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Went to turn on the IXUS 700 this evening to take a picture of Cam running around building towers in the kitchen and there was that horrible grinding noise from the plastic gears in the lens, three or four high pitched beeps and the dreaded message on the screen “E18”.

Bugger.

That'd be the error that seems to plague the IXUS cameras. The error that Canon refuses to acknowledge. The error the the Australian staff “had never heard of”. The error that my first IXUS700 thankfully got while under warranty and was replaced. The error that almost seems to inspire thoughts of products “not of merchantable quality” and “defective design.”

I guess I've had a reasonable run out of the camera, but I see no reason why I should have to spend big money because the bloody thing broke due to a fault that Canon built into them.

A bit of hunting around shows that the first one lasted from 2005-Jun-09 to 2006-Jan-03 — just on six months — then expired. The replacement took over two months to turn up, but I've been using it from 2006-Mar-06 up until last weekend — somewhere just over 4000 photos, it claims to be up to 4318, but has done some odd jumps when I've moved the memory card from a video camera back to the IXUS700.

Tomorrow I find out how much they want to repair an almost perfectly good camera that for four years has done almost everything I want. Sure, I'd prefer better macros and a better zoom, but anything else and I'd be giving up the convenience factor and the pocketability of the IXUS.

Refs:

• http://www.e18error.com/

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.

What happens when you combine stupid people with cars? Here's a local genius who may have spent too much time watching Hollywood movies and lost track of reality just a wee touch.

Man in hospital with head injuries after jumping from car at 90km/h

A 21-YEAR-OLD man who jumped out of a moving car while he was driving it at nearly 90km/h is in hospital with serious head injuries.

Police Constable Nikki Drever said the man was driving on the Surf Coast Hwy in the right-hand lane when he opened his door and jumped out of the vehicle about 1.25am Saturday, the Geelong Advertiser reports.

"Apparently he said, 'Wouldn't it be funny if I jumped out of the car while it was going' and then the next thing he jumped," she said.

:

Definite Darwin awards material, and we all have to share the roads with them.

In the usual roundabout fashion; from reading my RSS feeds through to a Norman Walsh post to a page by Tom Morris to a mention of OPML and then of FireEagle. All stuff I'm interested in, but all by people who are much better at using it, writing about it and hacking it, than I am.

• ~/pkg/OPML — OPML editor, Windows version that puts an ugly ^M at the end of every line.
• http://fireeagle.yahoo.net — login with my yahoo account and then update my location

After being away from Melbourne for three days we were more than a little apprehensive at what we'd find after the thunderstorms, the TV footage of metre deep floods in the CBD and hailstones the size of¹ golf-balls, tennis balls, lemons, etc all looked pretty frightening. How, exactly, would the wobbly old house hold up? According to the newspaper this morning, the centre of the swath of destruction had passed less than a suburb to the north, so it wasn't too promising.

Tip-toeing in the door and looking around showed us the suprising news that we had no broken windows, no soaked ceilings, none of the roof was missing and that the leaning gum tree in the backyard was still standing. There are shredded leaves everywhere along the side of the house and in the back garden from the neighbour's apricot and the bushes, the magnolia tree lost most of its leaves, and the jade plant took a pruning — but nothing much else seems to be a problem.

No sign of hail sitting around so it must have all melted by now, although some parts of the garden look partly plowed where it landed. A massive 68mm of rain in the rain-gauge, I can't remember when we last had that much rain in a month, let alone in a single weekend!

So how long to the next “One in a hundred year” storms?

Footnote:

1. Where would we be if people were forced to simply say “Five centimetre hailstones” rather than what seems to be a news-media inspired fishermen stories of ever increasing sizes?

Trundling home on the mountain bike towing the trailer, today I decided to go the slightly longer way via Huntingdale station and the full length of the bottle-strewn bike path to Oakleigh. Making my way carefully through the Huntingdale station car-park in case of idiots I had to suddenly slam on the brakes and stop to avoid an idiot reversing at speed out of a parking space without looking.

