Annoying complainy people

January 19th, 2010

They’re everywhere and they’ll always find something they don’t like. And if the thing they don’t like gets better, then they’ll complain about the fact that it’s not what it used to be.

Case in point:

I work for a government institution. Everyone that works here has either a government email address or an institution email address. The government addresses work on Outlook; the institution addresses run on some old-ish Novell system, which nobody likes much.

Over the break, the Novell system was switched over to the M1cro$oft Live system. It’s web based; it can be accessed from anywhere; it has 25GB of web space for each user. And lots of other bells/whistles etc.

But new technology is always something to complain about.

I run the facebook page for this institution and made the mistake of asking fans what they thought of the new system. A complainer thought this was a great opportunity to complain.

“It’s terrible,” she said. Then listed why it was terrible.

She has since removed her comments, probably out of embarrassment (and probably after I posted a slightly passive-aggressive comment of Shakespearian proportions on how staff switching over to the new system are pioneers, paving the way and overcoming the hurdles so that others may face the transition easily).

But she wasn’t disappointed with the features of the “terrible” new system, only with the fact that the changeover hadn’t been seamless.
Which is like buying a DVD player, then saying it’s shit because you can’t watch your VHS tapes on it.

Posted in Ma vie | No Comments »

Luxury’s disappointment

January 15th, 2010

My sister has a new “shack” on the south coast. I use inverted commas because it’s not a shack at all: it’s a brand spanking new house. But because it’s their house away from home by the coast, they use the vernacular and call it a shack. (All the more ironic when you consider their actual home is in a different town on the south coast and probably physically closer to the beach than their “shack” is. But I digress.)

Because the place is new, they chose to furnish it with new stuff. This included new beds, furniture, and appliances like fridge, microwave, dishwasher and TV. And they got a pretty nice 42″ plasma job.

My extended family was invited to spend a couple of nights there in the days after Xmas. And a lovely time was had by all.

On the drive home though, C suddenly made it known she wanted to upgrade our 80 cm CRT TV to a 42″ flat screen model.

Now, I’m as much into new tech and gadgets as anyone but I know that with an 80 cm TV, sitting 4 m away, the detail of the picture is just fine. I’ve never really felt the need to jump on the HD bandwagon. I might have mentioned as much before: so much of what’s on TV is either shit, or I don’t have time to watch it. I don’t need to see Deal or No Deal in stunning HD quality. It’s just overkill.

But, on the drive, home, we stopped in at Colonnades and picked up a 42″ LCD and a surround sound AV receiver.

Later that evening…

We were asking ourselves what we should watch on our new big screen and the choice was naturally a random episode of Gilmore Girls, which we love for the witty banter and esoteric pop-culture references. I think we dived in somewhere in the middle of season three.

But it wasn’t the same.

The picture was so clear, it made the whole show look like it had been shot on home video; there was none of that movie-quality softeness to the picture. It somehow broke down the fourth wall and made the show look not like genuine people in a small town in Connecticut but made it look like we were looking through the camera at actors, acting on a set on a backlot in LA. It ruined the illusion completely.

First step was to desaturate the colour. Then, I took the sharpness right back to as low as it would go (because Lauren and Alexis should be in soft focus) and then I dug through the menu and found this setting that takes the blur out when there’s panning and turned it off to put the blur back in. Save settings.

So now we can watch stuff in HD when what we’re watching lends itself to that. But when it’s more about the story, the characters and the show (as opposed to the technology), we can now apply our own “make it look like shit” user settings.

Posted in Ma vie | No Comments »

Low tech

December 31st, 2009

I’m in Port Vincent for New Year’s. It’s a great place to be. On New Year’s Day there is a Gala Day, with street markets, lots of really shitty but tasty food, a big bouncy castle for the kidlets and really really bad entertainment played over an ancient PA.

It’s brilliant.

We’re staying with friends who live on the main street. Which is nice.

