ajft

I guess this is how all the non-English-speaking inhabitants of the planet feel when inundated with English language emails and surveys. Last week I bid on a very dodgy looking item that appeared in ebay, the next day it had vanished. The next day an identical dodgy-looking item reappeared, but from a different seller. I bid on it...

Yesterday I received a great long email from ebay.de, I have no idea why, either they guessed from my surname that I'm German (which I'm not) or they saw Australia and mis-read it as Austria, or some other reason. Any way, I passed it through a translator, laughed at the output, guessed it was something about a dodgy transaction, and wrote back to ebay.de to let them know that I can't read or speak German. They then wrote back telling me that the auction had been fraudulent and they'd suspended the seller. Today I receive a second German email from ebay.de, this one pointing me off to a survey — customer satisfaction I guess — I've ticked a whole range of boxes, then finally at the end there's a space for comments, so I told them yet again that I can't speak or read German!

Two years roll around, Henry Rollins rolls in with it! Two and a half hours of full-on intense monologue, no half-measures, no let-up. I'm convinced the guy will explode one day. 21st April 2001, 07th May 2003, then the 27th of May 2005. I guess he'll be back sometime mid 2007...

Rugby, Chapelle Corby, Kylie's tit, the Trans-Siberian express, inane modern communication via smilies, texting and email, George W. Bush and the Christian Taliban of America, the oration doesn't ramble, its more like a bulldozer on amphetamines. Somewhat repetitive, and if it wasn't Henry saying it, probably half the audience would be booing, but somehow he makes it entertaining.

I'm not sure how I'll survive but I'm now camera-less for four to five weeks, maybe less if Canon can fix my camera sooner. This morning I made my way up and down the hills of Blackburn road into the wilds of Burwood and visited the Canon service centre — expecting a short visit and maybe even for it to be fixed on the spot. Merely filling out the online form to book it in for a repair took at least half an hour, then only after I parted company with it did they tell me that they typically quote four to five weeks, because all parts have to be ordered in! Friday's phone call certainly didn't give the same impression.

Found out why Australia Post never called me back from when I last contacted them about parcels being dumped in the garden back in April. Seems that they verbally assured me that they would call me back, but noted down in the job entry that “the customer requires no response.”

After Friday's parcel in the garden, I put in a second query. I've been again verbally assured that someone will contact me after the delivery contractor has been contacted. Anyone care to place bets on when or if I'll hear from them?

Ground Effect, 1;
Australia Post, nil.

Following up on my missing parcel from Monday, Ground Effect sent me a replacement, after asking for a different address. With some trepidation I gave them the home address, since every parcel that we've had delivered here since last October has been left lying on either the footpath or the front doorstep, not once, but every single time!

Sure enough, I got home this evening and there it was, sitting on the footpath just inside the front fence! Time for another enquiry to Australia Post, but I don't hold much hope, after the last one I lodged they assured me that they took it seriously and would phone me back that afternoon... no surprise when they didn't phone that afternoon or any time afterwards.

The day's other customer service three ring circus was when I decided to give Canon a call. Some time after my camera zoom buttons broke over a year ago I'd asked a couple of camera shops if they could be repaired, they'd generally just shaken their heads and told me I'd need to get a new camera. Last week a cow-orker pointed out that the major Canon service centre is only a suburb or two away. Thinking I'd call first and find out if they can fix it, I look them up in the phone book, get the address, and call up to ask... dial 13 13 83, play voicemail games, wait for a minute or two, get hung up on. Call again, this time the voicemail is incredibly distorted and unintelligible, hang up. Call a third time, listen to the prompts, push the buttons, wait for five and a half minutes being told how important I am, and finally get to speak to a person. “Bring it in so they can look at it and tell you whether or not they can fix it.” Thanks, I guess. Next week I find out whether they can fix it — thus removing any excuse for me needing a new camera!

'twas a beautiful sunny morning as I was heading off to work, so I decided to take some photos along the way. Not as interesting as my previous commute from Richmond, but it has its advantages — the shortness being the main one!

Ground Effect make some nice bike gear, I've never had a problem with them before, but I was extremely nervous the first time I ordered anything from overseas. Never had a problem with the items being delivered, but two weeks ago I lodged an order, they claim it was shipped on the 2nd, but the parcel has vanished. Damn! $90 out of pocket unless someone can find the item. Of course they only ship it normal mail, so there's no receipts or consignment numbers. The mail room at work can't help and have referred me to Australia Post, Australia Post can't help and have referred me back to the sender, I now have to wait and see whether Ground Effect can get anywhere with the New Zealand post office...

Update: Ground Effect shipped me a replacement, and despite Australia Post dumping it on the footpath, I received it at home on the 20th.

?huh?

?huh?

People in cars do the darndest things. Today's idiot du jour was the passenger in the silver Barina, P-plates, Vic. rego. PZD-984. There it was stopped at the traffic lights about five cars from the front, he decided to throw the passenger door fully open in order to spit on the ground. Somehow I managed to just stop before ramming his head into the open car door. Maybe I shouldn't have braked so hard, maybe having his head rammed into the door might have helped him think in future....

Next set of traffic lights I was keeping an eye out backwards — just in case the driver decided to try something even more idiotic to endanger my life — luckily not, but I did get to watch her drive through the Dandenong road intersection after the lights were red. Oh yeah, and two of their three brake lights are defective.

