Category: domestic life

A totally left of centre offer today: I was aksed to consider running for the Liberty and Democracy Party as their candidate in Forrest.

The initial rush of blood to the head was like blood to a vampire for me: it’s hard to ever get away from politics once you’ve been involved at some stage, and particularly so as I was for 12 years of my life in the Liberal Party.

I’m giving it some serious thought, and I’ll probably sleep on it tonight. On one hand when I quit the Liberal Party that was suppose to be it for me in politics, and given what little it gave back over 12 long years of blood, sweat and tears it should have been it. And yet the LDP has a policy platform that is totally in sync with my fundamental political beliefs, beliefs which I’d note where once Liberal beliefs that were forgotten in the orgy of socialism that is the Howard Government.

Obviously I couldn’t win, but I might get enough votes to make a difference, and maybe even help get the LDP senate candidate up.

More soon.

A little message to My Mac, an official Apple reseller located on Flinders Street, Melbourne.

That’s My Mac, My Mac of Melbourne, My Mac Apple Reseller, My Mac Apple Melbourne 🙂

I’ve just received a call on my mobile that I thought I’d share with everyone rather than complain to the TIO and ACCC.

The phone rings, I answer it.

There is silence, then a foreign ring tone….a sure sign I’m about to talk to an Indian Call Centre.

Me: Duncan Riley Speaking
Call Centre: I’m calling from Primus Telecom and am calling to say that we will be sending you a free phone
Me: OK……., so it’s totally free
CC: Yes
Me: free calls?
CC: You get $29 worth of calls a month
Me: so I get $29 worth of completely free calls
CC: We are sending you a completely free Nokia 53XX
Me: ok, so what is the catch
CC: We are sending you the phone today
Me: I still don’t understand, will the calls be free
CC: you will have $29 worth of calls a month
Me: but will I pay for those calls
CC: $29 a month
Me: so it’s not free
CC: we are sending you a free Nokia 53xx
Me: But I already have a phone
CC: We are sending you a new phone sir.
Me: But I didn’t ask for a new phone
CC: We are sending you a new phone sir.
Me: but I’ll have to pay $29 a month to use it
CC: That includes $29 worth of calls
Me: but I don’t won’t a new phone
CC: you don’t wont a free phone sir?
Me: no, I don’t.
CC: Good bye Sir. (Hangs up).

The worst thing: if I hadn’t asked questions and just listened to “we are sending you a free phone” and thought “you ripper, a free phone” I would probably have agreed to accept the phone, which would have then locked me in to some sort of Primus Plan without knowing it; after all, they would have a voice recording of me saying that I am accepting the phone.

To say this is an appalling scam would be an understatement. I wonder how many unsuspecting Australian’s have received “free” phones from Primus to only discover a month later that they are stuck on a $29/ month plan. Lets hope someone important (ie: in the relevant Commonwealth Statutory Body) reads this and takes action. 

In an age of crap customer service and people who don’t care, every now and then you encounter a company that bucks the trend.

At 10am PST this morning (1am AWST) I got an email from my wife indicating that the hose behind the fridge had broken and that a good portion of the house was ankle deep in water. I Googled Bunbury Flood Help from the other side of the world and found Bunbury Fire and Flood. She who must be obeyed rang them and they were there within 45 minutes with industrial water vacuums etc… and they were nice about it as well. The service includes a dehumidifier and floor board repairs as well.

So a quick thanks to Bunbury Fire and Flood. I hope we’ll never ever need to use again, but I’m more than happy to recommend you to others in need.

But I should add to the post title that it took 30 minutes including me arguing with a Big-W Bunbury floor manager to get this price.

1 big box of lego, advertised (so I found out at the checkout) for $28.88 on special (I’m guessing its usually $40-$50), the floor price as the photo shows:  $8.88. The checkout chick and door person were great, they had to check which is their jobs, but they were good about it. The bitch who met me on the floor on the other hand wasn’t on the same planet: get this, her line was that the lego I was trying to buy was “accidentally” placed on the shelf by a customer and therefore not valid at the price. I asked her repeatedly whether she actually understood what she was saying, given there were 10 other boxes of the EXACT same lego on the shelf how it could be an accident?…indeed the entire display consisted only of the same lego products. It’s only when I started taking pictures and threatening the Trade Practices Act that something was done, by the time I was back at the checkout it was all sorted. Still 30 bloody minutes though. God, I wish we had Wal-Mart in Australia, nothing could be as retarded as anything owned by Coles or Woolworths in comparison…and this is just today’s story, if I blogged every issue I have at one of these stores there would be at least 4 posts a week…like the mole at Coles who bit my head off when I asked where a product was, telling me there was a perfectly good store guide at the end of the isle, or the moldy bread products that were 2 weeks past their use buy date at Woolworths…. 🙂

Some good news and something I never imagined happening when I attended the last TechCrunch party in New York last November; at this stage I will be attending the next TechCrunch party at August Capital at Menlo Park, California July 27. I’ve never been to the West Coast before (no slings and arrows please) so I’m looking forward to it, obviously from the opportunity of networking as well as actually seeing what the hype is about. Will be great to meet a lot of the people I’ve corresponded with , people like Brian Solis and others. I should be on the ground for around a week, given I’m likely staying at Michael Arringtons house my only request is that people don’t try to pitch their startups at first light, but aside from that I will be some-what available 🙂

While working today a window popped up and reminded me that I have less than 2 weeks to validate my legally bought legitimate copy of Microsoft Vista. It’s not the first time this has occurred. I still haven’t gotten around to reinstalling Vista twice as recommended by Microsoft to get rid of this, but it is the tipping point that has finally driven me to lose faith in a company I’ve used for 20 years. From my first XT running Dos through many years of new computers, including building many of them myself, through Win 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME, XP and now Vista I’ve remained a PC guy. I’ve literally spent tens of thousands of dollars, and yet Microsoft finds it necessary to punish me today, despite doing the right thing and running a legal copy of Windows on a system that came pre-installed with XP: the bloody product key is still stuck to the side of the box, not that it matters to them.