Anyway, around this time of year, what with all the colour and summerness of the place, I like to whack a colour film in my Holga and set out to take that quintessential summer photo.

I took the kids to the beach this morning: my two and our friends’ son. He saw the Holga and wanted to know if it was a real camera. My eldest explained to him that it was a Toy Camera that took real photos.

The boy was trying to look at the back of it. I could tell why.

“Doesn’t it have a screen?” he asked.

“A screen?” I said. “It doesn’t even have batteries.”

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Posted in Bairn, Ma vie, Photography, Travels | 1 Comment »

You can’t really tell I’m crippled

November 24th, 2009

Firstly, mind the look of the place. This blog is like most people’s spare room at the moment. Nobody comes in here much, it’s a bit of a mess but there’s definitely a plan to fix the place up a bit. That said, Christmas is coming and with all the weekends pretty much booked out between now and then, I’m not sure when I’ll find the time. But I digress.

Here is something what happened to me the other day.

I was picking Little Miss L up from after-school care. I was walking towards the building when I heard her yell to me from across the yard and come running towards me. She gave me an update as to what she’d been up to and one of her friends showed me a butterfly she’d caught. It was very exciting. The carer looking after them was a young man, I think he was one of the year 12s.

I noticed there was some sporting equipment strewn about the place and as my daughter and friends were talking to me, I picked up a stray volleyball a few feet away.  I told Miss L to go inside and get her gear and as she took off, I threw the ball above my head and set it in the direction of the big green wheely bin the balls go in. I think it hit the edge and bounced away but it was close.

The carer said “So, you used to play a bit of volleyball…?”

!?

“Used to…?”

I’m not in a fucking walking frame just yet, thankyouverymuch.

I’m still in my 30s and when I did play volleyball I played with and against people in their late 40s, possibly 50s. And while I may be retired hurt, you can’t tell just from looking at me: I walk upright and I’m still rather thin.

So while he was technically correct on the fact that I used to play (technically incorrect on the “a bit” part; I used to play a shitload of volleyball), I just didn’t like his assumption.

I guess though, that if I have a shoulder chip, then it’s my inability to play any kind of meaningful sport. My ankle is never going to recover, so that pretty much rules out any sport that involves standing up.

Which is most of them.

So I hate it when I hear people saying “oh, I can’t be arsed going for a jog”, when I’d gladly do it for them.

Posted in Ma vie, Sport | 2 Comments »

Yes, it still hurts

October 23rd, 2009

And no, I’m not about to launch into some kind of self-indulgent teenage song lyrics (is there any other kind of teenage song lyrics?). My heart isn’t broken, and thank you, I’m over all the nasty stuff that happened in high school. None of it was actually nasty, I was just there with a bunch of teenagers and you know what they’re like.

What I got goin’ on is the traditional, hurty pain that you get when some of your bits are broken or damaged or angry at you for daring to go out and have a bit of a run around after four years of not. “Take that!” my injured bits are saying to me. And I am. Taking it. For four weeks now.

It’s been interesting as the pain has changed from something deep within the joint: something dull and nebulous that I couldn’t quite point to but that made me feel almost nauseous, to something sharp and articulate like wearing an anklet of thorns.

There are a few tried and trusted ways of coping with pain like this.

  • Painkillers. Anything codeine based seems to do the trick for me, though they never completely mask the pain. I mean, it’s an ankle: the pills go into my stomach but the ankle is all the way down there, so far away. I’d prefer having the edge taken off than no relief at all. And I may joke about it but I never mix them with alcohol.
  • Not minding that it hurts. Not as silly as it sounds. The very reason the painkillers don’t work–that the ankle is so remote and distant–also enables me to somehow distance myself from the pain, and observe it as an impartial observer. Like looking at the sun and saying “gosh, that’s bright”, I’m able to look all the way down there at my foot and say “fuck, that’s painful” and just treat it as an arbitrary sensation. It’s very zen and detached, I know. But that’s just how cool I am, I guess.
  • Other distractions. Work is actually good, when you can get into the swing of things and keep the painful bits relatively still. Lying in bed doing nothing on the other hand… not so easy to ignore it. I might try reading a book later and see if that helps it go away.
  • Sex. Hoping to report on this as a method of pain relief sometime in the hopefully-not-too-distant future.

