 "Did you win?" she asks.
Oh yes, dark bandit of my heart, I surely did.
Should French cable Net and TV provider Noos soon fall into the clutches of US giant Liberty Media -- and if the Factory failed to act today on a tip from a knowing little birdie -- then you read it here first.
Until this afternoon, my favoured ISP wrenched me and doubtless others off line from late Monday night, because of a cable router breakdown nobody at Noos spotted and no-one could report before this morning (yesterday being a public holiday).
In less than an hour this afternoon, after making of myself a major nuisance to people at the Noos HQ, right up to the managing director's assistant, three top executives 'phoned me back separately!
I was unable to extract confirmation of the rumoured Liberty Media takeover from any of them, but they didn't deny it either and were alarmed to find how well-informed I've become about the mixed fortunes of their company, since it was Paris Cybercable and I was one of their first clients.
"You've already been granted half a month's subscription for free?" one asked. After my previous bout of complaining about sudden denials of service, yes, I was.
By the time I'd got myself back on line with a little technical tweaking, somebody else had told me I'd be getting another month's fees waived!
"It's not the money," I pointed out, "though I'm grateful for the commercial gesture -- thanks. What really bugs me is never knowing when the plug's going to be pulled and the lack of communications skills."
I think they took due note, particularly when I added that not only was I suffering serious Web withdrawal symptoms but had also been unable for almost two whole days to pursue the completion of my porn collection!
It must also be said that everybody I spoke to at Noos once I'd dug deep enough to get a few key 'phone numbers proved open about their technical difficulties, ready to explain the problems in language I could understand as a relative layman, and competent in dealing with them.
The top people did firmly deny reports from one of my sources (who claims anonymity at peril of "being scorched alive" should I reveal a name) that anybody was "packing their bags" in view of an apparently imminent change of management.
 While off line, however, I've managed to get a very great deal done in sorting out some of my mess and generally interfering in the affairs of my friends and beloved!
The snail mail across all the distance to where the Wildcat is was meanwhile almost unbelievably swift, delivering a packet posted on Monday a mere two days later. She attributes this to the power of "the current of love," bless her!
Her flower for today is on my desktop, which as you'll observe, I have wasted no time in starting to tweak to my satisfaction.
My very gradual discovery of Panther has brought several highly agreeable surprises. It is a darned fast Mac operating system, the new "Finder" and its window arrangements are a major improvement, I appreciate immediate access to my Apple "iDisk", and have already discovered how to turn on the "floating Exposé blob" (XHints, blogrolled).
There've been clever cats everywhere this week. Oh, and those pix conceal secrets, out of Africa...
The moodswing blues, by the way, are the work of one of my favourite artists, Vicki Messinger (Vickimess 2003).
9:15:16 PM link 
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