It has not been a good day at all. In no way shape or form. Not in the least bit good. I wish I had not risen from my bed. In fact, I nearly didn't, failing to truly register the importance of waking with the alarm that was set an hour earlier than usual to enable me to get a lift into work and be early enough in to be able to leave early. Eventually I worked out that it was necessary to move, and I managed to raise my girlfriend from her slumbers too. All was going vaguely to plan.

I even remembered to pack a bag with my jeans to wear at tonight's gig. However, owing to a number of confusions, largely caused by morning tiredness, I watched dumbfounded as the car, with these items in its boot, drove off leaving me empty handed at the office. No mobile phone in the car to call. I had to wait until my girlfriend had reached home before being able to ask her to return. Though I can do a gig without the guitar, I don't want to do this one without it. No.

At work, things were looking a bit up and a bit down. On the up side, I forced myself to use the new tools and new language to do something I might have found easier the old way. On the down side, after a morning's almost satisfying beavering away, I managed to lose all my work in one stupid mouse click. This was not good. Again I was speechless. I couldn't believe how final the destruction of my work had been. Then I started poking around on the computer. Though my original files were lost, I found where the files that are derived from them ended up, and I was able to get them translated back into an approximation of what I'd lost. It took time and totally took the shine off the apparent success I'd been having mastering a new set of tools.

I've said it before. I'm an idiot.

Things have been going poorly since last night. The pub quiz was preluded by some food. The chicken I ordered was so overdone that it was barely chewable in places. The bone and meat were almost fused together in a most unappetising manner. I wanted to call our quiz team something like "the microwaved chickens" or "sack the chef" but I wasn't allowed to. It's a shame, because they read out our team name, and the quiz master is also the landlord, so it might have been a good way to get the message to him. Maybe if our team hadn't been called "Lizards in a dyson" it would not have been called out.

The quiz questions were easier and we got some rounds completely right. We felt in danger of winning the quiz and I even suggested we should think about what to do with the money. The top prize is 50 pounds, and my suggestion was to donate it back to the charity that the surplus funds goes to each week. I think it's a bit off for the winners to get 50 when the charity ends up with 12 or something. Anyway, we didn't win. The wipeout round did us in. Even if it had not, we would still have been one point short. It was a major disappointment, apparently.

Things proceeded to go wrong when we got home and I set about sorting out the home network. The requirement was for the old computer to see the new one so the printer could be moved to it. I made some necessary changes to some settings . . . And then the old computer started prompting for a password that nobody knew. This was not good. Why have a password set if you never use it? Indeed! Yet it was set and I'd somehow managed to provoke it to be needed. Brilliant. There are only two options at this point: crack the password, or take the computer to pieces and copy the data elsewhere. I was ready for a late night of the latter when my girlfriend correctly guessed the password. It was 'cornwall'. Thank goodness for that.

Thinking I'd got everything working, my girlfriend, who would be a natural software tester/cryptanalyst, made me prove it all continued to work through a power off and turn back on. Wise idea. It failed miserably.

Not wishing to bore anyone with the details, but the fact that the computer with the printer was on the wireless part of the network, coupled with the fact that Windows machines find out about each other using broadcasts that don't get relayed to the wireless zone meant that I had to do something vaguely smart to make it all work. It worked in the end, but my nerves were rattled.

What a to do. Perhaps the yellow fever vaccine comes with some sort of bad luck charm. Should I maybe be worrying about tonight's gig, therefore? I don't know. Perhaps I'll enjoy the gig more for the light relief it should offer. Perhaps the slog up hill and down dale to get to the venue, which is near no tube, will be another nail in the coffin of a miserable early September.