Surprise, surprise, surprise; same idiot as last week, same car as last week — old blue Ford Falcon rego. ODS-520 — same place as last week and pretty much the same behaviour as last week. Bogan boy come tearing backwards out of the space without looking — or maybe he looked but didn't care. Same sunnies, same fag hanging out the corner of his mouth.

I stop with the front wheel almost up against the driver's door.

“Thanks for watching where you're going,” in response he glares at me and sneers. “Yep, fine, have a nice day.” at this he muttered something and gave me the finger, planted his foot and tore off showering us with gravel and rubbish.

At least this time he didn't drive the wrong way out the one-way entrance.

I wonder if I'll meet him again next week?

So trivial, and so commonplace — aggressive idiot tries to flatten someone on a bike — if it hadn't been the exact same guy two weeks in a row I wouldn't have bothered mentioning it.

Its a Friday, crap customer service from not one, but two different companies.

Ascension Records 1, Australia Post nil

Three weeks ago I bought a CD boxed set from Ascension Records, two days later the purchase appeared on my credit card and I thought no more about it. Yesterday my VISA bill arrived and I thought the CD was taking a bit long so I called them up, yep, ordered on the 2nd, shipped on the 8th. Chase it up with the local Post Office.

Oh no, here we go….

I called the Oakleigh South Post Office on North road since that's where parcels always went in the past, apparently they no longer take parcels for the suburb of Oakleigh, these go to Oakleigh Post Office but I need to call a central number — 131318 — to track the parcel.

Called 131318 and played voice-mail menus then get to speak to a brusque operator who asks for my "tracking number". Since it was an ordinary parcel I don't have one. She's sorry, but they can't do anything "try contacting your local Post Office but they can only do a limited search". Then tried to up-sell me their courier services for "future parcels" and basically told me I shouldn't send parcels by parcel post if I want them delivered.

Hung up and tried to locate the phone number for Oakleigh Post Office, but apparently I have to call 131318 and talk to the central customer circus operators. So I did.

Described the problem again, gave my name and address, again, and after a wait they tell me they'll transfer directly to Oakleigh Post Office so I can discuss it with them. Once I'm transferred "Carmel" expresses surprise that Customer Service has sent me directly to the Oakleigh Post Office since calls like mine are meant to be handled by Customer Service.

Described the problem again, gave my name and address, again, there's some hunting around and “there's nothing here for you” and since I didn't have it sent registered mail there's nothing they can do for me. I explained that several times over the past five years we've had parcels left on the doorstep or dumped on top of the letter box and I suspect this may have happened, got the “that shouldn't happen” statement again and explained that while I'm fully aware that “that shouldn't happen” it does happen and it appears that nothing is ever done about it. Once again got fobbed off with that excuse beloved of any public or semi-public service “they're contractors not employees, blah blah blah.” A wave of the magic contractor stick and apparently the people employing the contractor either don't bother to put any conditions in the contract, or the contractor isn't required to obey the conditions of the contract, or nobody bothers to enforce the conditions of the contract.

My only option now is apparently to fill out a generic customer complaint form, available from any Post Office, where it will be sent off to Australia Post headquarters and “they will look into it.” Even if they do condescend to refund the cost of the goods, any and all refunds go to the sender and I then have to chase up with the sender to get a replacement item!

So I did fill out the form, and so I wait….

Ikea and Kings Couriers

We need a wardrobe. Simple isn't it? Since we only have a small car we'd like it delivered too please. How hard could that be? Perhaps you think we could peruse a catalogue, order online, pay by credit card and have it delivered. Nice idea, what fantasy land do you live in?

The only place we could find what we wanted was Ikea, they're quite happy to let you browse online, fill in a "shopping cart" and prepare a list of what you want, and they'll give you all the details about the home delivery — but then the kicker. The bastards won't let you order online, in order to maximise impulse purchasing you have to visit the store, walk around selecting it all yourself, pay for it, then lug it to the home delivery counter to fill out the forms and let them deliver it the next day. At least they let you print out the "shopping cart" contents so you have a list of what you need to get.

