okay… bottle of warm water, jacket, gloves, exit house.  The ice on the windscreen is clear – still some frost on the inside.  No matter, I can clear that quickly enough.  Unlock the car… eh? What?  3 doors open – the driver’s door is still locked.  Must be the ice.

Jump in the passenger side, climb over, insert key, start car.  Beep-beep-beep.  No engine. Apparently, it’s cold enough that my slightly shoddy battery can’t quite get the engine to turn over.  Well, no time to wait for Green Flag (besides, he’d laugh at me – I should have changed the battery last time I called him out for the same problem).  I’ll just cycle in.

Lock the car, back in the house, change to a warmer jacket, out the back door, grab my bike and helmet, and off I go.  Bike seems a bit sluggish – could just be my imagination, since it’s bloody cold.

Oh, wait, no… that’s not right.  Both tires are completely flat. Well, I’ve come too far to turn back now, so I walk the bike the rest of the way (to avoid completely destroying my inner tubes.

Final arrival time: 9:15 – Well done Murphy.

Confession Time

Okay, the truth is, most of these things are completely my fault, so I deserve no sympathy at all.

• I could quite easily have gone to bed an hour or two earlier (especially if I hadn’t carried on reading after midnight), in which case I probably would have woken up on time.
• Everyone’s locks freeze in this weather – and I even had the right solution in my hands at the time.
• My car has in fact refused to start in cold weather before, and the Green Flag chap did tell me to replace the battery – I was just too cheap to do so.
• Quite clearly, I should have checked my tires before leaving, in which case, I’d have noticed in time to pump them up before departing.

Aftermath…

Surprisingly, my boss wasn’t too fussed about me being late.  I still made it in before any of my underlings (thank you Thesaurus.com – I’ve been looking for that word for months!), so it wasn’t too bad.  He did have one point to make, after I explained my reasons:

Well, after all that – you realise you’ve just used up your entire year’s worth of excuses, just for one day?

Fortunately, I figure, if he believed that, even Alien Abduction won’t seem too far fetched any more!