Phone fiasco #2

We still have no home phone. The saga continues. Looks like it will be at least a couple more weeks before its reconnected.1 And then we’ll probably lose internet access at that point, probably for another few more weeks.2

Competition in the telecommunications sector may make for lower prices, but service, reliability, ease of use – they’re all out the window.

Update:
1It was another two weeks.
2We were without internet for 10 days.

My predictions on loss of service turned out to be pretty accurate.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #189]

Conversations with myself

I found out this morning that Google is retiring Google Buzz in a few weeks. Now where am I going to rant about the crazy things I see in this world? I guess I’ll go back to having conversations with myself in my own head again.

Update 20 Feb 2015: When I finally migrated my rantings to this WordPress website, I had to come up with a name for the blog. I toyed with calling it “Conversations with myself in my head put online”, but that was a little too wordy.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #188]

Phone fiasco #1

My former internet service provider was bought out by a larger competitor about 7 weeks ago. All was fine with the transition until yesterday, when suddenly we find that we have no home phone service anymore, and I discover that without any input from me or notification to me, I have been converted to a Naked DSL plan (i.e. internet only, no phone service)

With the combination of my former ISP’s systems and personnel, my new ISP’s systems and personnel, a different phone company, and telephone exchange work tending to be sub-subcontracted out to multiple levels, I have grave concerns that this mess will get sorted out any time soon. In the meantime, if you need to ring us, ring my mobile phone number.

Update: I was right in my prediction. It took an entire month, and interactions with 27 different people from numerous companies before I had both phone and internet restored!

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #186]

Owls

We discovered today that we have a tawny frogmouth owl nesting in a tree in our backyard. Cool. Sadly, the reason we discovered this was by finding a baby owl that had died and fallen from the nest, (Or possibly the other way round.) There is at least one other baby owl in the nest, so here’s hoping it hangs on.

Update: It did.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #185]

Amazing footy

There are three things that amaze me about going to a big footy match, even four that astonish me.

  • The price of food and drinks;
  • the vast amount of advertising squeezed into the stadium;
  • the lameness of pre-match and half-time ‘entertainment’;
  • and the unfettered blind optimism of 4WD owners attempting to park 100m from a 30,000 seat stadium in an illegal and impossible position 30 minutes before game time.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #183]