OK, so we went to Ikea in Richmond and spent a thrilling hour or so grabbing boxed wardrone bits off shelves and putting them on recalcitrant shopping trolleys.

By the way Ikea, here's a suggestion: take a look at your customers and get some signs put up in Vietnamese and Mandarin! A huge proportion of your customers there do not speak much english and would really be helped if they could find what they want.

Several hundred kilograms of flat-pack boxes later we find that we need two trolleys, not to mention that if I were to touch any one of the boxes at work I'd get told off for OHS reasons, apparently a 30-40kg box is fine if the customer has to lift it, but not staff! I have no idea how they get around the law-suits for back injuries.

We selected, we lugged, we paid, we queued, we got it lined up for delivery today, Friday, somewhere between 12:00 and 18:00. Left two phone numbers and was assured we'd be called a couple of hours prior to delivery to narrow the time down.

Sometime around 23:00 on Thursday night there was an SMS on Jo's phone telling us that the stuff would be delivered between 14:00 and 16:00 — I guess that means they've loaded the truck and know where its all going then.

So Jo spent the entire afternoon hanging around at home, waiting… waiting… Of course there was no call from Kings, there never is, all the delivery firms seem to promise to call but then never do. By 16:30 she called up the office and eventually go through to someone who promised to call the driver and then call her back. By 17:30 she decided that the call back wasn't going to happen and tried again. By now all the phones went unanswered because the staff go home at 5pm on a Friday.

Eventually around 18:00 we got through and were told that “the Melbourne truck is running late” — wow, I think Sherlock Holmes could figure that one out — “it will be late but should be there by 7pm”. We asked if it was going to be delivered even if it was later than 7pm and were assured that yes it was definitely going to be delivered this evening.

Well it's now 9:30pm, we've still not heard from the driver and there's still no sign of the 2-4pm delivery.

http://www.kingstransport.com.au/

“We deliver what we promise”

Um, sorry guys. NO YOU BLOODY WELL DON'T. Not only that, but you don't call up and you don't let us know what you are doing.

Updates:

1. 2010-Feb-27 09:30: Fifteen minutes on hold and we finally get through on the phone. Kings Courier reception staff has no idea what is happening (her words), there is no information on when, or even if, or delivery will take place. She is unable to contact the driver, only the supervisor can do this — but the supervisor isn't there. The supervisor should be in the office around about noon. They have promised to call us back immediately after noon — when the supervisor arrives — in order to let us know when they will deliver yesterday's furniture.
2. 2010-Feb-27 13:20: The phone rings, a gruff voice states “This is Ikea, your furniture will be delivered in forty-five minutes, goodbye.” I guess that was the supervisor, no idea, doesn't quite seem just after noon to me. On the plus side, this is the first time that they have actually called us when they said they would.
3. 2010-Feb-27 14:15: Almost exactly twenty four hours after it was booked, our delivery turns up. Three guys with almost Marx-brothers comic effect as they stumble about getting in each others' way, each one slowly and cumbersomely carrying inside a box that could have been carried safely and quickly by two. Banging into the walls, the door, the furniture and each other. At least we finally got the furniture and we're finally rid of Kings and their delivery so-called “service.”

Riding home today I think it must be the day of the d*ckhead and that I missed the announcement.

Heading towards Clayton road in the Dandenong road service lane, trundling along on the mountain bike towing Cam in the trailer, a courier car comes out of Clayton primary school and goes screaming past me and the trailer driving the wrong way up the service lane heading for the McDonalds or to a shortcut across Dandenong road to head east.

Passing the Oakleigh motel there's a large tattooed arm hanging out the window of a parked crappy commodore and a hand holding a cigarette... or so I thought. Automatically gave it a wide berth just in case the owner steps out or flicks the butt out the window or just drives off without looking. Didn't have to worry, driver was blissfully kicking back, stoned, eyes closed, deep in the throes of his spliff.

