Yesterday I received my pre-order of "Halo 3" from Amazon.co.uk. You will recall, from earlier posts, the excitement that I direct towards deliveries. (Please click the yellow sentence to reveal the inner sanctum). I thought that I had stipulated my work address as the delivery address, but in some uncharacteristic oversight I had somehow neglected to specify. The lesson to be learnt here is that you must always specify.

So the package was delivered to my abode. This is quite alright, so I let it slide just this once. I phoned home at 1pm to see if the parcel had been dropped off, and indeed it had. Now, this would be fine for any normal human being, but not me. I had read that there was a problem with the disc holding devices fitted to the cases of the Limited Edition copies of "Halo 3". It is just my luck that this is the same edition that I had purchased. I asked my Mother to dissect the package and see if there was a problem. "Well, it's making a rattling sound..." she stated. This was exactly what I didn't want to hear. I knew there and then that the disc would be scratched to smithereens. But still I urged her to forge onwards with the task.

My fears were confirmed when she opened the tin and found the game disc to be severely mutilated beyond recognition. I reasoned that if my Mother could see the scratches then they must be bad. This was grave news indeed. It turns out that Microsoft will replace faulty discs free of charge, but I didn't want to have to wait for up to 28 days for the replacements to arrive, so I worked out the logistics of buying a new copy in a shop and sending the Amazon package back from whence it came. This is what I done, in the end.

Getting to the video game shop was a different story altogether. We had a meeting at work which commenced at 4pm. I was promised that it would last for no more than one British hour. Wouldn't you just know it, the meeting ran over this time slot. We finally left the room at 5:10pm and I simply had to walk briskly to my car to try to get to Redhill before 5:30pm. I even left my PC on, that's how dedicated I was to the cause. Fuck you, environment.

As usual, the traffic was dire. I broke all manner of road laws in order to get to my destination in double quick time, but I just managed the feat. The guy was literally about to close the shop. No time to dilly dally here. I bum rushed the shop and ordered the man to serve me with the wares that I requested. Success! Once home I played "Halo 3" in some detail and can safely say that it is good.

Today I am wearing this corduroy effect jumper. It's not really corduroy, it's more like a faux-corduroy jumper. Pseudo-corduroy. I guess you could say that it has the appearance of a corduroy jumper. When all is said and done, it is a jumper which bears the benefits of looking like corduroy, whilst being hugely comfortable. I might go so far as to say that it's corduroy appearance belies it's comfortable nature. It has the interior of a sweater, but the exterior of a corduroy jumper. It's dalliance with multiple fashions really is a marvel to behold.