Last year I have caused a considerable amount of confusion by my way to pay for this patronage. Now that it will expire in a few weeks, I'm facing the same question again:

How does a European without credit card pay for a patronage, especially if this European isn't feeling adventurous enough to allow PayPal a direct access to his bank account?

Since I'd apparently managed to chase the Jot himself out of his office and, I suppose, half way across the city to collect my fees, he has let me know that the way of payment I had chosen last year was no longer an option. Agreed. But somehow I'd dearly like to learn about an alternative that is feasible for both sides.

Just in time for Saturnalia I've received a wonderful present - the contents of my hard disk! Yep! All my files have been restored, and if a few are missing I haven't noticed (which means they are no longer important anyway). Friday I phoned with the data recovery guy and he was quite confident to be able to restore the folder of my current (and unsaved) project, but didn't send it to me as promised. So I was skeptical until today. *dances around happily*

Now I'm truly looking forward to our Saturnalia banquet in the Fauces of the Bank of the Furii this evening. For some reason I have been appointed as a member of the elevated College of Epulones - quite an unusual honour for a non-Roman like me, I've been told by one of the more respectable members. *G*

Ha, I feel like babbling for the rest of the day, so I better quit here before it all becomes too embarrassing and I start talking about the colours of my fellow-epulones' subligaculi. LOL

Yesterday I happened to enter the main hall of our railway station. As every year around this time, a small christmas fair has been squeezed into it. This year the entire hall was filled with over-sweet, clerical seasonal singing. Apparently one of the shopkeepers had decided to add some atmosphere to it all. While I was talking to somebody the volume was raised so drastically that I couldn't understand what the man I was listening to actually said. For some reasons (see below) I was already quite grumpy, so I roared into the general direction of the christmas booths:
"Turn the blasted volume down, will you?!"

The only effect it had was that several people glared at me as they hastened along. Of course I glared back. At least the volume was turned down eventually, so I didn't complain any longer.

When I crossed the station the source of the loud seasonal hymns was revealed on the other side of the booths: About 20 men and women stood lined up, all dressed in stern, priest-like black robes, the chorister in front of them. Cute how grown people in black robes look when they are sulking.

Would I have roared like this had I known there was a living choir behind it, not a tape? I don't think so. But somehow I am wickedly glad I didn't know before.

Other events of the day in summary:

• On my way home, the downtown train I was in was stopped because of an accident. Caged between to stops I settled down to wait. It took ages. Of course, the shops had closed by the time I arrived downtown.
• Slipped on rotting leafs and twisted my bad knee which left me limping to the station to buy something to eat. Only burgers available. Great.
• Train to my suburb was late. When it arrived, it was crowded. Managed to get a seat after some time for which my knee was grateful. Decided to call a cab to take me home from the station. Realised that I'd forgotten my cellphone at the office.
• Arrived at the station just in time for a heavy downpour. Sloshed over to the phone booths - and, surprise, two out of the three cabs we have here were out of service on that evening. The third one was busy. But, lucky event of the day, the driver managed to squeeze me in between two jobs.
• Burger was cold when I finally arrived home. So was I.

Today I woke with a glorious feeling, the morning was absolutely wonderful. A true compensation for yesterday. So I thought.

In the afternoon the hard disk of my office computer crashed - with the kind assistance of our technical department. This was quite unfortunate since I'm working on a special project for two weeks now; a project that is confidential and not permitted to be saved onto external devices or the usual company servers. The request for expanding my current personal server space allowance was still queued in the help desk request line. Bottom line: All my work so far has evaporated into nothing, every single deadline is nil. My computer has been carried off to a data recovery company.

And I? I feel strangely elated now. Everything's taken out of my hands now. Maybe they will recover the data and I can meet the deadlines, or they will not. Even when working 24/7 I cannot even remotely meet them if the data are truly lost. There's nothing left for me to do.

I also have to stand up and confess to my own 'hood home related crimes. I won't list them all, Mehdi - a big bow to him for speaking his mind, against the current tendency to hide the very same - has already done that perfectly. I just want to add one point:

I won't promise to behave from now on. On the contrary:

I won't stop building 'hood homes wherever I please, as many as I please, and with whatever amount of content pleases me best.

*leans back and idly awaits the creation of other self-proclaimed taskforce groups like the Journal Taskforce, the Domus Taskforce, the Posting Taskforce...*

Any volunteers here? C'mon, I know you're there...!