Sometimes the gods are just working against you and there is little you can do as a mere mortal. I, like millions of other MJ fans were online at the Ticket Master web site waiting for the official sale to begin at 7am this morning. I had dragged myself out of bed at 6.30am and logged onto the computer first thing. I could see some of my other MJ fans had been online and awake much longer (from Facebook status updates or tweets over at Twitter). In the end it was all for nothing. I had been here before, October 2006 for MJ with the adulation of winning two free tickets, only to be told a little while later that the password had been given out in error and to wait for the real draw later. When that came around a week or so later, I was unsuccessful. It has been a similar story with Arsenal, I have failed to get tickets against Reading last season, as they all sold out in a matter of minutes when the Red member sales started on the site one morning. The site crashed several time as we approached 7am, but it was not until 7.15am, that I found myself actually in the queue and making some progress. The wait was fifteen minutes or more (according to this screen shot)

Over forty five minutes later, in which time I had brushed my teeth, had a shave and shower, there was no progress. (I had even taken the precaution of not switching on my Squeezebox in case the little bandwidth it uses would have affected my web browsing! I listen to FiveLive in the morning as I get ready before heading into work) Then the site crashed again, or at least my page did. My friends on MSN were having little luck themselves. Rewind to Wednesday, the date of the presale I discover that I have not received the first batch of codes sent out and instead am in the queue for additional codes as more dates because available. To begin with, I liked the idea of 10 dates at the O2, a number of shows that I believe Michael would be able to perform at his best and give the world what they have been waiting over twelve years for. However, since then dates have continued to be added and now stack up to fifty (yes fifty) dates concluding on 24th February 2010. In any case, Pavneet and his colleague Barry were able to get the code and book their tickets for early August. I did not receive a code until 7:38pm on Wednesday evening and by then it was too late, unless I wanted to see Michael in 2010. I could not wait almost a year to see my idol. Pav did his best to rub it in throughout Wednesday, texting me and also forwarding on confirmation of his booking and his seat allocation. The highlight of the week, apart from Michael Jackson tickets going on sale was the second leg of the knock out stage of the Champions League. It now I appreciate the beauty of Sky Sports News. I can see the goals a few minutes after they are scored. With the game level and heading for a penalty shoot out, I went from the computer back into the lounge. Normally I would have listened to FiveLive and I did listen to the extra time on FiveLive on the computer but just had to switch over to the Freeview channel when it went to pens. The Philips digibox is easily the best purchase I have made in the past six months. Falling asleep during the last segment of Newsnight, being woken up by the booming theme music and going off to bed. Listening to Richard Bacon but never being able to stay up long enough for SHH . In fact I have only stayed awake to listen to one special half hour in 2009, sometime in late January. It was the night that Olympic rower was on. Matthew Pinsent I think. Been overall a very tiring week, with Tuesday spent out ont he road with a colleague over in Essex and Hertfordshire. A nice change of scenary and time out of the office. Made quite a bit of progress at work this week and overall I left with a satisfying feeling this afternoon way past 5pm. I have been given Pav’s Grandad’s old PC, full spec to follow but it is my mission to convert it from a useless black box into a full fledged media centre. TV card will be transfered from my current desktop (since the rebuild, the drivers and software load but the picture is highly pixelated). Linux and then MythTV installation perhaps? Throw in a wireless card and we are all set. Since having my desktop back, this is my first Friday night with my desktop back in action, I have been distracted by other online activities and usually MSN so not fully concentrated on the television show I am watching. This will of course change when I can enjoy all my US TV from the comfort of the lounge. A very busy weekend, but also next weekend too. This weekend we have Div and Nige’s engagement do in Caversham tomorrow night. Before all that I have the usual chores to do back at the flat and get things sorted out plus watch Sarah Connor and Dollshouse before I head down the M4. I have been listeneing to Knock Me Down regularly for the past week (just check out my Last.fm). Kanye West is the described as the ‘icing on the cake’ by my dear friend Bhavna The song has been confirmed as next single and video is currently in production phase, I just cannot wait and the album release is just a few weeks away (eleven days to be exact). Did I mention to you that Keri Hilson once said in an interview on TRL that she has two professional ambitions in life, to write the come back song for Lauren Hill and another little known artist. Michael Jackson.