So then, what have we been up to this month? Well after all the fun and games and visitors of last month, “not a lot” is what leaps to mind. However, I’ll still get enough guff on here to bore you; your life wouldn’t be the same without it.

Would it?

Recently Bethy’s went out on the stump with the scouts, doing a door knock to raise money for the Salvos. Lee-Anne went along to chaperon her. Between them they managed to raise $200 + for the Salvos, and Bethy got a “Good Citizenship” badge for her uniform.

At one house they stopped at, the poncy twat who answered the door refused to chip in a few bob as, and I quote; “Oh no, I’m throwing a barbecue around my pool next week to raise money for them.”

Luckily I wasn’t with them.

Talking of the Scouts, Bethy’s off on a skiing trip with them at the end of this month. This lasts for a weekend, but involves getting all the right (read: "most expensive”) skiing and après-skiing kit. Unfortunately she’s at that age where looking your best, especially when there’s “hot boys” around, is an imperative. Oh well, it gives me and Lee-Anne a weekend, and fortunately a weekend I have off bloody work for a change, to get up to mischief.

While I'm on the subject of getting up to mischief. Remember I was telling you about Lee-Ann's shiner? Check the gallery. 🙂

Oh and our beloved daughter had a charity day at school the other day, for a "gold coin" donation ($1 or $2) they could wear non-uniform clothes. The theme was "bright colours" or something similar. Bethy wore a yellow vest under a purple t-shirt which read, and I quote; "SAVE WATER, GET DIRTY". She's 13. Mind you, she did do her mother a wonderful "Mother's day" breakfast of cheese hearts and pickle on toast, with coffee etc.i

A short digression; a rant, if I may be so bold.

A rant about Virgin broadband. Or, as they are now known in our house “Virgin-f*cking-broad-arse”.

I was perusing the Sunday paper, as is my wont, and I came across an advert. “Virginbroadband 2 gig for $60, including all your local and national calls free, plus free calls to Virgin mobiles”. All three of us have Virgin mobiles by the way.

Hells teeth, we were paying our then ISP, Velocitynet, $60 for 2 gig, and nothing else. Ok, where do I sign up?

So I signed up, canceled our landline as all these services were being delivered by 3G wireless, and canceled our LISP.

All the kit arrived. A wireless modem, a seem card, several bits of wire, and instructions. The instructions read “phone up Gizmo, and they’ll fit everything for you”. Yes they will, for $125 an hour. So I contacted them, and a few days later some geezer came out and set up a home network for us.

The first problem we noticed was that our connection would drop out dozens of times a day, sometimes necessitating a complete reboot of the modem. Then we noticed we were missing a great number of telephone calls. Then we noticed e-mails had vanished into the ether. Just to top things off nicely, we got a mail stating that we had used up 100% of our download capacity in just over a week, and we would be slowed to snails pace for the rest of the month.

I decided to complain. But then I realised that the phone number for complaints was the same one for technical support. This wouldn't be the same technical support I’d been spending an hour or so a day trying to contact for help for over a week, and I’d yet to have an answered call, would it? Yes it would.

So, the only answer seemed to be a hard copy of my complaints, I wrote to them, and this is what happened…

The day after I wrote my complaint someone phoned me, though they, obviously, had not had my letter as of yet. They offered me a get-out of my contract, without prejudice or, fortunately payment. I declined that, stating that I wanted the situation I was in resolved. I informed them I had a Virgin Credit Card, and the family had three Virgin mobile phones, and that I was sure that with a little help we could resolve the situation. Ok, so I’m a twat. The representative agreed that he would arrange for support to contact me one morning the following week. As I do not start work until 12.20 pm each day, and am at home prior to that, it seemed like a plan. And of course no one phoned me back.

So I e-mailed them, politely, and this was the reply;

Hi Taff,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, there is no indication on your account that a call back had been arranged. Or any notification that a call out had been made to you. So unfortunately, I am unable to organise a call back regarding your issues. The only course of action I can suggest is to contact our help desk so we can provide any relevant troubleshooting. Kind Regards Mark The OSS Team

 

My reply, apologies for the swearing…

 

Mark,

 

Just the sort of utter f*cking rubbish I've come to expect from Virgin broadband.