What happens when someone buys the cheapest possible bicycle on the market? Well, it comes from a large department store, it comes in a cardboard box, it comes with either poor or no instructions, and it needs to be assembled. Can we blame the owner of the Huffy I saw this morning who had built the bike with the front forks on backwards? One of the overseas students turned up riding it at the cyclist breakfast, two of us tried to fix it, but everything is rusted solid and the forks cannot be moved.

Hmmm, an easy to use camera. An EASYSHARE™ camera. A camera purchased partly on the premise that it can be plugged straight into its printer and needs no computer. The new owner opens the box, there is no manual, three CDs and a single sheet of paper fall out. The manual is on a CD in an Adobe PDF file, the sheet of paper states in big letters that he must install the software before using the camera. The by now slightly annoyed new owner decides to install the software — in order to see what he needs to do to use his camera and printer that need no computer. The software won't install, it complains that Windows XP is a version of Windows that is not supported by that software, spits out a Kodak error code and tells him to contact Kodak technical support.

Ten out of ten Mr Kodak!

The latest acquisition sits gleaming in the sun as I'm about to make my way to work. Dating back to pre-Japanese bicycles, its got "Australian Made" 28¼" Dunlop tyres, no brand name, and an English back-pedal brake. Why on earth did I collect it from the hard rubbish yeterday when we were out walking around the suburb?...

Out the door a bit after eight thirty, a quick ride into the city, arrived in plenty of time to join the rally. I guessed somewhere between 100-200 cyclists turned up to support the Wheels of Justice rally in Adelaide, complaining about the total inadequacy of a $3,100 sentence for a driver who killed a cyclist in a hit and run collision.

On a much happier note, GPS tags in EXIF headers of images, flickr tags and googlemaps appear to be all coming together. Geobloggers can display images on maps based on either the tags added to a Flickr image, or (supposedly) pulled straight out of the EXIF headers. I say supposedly, because after tagging five images manually I can find them all ¹, but attempting to use the EXIF data failed ². As a further test ³, I dredged up and tagged an old photo from August 2003 that I'd taken in the UK, since googlemaps can only display maps of the USA and UK.

1. In Australia, works, but no map: tags are "geo:lat=-37.900", "geo:lon=145.106" and "geotagged". [37.900°S 145.1106°E]

2. In Australia, doesn't work: tags are "geocoded", the latitude and longitude are in the EXIF headers. [38.749°S 143.670°W]

3. In the UK, works: tags are "geo:lat=51.337", "geo:lon=-0.904" and "geotagged". [51.537°N -0.904°W]

OK, time for stage one. What do you do with all your favourite old t-shirts? Are they destined to be completely ephemeral, worn for a few years while fashionable (or unfashionable), then to be lobbed into the void or the rag-bag for all eternity? Or do we seek to preserve them in some unnatural way, a practical garment rendered impractical by being treated as something more than mere clothing?

So what prompted it? Comments a few weeks ago that my shirt of the day was past its prime, but was probably an old favourite, and what would I do when it finally became unwearable. Attempts to cram the washing away showed just how many t-shirts there are in my life... bands, a myriad of bike-ride shirts, artistic and just plain utilitarian.

So here we go, stage one. Five at almost random, photographed to see how it works. The T-Shirt Preservation Society convenes its' inaugural meeting. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Daleks, more Daleks, the Ramones and Sid.

Two court results of the week:

  WA: man vandalises a speed camera — $109,000 fine
  SA: man kills cyclist in hit and run — $3,100 fine

Sheesh!

At least the South Australian government has just announced a Royal Commission will be enquiring into the handling of the hit and run.

There's a rally being held to protest against a recent decision in an Adelaide court, which saw lawyer Eugene McGee handed down a $3100 fine and 12 months loss of licence for hitting and killing cyclist Ian Humphreys whilst drink driving in his four wheel drive.

Afraid that he might "damage his career" he didn't stick around at the scene of the accident. When he was later apprehended by police, McGee was not breath tested or blood tested, even though he admitted to having had 4 or 5 glasses of wine and police admitted to having smelt alcohol on his breath.

Two brothers who stopped to see if they could help at the accident scene claim that their statements to police have been changed, and are baffled as to why they were not called to give evidence in court despite claiming to have witnessed McGee driving erratically at speeds of up to 160kph, then speeding off after hitting the cyclist.

A group called "Wheels of Justice" has formed in SA — they think it's pretty lousy that it only costs $3000 to kill a cyclist and are holding a rally in Adelaide on the weekend; there is a concurrent action being held at Fed Square from 9:30am on Saturday 7th May. People who cycle and feel that their lives should be protected by the law are encouraged to bring their bikes and join the rally, which will travel to the steps of Parliament House — pedestrians also welcome.

Mayday! Mayday! It's Jack's birthday — family birthday party anyway, I think he spent the rest of the weekend at other birthday parties!

Best present of all — a Saints footy jumper. Best for him and his dad, not best for the non-Saints fans in the family! Lego, radio-controlled car, bug-catcher, bell and helmet for the bicycle — all the essentials that small boys need in the 21st Century!

An interesting obvservation of Jack's bicycle though — as I lifted it to move it around and install the bell I nearly pulled a muscle! Then I just had to carry it into the bathroom to weigh — 13 kilograms including trainer wheels! That's heavier than either of my or Jo's bikes! Remember that all you cyclists next time you see a five year old struggling to ride alongside mum and dad!