But it’s all fun and games really. I’ve been seeing some lovely doctors, such as my podiatrist. Now, I’m not covered for podiatry; I usually only go twice a year so it’s not really worth the extra in health insurance just to have her re-cover my orthotics. But now I’ve been going a bit more regularly I had to rethink it. And of course, if I were to get a whole new set of orthotics it would actually be cheaper to pay for it outright than it would to pay the extra premium —and I wouldn’t be able to claim the new ones for a year. Gotta love insurance.

Next week I’m booked into a foot/ankle specialist. Someone new. I get to tell another person the whole story and don’t we all love talking about ourselves?

But I’m going to be pleading with him to inject some cortisone into my joint. Now, I know that’s not a very long-term solution but while I’m working out what that might be, I just need some relief in the short term. Because it hurts.

And, for better comfort, I had to wear sneakers to work today and consequently I look like a bit of a dick.

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Posted in Ma vie | No Comments »

It ain’t broke (but it ain’t fixed either)

September 26th, 2009

This week marked my auspicious return to the volleyball court. I had forgotten which year it was that I last slipped on the knee pads but due to the magic of putting a lot of work into writing a blog since 2003, I can simply go back in time and see that my operation was in December 2005.

Footballers have whole knee reconstructions and are on the field again after six weeks. You’d think that after nearly four years, I might be able to have a bit of a runaround, whack a few balls about the place and generally enjoy myself doing what I love.

And, as things went, I did have a pretty good time. I was very rusty and very out of shape but the rest of the team I was on was just as rusty or maybe less experienced, so I found myself compensating for some of them; encroaching on their space a bit when the other team’s best server came on (well, someone had to get a dig up).

I was really unfit though, and my legs’ transformation to jelly began somewhere around the end of the first set.

But wow. It was really good. The game wasn’t of the best standard but I got a few good hits in, set up a few good points, saved a few points and even blocked on or two.

After the game though, I knew I wasn’t going to be jumping about the place the next day. I even stopped at the supermarket on the way home for a bag of frozen peas: they make great ice packs.

I had taped the ankle, wrapped it in a bandage and put the whole lot in a lace-up brace. I didn’t land on it funny, twist it, roll it or even give it a dirty look all game.

It wasn’t swollen or damaged. But it was angry.

Next day, I couldn’t walk on it. I worked from home but had to go into town for a meeting and had to grab my trusty old walking stick.

There I was with my stubble, untucked shirt and pack of painkillers. If I’d suddenly amassed an incredible knowledge of diagnostic medicine I could have passed for Doctor House. I had the odd urge to send random strangers for a liver biopsy. I even thought of taking all my painkillers out of the blister pack and putting them in one of those little yellowy-orange plastic bottles.

Anyway, long story short, it’s Saturday morning and I still can’t walk properly. The ankle is just too weak. I’ve told the guy who got me on the team that it’s not looking too good. He’s hoping it’ll come good; so am I, of course.

But the writing’s on the wall and the writing says ‘Whatever you do, don’t even think about setting foot on a volleyball court ever again unless you want a life of pain and resemblance to a certain fictional crippled TV doctor’.

In other news

We’re going away today, back Tuesday. Off to the Yorke Peninsula. We usually get out for a drive or other such fun but the weather’s looking like crap for at least the rest of the weekend. I’ll be voting for sticking the kids in front of a DVD, sitting on the verandah with a glass of wine and a good book.

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Posted in Ma vie, Sport, Travels | 1 Comment »

The shoe’s on the other foot now

September 12th, 2009

Payday is Monday, so in the preceding weekend, things sometimes get a bit tight. We banked a cheque on Wednesday which was supposed to have cleared by this morning.