Complete and utter f*cking crap. Please, please please tell me how I can disengage from your contemptible f*cking rubbish service. I've had enough, this is beyond the f*cking pale. No record of your call to me? WHO'S F*CKING FAULT IS THAT? YOU CALLED ME FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!!!! I suppose next you'll tell me that my letter of complaint wasn't received? How about answering my questions from my previous f*cking e-mail of complaint? Detailing exactly the same problems I've had since I signed up with your crap service? How my phone is unusable several times a day, the dozen or so phone calls I miss a day? The constant need to reboot the trash router you sent me? I have, my wife has and our daughter has virgin mobiles, I have a Virgin credit card, I haven't had a moments trouble with any of them, why is your service so bloody poor? You want me to call your support line? That's the biggest joke you've said yet!! Do you know how many hours of my life I have wasted trying to get through to them? You want me to waste more? I will now be spending all my online time warning everyone who I can; "NEVER SIGN UP WITH VIRGIN IT'S SHIT!!" One only has to go to the Virgin wireless "Whirlpool" website to see how your service is held in complete contempt by the online community. Get me out, I've had a f*cking gutsfull!!!! I've just had yet another mail telling me I've used 80% of my allowance!!!! How can this be when I'm only online for a few hours a day? When I was with velocitynet I had a peer to peer program running all night every night and still never bust my 2 gig limit!! Honestly, your service should be a model for "how not to do it!" I want out!! Please advise…

 Anyway, a couple of nights ago a Virgin rep called me as “I see you’ve put in a complaint to the industry ombudsman.”

 

Believe it or not, his next words were; “I don’t have a copy of the complaint, only the reference number, could you tell me what your problem was?” I refrained from biting his head off, he was only part of a failing system. I gave him by now yards long list of complaints.

Anyway, he offered me a free get out, and I grabbed it with both hands.

 

It’s good to pass on some good thoughts about a service for a change.

So now I’m negotiating the maze of getting a new ISP, You’ll hear from me when I get one, but our domain based e-mail addy; fatbeetle(at)fatbeetle.com is always available.

Oh, we’re also getting a new phone number, again watch out for a mail from me.

 

The other day, a Friday, which was my day off, I took myself off for a spin to the quaintly named “Wee Jasper”. A fun drive through the countryside, for about 60 k, ending up at a small hamlet of no great distinction, with a river, and old strut bridge, a campsite and a couple of nice forest walks. I took a shedload of shots (see this month’s gallery), saw some eagles and kookaburras, and all in all had a very pleasant day out. (God, that’s so f*cking boring Taff!)

Oh, just down the road from there they had some show caves, but I didn’t dare go in them without Bethany and Lee-Anne, so that’s a treat to be saved for another month.

Now here’s some bad news for you. I’ve finally got my computer wired up to a decent sound system, and am in the process of re-mastering all my shite music. If you’re very unlucky I’ll be sending you some.

 

What happened to cause this world wide aural terror alert was this…

One morning, when I was allegedly at work, I got it into my head to bite the bullet. Me and Lee-Anne had been after a newer, better, surround sound system for our TV etc for some time. I had a chance to skive off, so I dropped into "JB Hi Fi", a local audio discounter store, to see what they had. They had an ideal system for us, Sony, 5 speakers, amp and tuner, but it has a “we’ll make a deal” sticker offer on it (normally means you can get them ¼ off)

So I hung about and waited for an assistant, the place was full of YTTT’s* so I didn’t think I’d have to wait long. (*Yttt’s = Young, Trendy, Tattooed, Twats) No one came. So I went to the desk, they paged someone. He came said “hello”, then he noticed the TVs were not displaying anything, got on his mobile and went off. I waited. He didn’t come back… So just to amuse myself, and draw attention to myself I started saying “Hmmmm.. I’ think I’ll steal this one then”, and played with items on the shelf, speakers, headphones etc. I started picking them up, hiding them under my shirt, and then putting them back. This normally means at least the security guard shows an interest in you. No one came. So then to amuse myself further, I started swapping the price tags over on things. They now have a $1250 surround sound system with a $122 price tag on it there. No one came. So I went back to the desk. They paged someone .. No one came.. Then I found a basket of empty video cassette cases being sold dirt cheap.. “I wonder how high I can stack these?” I thought.. 15 five packs, roughly 11 foot high is the answer (I chickened out of going higher, It was very impressive though) Still no one came So I pissed off… Luckily, this time Lee-Anne wasn't with me, she hates it when I do stunts like that.

Oh the next Sunday, we went off to another store, and lo and behold they had an identical system to the one I’d fancied in JB hi Fi, but as an; “ex display model”, and with a “make us an offer” sticker on it. So I made a silly offer, and the guy accepted it, and at the tills he knocked another $30 off for good measure.