Quarter of an hour later I'm trying to turn into Huntingdale station carpark to get onto the bike track, can't get in, a bogan-boy in his commoford is coming out the wrong-way out the one-way entrance and barges me, trailer and toddler out of the way before spinning the wheels as only a bogan-boy commoford can and racing the 50m to stop at the corner into Huntingdale road.

Yep, you're sharing the roads with this lot too.

For three months of the year, from the end of November to the end of February, the roads around the university are moderately safe. For three months there's the same number of nuff-nuffs and idiots as pretty much every other part of Melbourne. Then at the end of February the students return — people in their late teens and early twenties are not renown for paying much attention to the road laws — and a whole lot of them are from overseas as well, so they have little to no idea of what the road laws are in the first place!

Today was this year's baptism of fire.

Coming out of the childcare car-park after dropping off Cam I nearly get cleaned up by helmet-less Asian student who almost rode into the side of me as he careered up the footpath — I guess he just didn't see the trailer and thought he'd go behind me. I pulled out onto the road shaking my head and watch as two doors further up he nearly cleaned up a mum and kids walking from car to footpath. A couple of doors further up he blindly goes across in front of a car turning into a driveway, then for the piece de resistance he pulled out onto the road and rode up the right-hand side and went anti-clockwise around the roundabout head-on at some poor sucker on a bike coming the other way.

I made a comment on a bike mailing list to the effect that O-week was here and the idiots had returned on the roads, and that many of the overseas students appeared to have no idea of Australian road laws; no helmets, riding on the footpath, riding on the wrong side of the road, you name it, and that they were a danger to themselves and to others. I got politely told off. Apparently I'm not allowed to say that, no single group of bad road users can be singled out. No amount of anecdotal events should be referred to.

So I went out for a ride at lunch time, a couple of laps around the ring road because the weather was wonderful and to clear the head. Coming down the hill towards the roundabout near the residential halls bizarrely there was a girl stopped half-way around the roundabout, in the middle of the two lanes, bent over her bike and fiddling with the back wheel. Cars were going around her on both sides, some quite quick because nobody gives a shit about the 40km/hr speed limit. As I went to pass her (on the left) she suddenly stood up and darted across to the kerb, straight at me, looking the other way. I managed to slide to a stop along the kerb without coming off and hitting her, as did the car beside me. First thing she said "So sorry, in my country we drive on other side of the road". All I could say was "Please, you have to learn to look!", I helped remove the large chunk of gumtree from her wheel and off she went.

A very cautious ride home in the afternoon, nothing happened, nothing happens most of the time, but then some of the time I get multiple incidents in a day.

The gravy train has pulled in to the station, employer funded broadband will end, financial tightness has them by the goolies. Everyone was very polite about it, but still I was given two and a bit months to find a new ISP. The good news is that it gives me an incentive to finally be rid of BigPond, Australia's least favourite ISP — or maybe its just the devil you know, you only ever hear bad things about the one you're with.

Drowning in a sea of choices I rolled the metaphoric dice and came up with Internode, they seem to offer what I want, along with many others, but they also came recommended by a couple of friends. A great deal of filling out of forms occurred, an order was placed, a confirmation email was received, including this gem:

...

You can track the status of your order online by visiting http://statuscheck.internode.on.net/

You will need to enter your ADSL line number (03xxxxxxxx), and your Internode username (xxxxxx).

So I tried to track the status of my order online:

Sorry, we could not locate your entry in our provisioning system at this time.

Either you have not entered your phone number or username information correctly, or we have not yet entered your order into our electronic system.

If you have sent your order to us in the last few days, please wait another day or so, and then contact us if your order is still not appearing here

So you can check your order status online, but in true Aussie fashion, only “after a day or so.”

So I wait, while the churning thing churns...

Updated: 2010-Feb-18 — I could check my order's progress within another couple of hours. Things are looking promising.

Updated: 2010-Feb-22 — email arrives with some very comprehensive information telling me that “churning is underway” and all the details I'll need to configure my ADSL router. Ten minutes work that evening to reprogram the Speedstream 6520 and power-cycle it and I'm on the air on a new ISP, with six times faster ADSL. Impressed.