It hasn’t.

I called the bank, who have admitted a “processing fault”. So I just emailed them this:

Dear Co******alth Bank,

I have just been speaking to one of your customer service representatives regarding uncleared funds in my account.

Your representative has admitted that a cheque of the amount of $**.**, deposited on 09/09/09 has not cleared and that the fault lies entirely with the bank.

Because of this failure, a fee of $200 has been imposed, payable by you into my account immediately.

If the funds have not cleared by midday today, another $200 fee will be imposed.

Please pay the original amount as soon as possible to avoid any further fees.

Regards,

Andrew B***
The Customer

I mean, what goes around….

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Posted in Banks are cunts | No Comments »

Rush hour

September 11th, 2009

I used to work in the city.

And yeah, I already mentioned this in a post. It’s just that it weighs so heavily on my mind, I’m hoping that writing about it will be a little cathartic.

Mornings are all go in our house. There are kids to get up and dressed, lunches to pack, kids to ask again to get dressed, cups of tea and breakfasts to make, and “Kids, why can’t you bloody well get dressed when you’re told” to be said, repeated and yelled day after day. Getting out of the door on time means being in the car at 7.45, or 7.50 at the latest. 8 am is doable but it’s a rush.

My wife and kids get off together at school in the city. To get a park for drop off, we need to be there by 8.15, otherwise we’re doing laps of the block for 10 or 20 minutes. On a good (early) day, I can even get out and take the kids into class and say goodbye. I realise that in a couple of years they won’t want me anywhere near them and all kids probably wish they could take out restraining orders to keep their parents a safe distance from school, so if I get the chance to do classroom activities, I’m fine with that.

If I’m catching the bus, I need to be in the centre of the city by 8.20. I rarely make this and usually end up having to wait till nearly 8.35 for a bus that gets me setting foot in the office around 9.07.

If I’m driving to work I have to be on the road again by about 8.35. Taking the car, I can usually get in the office before or right on 9. See, I like to get to work early. Because if you get to work early, you can leave early. And who doesn’t like leaving early?

I sometimes get all narky if I’m running late: when traffic’s heavy, when there are too many 25 zones, when people don’t know that when the light is green and the red arrow disappears, they’re allowed to turn right. Or if the bus is late, I get annoyed having to sit in Victoria square… waiting in disbelief that the buses can be so early/late/irregular (really, they publish timetables for buses. I can’t think of anything more useless).

I should say I used to get narky. I don’t really now. Not anymore.

I don’t enjoy working out of the city. At least not on the other side of the city from where I live. It’s not that I dislike the north in particular but I am in a rather unattractive corner of the metro area. The first day I caught the bus out here, I knew to get off at stop 18. I dutifully pressed the Next Stop button after stop 17 and stepped off a minute or so later. Turns out it wasn’t stop 18 but stop 17A. Of course. Obviously.

Stop 17A puts you right outside what looks like some disused packing plant. There’s a derelict factory with those really high rail things that you could move stuff on (don’t ask me what). There’s an expanse of overgrown grass and a brick building close to the road. It’s been tagged to the point there’s hardly any brown brick exposed. All the windows have been smashed. Some have been boarded up and subsequently had the boards smashed.

I was stopped in traffic the other day at Light Square. About a billion people wanted to turn right into Currie St and the right hand slip lane had filled up so nobody could get past the right-turners to go straight; they were all in the straight-ahead lane waiting to turn right. I thought “this is gonna make me late. I have to get to…” Then the image of stop 17A popped into my head. And I realised that this—being in the city amid the chaos of morning rush hour—was where I really wanted to be.

The place I work—the suburb, the strip mall, the broken footpaths—is so disconnected from the city in my mind, it’s like I work in another country. When I’m in the city, I can’t believe that it’s possible to get to a place so far away, not in distance but in mood. Of course, I know the way, and whether I’m on the bus or driving, I get here eventually.