Talking of amusing things I do that to cheer up Lee-Anne, I think the last time was when we were in a local department store. I noticed they had a bright, salmon pink, men's jacket for sale. I put it on and in a loud voice inquired; "Anyone fancy a bumming?" I still don't know why she hit me… Oh no, the actual last time was in the pet store, when we were looking to buy a possum nesting box for the mother in law's birthday. (Don't ask) Lee-Anne asked me; "What do you think of this one?" To which I, being a honest bloke, replied, "Well to me it looks like a cheap piece of shoddily made shite." The store girl didn't seem that offended.

The other day I had to do a talk on “Early Psychosis, interventions, treatments and the MIT Team”. Basically it’s a core module for the service, and everyone new to the heath service hereabouts has to attend it. I’d not done one before, but enjoy doing such things. But when they told me they wanted 4 hours of it, I nearly died. I beat them down to three hours, and with my co-worker, Debs, we set about preparing. Luckily Debs had done one of these sessions before, and still had all the bits and bobs from that one.

We got it all together and awaited the day.

We were doing the 9.00 to midday slot, so I got to the room well in advance, and genned up on my stuff. They arrived, twenty odd of them. Oh god, it was like facing a row of stunned mullets to start with, my first few jokes sunk without trace, I was fearful of copsing, but blundered on. Anyway, they started thawing a bit after a while, so then I asked if there were any psychologists present. A couple of hands went up. “Ok, I’ll speak slowly then,” I said.

Boy did that go down well.

Anyway after about half way I realised that working to someone else’s script was cramping my style, and went off on my own way, ad-libbing and telling, (not entirely,) tall tales about the MITT client load, and how we treat them.

Fortunately it went down a storm, and the feedback included from more than one participant; “The best "in service training" I’ve ever done.”

It must have been their first "in service training" then.

The other day me and Gary went out to do a depot jab on a client. A young Zimbabwean boy, who becomes “Chicken Jesus” when he’s unwell. It’s a hoot to watch. He lives alone with three mates. We knocked on the door, he opened it, and the intense fug of dope smoke which followed him out damn near knocked me off my feet. “Oh, can I just go in and clear up before you come in?” he asked all sweetness and light. All sweetness light and as stoned as a ferret in fact, he must think I was born yesterday.

Seeing as we couldn’t see into the flat for smoke, and it smelled like a thousand tons of camel shit was burning in there, we declined to do the jab there. We dragged him down the health centre and jabbed him in our clinic room. No helping some people, you want to stay psychotic for the rest of your days, you keep smoking the dope mate. (addendum; He called into the office this morning, wanting a favour as usual. He stank like a week dead tramp, and was obviously off his tits on something strong. One life going rapidly down the drain there I'm afraid. You can only do so much for people eh?)

 

Oh, some of you wrote betting that our 5.30 am gym sessions would’t last more than a fortnight. You were wrong, we’re still at it!

In fact the “Pump” classes are something of a highlight of the week for me. (Shows how exciting my life is eh?) And not for the reasons you’re thinking. In fact, there’s little or no nubile aerobics totty at the class. In fact I’d say the average age there would be 36 yrs plus. About a third are men. But they are a dedicated bunch of hardcore pump people, and we exchange yawns and early morning halitosis laden pleasantries with them. The funniest guy there is a bloke who I‘ve taken to calling “Arnold”. He uses phenomenally high weights, but never seems to do all the reps.

Way to miss the point of the class there genius!

I’m still doing lighter weights than of all the blokes, and most of the girls if truth be told, I’m WAY behind Lee-Anne in weights. And you know what? I don’t give a flying f*ck. There was a time when this would have bothered me, I'd have bust a bollock trying to keep up. To keep up with the girls at least. But either I'm growing up, getting wiser, or I've resigned myself to being a weedy bastard. I think it's the latter.

The other day I got a very kind e-mail off Nick, one of the local pilots. He was wondering why he hadn’t seen me out on the hill of late, and if I had any more flying stories in the pipeline. Unfortunately I’m going  though one of my disillusioned phases with flying. The flight I had in the UK last year (many thanks to Mr & Mrs Nicol) reminded me so much of the style of flying I enjoyed. Nice coastal ridge runs with a steady sea breeze.  

Flying at Streete

 I just haven’t got the full hang of this thermic flying here, and truth be told, haven’t made a great effort of late to get out and back into it.

 

Ok, I think that’s enough from me. I await he innumerable feedback comments, the ones you totally fail to give each month, with bated breath.