Today I ordered my first ever Mac.

I’d had advice to buy a Macbook Pro or similar, but I already have a laptop, one that will pretty soon probably be running Linux. Given my expenditure already on a wireless keyboard/ mouse, webcam and twin 22″ monitors the only logical choice is a Mac Pro. They’re not particularly cheap, but I shopped around and I didn’t buy directly from Apple. Went for the basic twin 2.66ghz dual core Intel Xeons, only ordered it with 1GB of Ram though, $480 for an extra 1GB is insane and I’ll pickup some generic Ram that will work in the system in the next couple of days. 500gb hard drive and bluetooth support just for good measure, you can never future proof a system enough.

I’m not sure whether to be sad, angry or just plain excited. Obviously a super fast new system is exciting, but it’s sad that it’s gotten to this point. The anger is directed at Microsoft. Here’s hoping that the new system meets expectations. I’ve got no idea when it might get here, it’s coming from Melbourne so I’d guess a week, and I’ll write some more when it finally arrives. I’ve got a lot of homework to do in the mean time, like tossing up buying Office for Mac or just ditching Office all together, replacement software, running Parallels etc… all things that need to be considered for a new system.

Update: it just occurred to me that read alone this sounds like I’m making the switch just because of one thing. I’m not, it’s the many things in Vista that don’t work, the error messages I get every morning about a MCE db error, the programs that wont run, the programs Vista wont allow to run, and the never ending “are you sure boxes”…whoever thought up that idea at Microsoft should be shot. Simply I probably wouldn’t be making the switch if I’d stuck with XP. Win XP was a great OS, I never had any issue at all across 3-4 boxes and XP editions including MCE (which I’ve still got on a dedicated box). XP was the pinnacle of Microsoft programming, Vista is like the last days of the Roman Empire.

8:45pm as I write this. At 12:30pm today I inserted Vista into my computer for an upgrade. Still isn’t working, after the worlds longest install process it just hung on booting up, the little loading ticker scrolling over and over and over again. Just finally worked out a way to re-install it without losing the contents of my hard disk, although looks like programs will need to be reinstalled.

Microsoft: it’s just not good enough.

And yes, I ran the compliance tests. I’m compliant, 64bit AMD 3400+ with 2gb ram should be plenty good and that’s the result the program gave me.

I’m tempted to download Ubuntu and be done with Windows altogether, or even the hacked version of Mac OSX that is suppose to run on a normal PC 🙂

It probably serves me right for gloating about getting a bargain. 2 weeks later and my Sony HD TV still hasn’t arrived. When I agreed to buy the thing the salesman told me 2 days. After I handed over the money I was told 1 week and a bit, Thursday to be precise. So I wait at home Thursday (last week) for it to arrive. Nothing. I ring them Thursday 3pm, I’m told it will definitely be there the next day (Friday). So I ring Bunbury Retravision at 10am Friday, am told that yes, TV is on the truck on the way to me. Wait all day for the delivery. Ring at 3:30pm. Told again that the TV is on the delivery truck and will be with me very soon. Mind you, Thursday I’d packed up the old TV and put it away, ready for the new TV, so at this stage I’ve only viewing TV via small sets (to this day). 4:30pm Friday I get a phone call from the original salesman: the TV still hasn’t been shipped to Bunbury. I flip, big time. He offers me a free DVD player for my inconvenience. I accept but I still want the f*cking TV, he promises that it’s on its way, Monday, Tuesday at the latest.

It’s now its Tuesday, no phone call, no delivery, it’s now exactly 2 weeks since I paid for the thing, in actual folding cash based on a good price and despite the fact that EVERY OTHER electrical retailer had the TV in stock, and could have it to me the next day. So I ring Retravision at 4:30pm, they’ll get back to me, they call 15 minutes later, cant say when the TV might get here, manager will call me in the morning. I’ve rung The Goodguys Bunbury, they haven’t offered as good a price, but they’ve got the TV is stock. Even if it ends up costing a couple of hundred more, if I can have it there and then…

The story will continue tomorrow. For now, Retravision Bunbury: NEVER, EVER AGAIN. The only decision is to shop elsewhere with a retailer with staff that don’t lie continually for a living.

BTW: feel free to link to this post with the words Retravision Bunbury. I’m already the 1st result in Google for The Goodguys Bunbury, lets see if we cant make Retravision Bunbury have the same result 🙂

Update: phone call this morning from Retravision: maybe Friday, maybe next week on the TV. I got my money back, drove less that 1 km down the road to Good Guys, asked them to match the price, and walked out with the TV which is now setup and in my TV room. The Manager rang to apologise, I accepted the apology but I’ll still be hesitant to ever shop there again.

Tags: Retravision, Retravision Bunbury

An ode to all those blogs that ran pictures of new gaming systems arriving last year; my new system arrived in the post today:

The Box

OMG, the contents!

Yes! It’s a 30 year old, 1977 Atari CX2600 Woody!

Up close

Extras!

More photos, of it plugged in and working to follow 🙂

Tags: Atari 2600