And I still want to get here early because the work itself is fine and I want to impress the right people well enough so that I can get another job back in the city. And I still like to leave early.

But the crazy driving, dropoff, driving again. I don’t really get narky anymore. Driving through the city, or waiting in it for a bus… that’s the highlight of my day.

Posted in Adelaide, Idea v. Reality, Ma vie, Work | No Comments »

Master of my domain (or not …yet)

August 21st, 2009

Two net-related things that annoy me recently:

1.Twitter.

Or, more specifically, twitterspam. I wrote something about looking through stock images the other day and within a few hours, I was being followed by a company that was all about providing stock images.

This is an interesting example, because although I hate the concept of trawling twitter for keywords as a way to market your wares, I actually found this kind of interesting and am currently following back (big internal dilemma, that one). I think because I actually found the targeting kind of useful, I found myself following. I’ll give them a week.

But I hate 99% of the other twitspam.

I kind of think of the twitter “conversation” as being like a crowded pub, or party. I’m talking to a friend. I mention stock photos, or whatever. There’s a guy standing near me who hears me mention this and says “That’s interesting you mentioned stock photography because I actually manage a photo library”.

This isn’t too bad. Though the analogy is more like he was at the party eavesdropping on multiple conversations, hoping someone would mention it. If you did that at a party, people would think you were weird and avoid you, you lurking freak. But it’s niche enough that some people might, if they’re already talking about it, be interested. Fair enough.

What shits me though, is the number of new followers I get who have pictures of pretty teenage girls attached, who say nothing in their feeds, only posting a bunch of links (and while url-shortening services are cool, they do mask the real url, so you have no idea if it will land you somewhere extrememly nsfw, which I bet most of them do).

The pub or party equivalent of this is some filthy fat bugger in unwashed jeans, holding up a facemask of a pretty young model, walking up to his target demographic (probably just males) and whispering “wanna see some pictures of chicks doing it?”

Block.

2. Domain name gluttons

I’m looking at doing a new website (long overdue). Having my own url will mean I can finally get some business cards printed so I can at least give off the illusion of being a professional freelancer (in a completely on-the-side way, you understand).

But, be buggered if I can think of a good name for a domain. Or, more precisely, be buggered if I can think of a good name that isn’t already being used. Or, more precisely, be buggered if i can think of a good name that isn’t already not being used but is owned by someone who has no intention of using it and only owns it on the off chance you’ll want to use it and wants to charge you $3,500US for something that should only cost $20. Fuck you, mate, dot com.

For the record, I want something fairly arbitrary as a domain name. The only thing I don’t like about my friend Bruce’s domain, tenpm (where he kindly lets me park this rubbish), is that it actually stands for something.  I liked it better when I though it was just a short, memorable but completely nondescript entity. It doesn’t have to mean anything. That’s what I want. (And the one I really wanted, arbitraryurl.com, is already taken by someone who, while not using it, at least isn’t whoring it out to the highest bidder. Actually, they may be using it. It’s either laziness or art. I can’t work it out.)

And since I posted to twitter about this the other day, I’m surprised the domain whores aren’t following me, hoping I’ll grace them with a clickthrough.

Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »

I just work here

August 6th, 2009

I started a new job a little over a month ago. The actual job, where I sit down and do the actual work, isn’t too bad.

But I’m now working north of the city.

I live south of the city.

So getting here, taking so long to get here, having to catch the bus rather than the train, being here, sharing an office big enough for three with five other people, getting sore eyes from staring at two monitors all day, being subjected to another staff member’s musical tast all day, NOT being in the city, having to go to other non-city, outlying suburbs regularly, having to sit on the bus for more than an hour to get home… that sucks.

Not happy. And I’m so unfit I feel disgusting.

And I need a haircut.

I used to get that done in the city.

Posted in Adelaide, Work | No Comments »

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