Gladdies, poddies and grumpy goblins
05/08/2006 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaBeing on dopy Dodo dial up, the Izzie has to go slinking and snooping to get our fix of podcasts. While most of the programs we like to snatch have a shelf life of 4 weeks, our favourite - being broadcast 5 nights a week - has a shelf life of only two weeks which is a bit of a bugger when there's too many good ones.
Problem is - there's only two places the Izzie knows of where we can slink about with the Preciousss. One is the Angel's Waffle Cafe in Fremantle with download speeds of around 50bps and the other is the nasty Netcom internet cafe in Downtown Dursleyville which does some what better - at speeds between 300 - 450 bps. Problem is - for some inexplicable reason - you cannot do anything else at the time - due to the constant presence of the evil spinning beachball of doom - slinking about in Cyberia simultaneously is simply out of the question
But it does have its advantages. Angel's Cafe is only open until 4pm - and when it's not raining - such a dreadful waste of precious daylight hours. But the big minus - unlike Angels - it is not a coffee bean corner with the added advantage of wireless access but rather a dedicated netcafe where you do nothing but gawk at the screen and using their LAN laptop facility costs 40 knuts for 5 minutes. They normally date the tickets 15 mins after the actual purchase time which we guess allows for getting all set up and stuff. Fine when you plug in and play right away but totally sucky when some 20 mins later you still cannot get online.
And that's exactly what happened on Thursday evening Was two of us with laptops - quirky eccentric Izzie and a yuppie with a briefcase - his looked like a Dell. Neither of us could get online which was unusual since every other time - was within 30 seconds of plugging in the blue cable. The guy at the counter checked and it turned out there was something wrong with their router. By then - the free 15 mins was well and truly gone
Iz then got in but the other fellow didn't and he just gave up and left.
Friday was supposed to be sunny and the Iz had no desire to be indoors or lugging the Preciousss around when we had other more interesting plans - most involving sitting in the sunshine in the gardens of our favourite lunatic asylum. So that meant that if we did not snatch our podcasts on Thursday then it would be not at all until next week.
Well - finally got connected and after an eternity got into our iPodder program. Clicked on Late Night Live - expecting to get the list of the last 14 programs and then to tick off the ones that we did not want. Well - that's the usual procedure. But not this time - it just went all funny and the next thing we see on the screen is 'Downloading 1 of 13' Stupid twits thinks Iz. We doesn't want all 13 but only 5 or so - particularly the interview with one Mikhail Gorbachev and the Indian socialist guru.
Then tried to be devious since iPodder was being so pathetic. Would sneak in using iTunes. Had no problem finding Late Night Live amongst all the Japanese stuff that seems to be the default setting in the Oz area. But the little bugger just went and downloaded the latest prog from Wednesday 2nd August which we did not want. Captain Cook and Cuba are not exactly Izzie's idea of stuff worth saving for posterity.
Well. So about 40 mins later - our tolerance for spinning beachballs and unresponsive programs had finally reached its limits. Unlike our previous visit that cost the princely sum of 80 cents - had got online straight away and snatched most of our poddies within the free 15 mins - this visit ended up costing 4 silver sickles. We'd got 6 programs but was utterly frustrated and exhausted. But at least it meant we would not be wasting preciousss daylight hours on Friday. And the little bugger may not be that big but is certainly heavy - probably 2.7 kilos or so.
So, the Iz has come to the conclusion that Netcom will be a place of last resort. There's always the pa's place when we get really stuck. They have got broadband but hardly ever use it. Is wasted on that ancient windoze 98 relic they've got.
So Friday - did spend some wonderful hours doing some very interesting things in the Garden of Arcane Delights but once we left there - just got uber cranky. Got back to the Lair and went on a bit of a decluttering blitz and finally got to doing that evil tax return. Got the rough draft done and all the numbers in except our union fees - not so straightforward since we left in March - so will have to work out the number of weeks for the year and multiply by $$8.10 More of that later -
Looks like the Iz will yet again have another bill but this time 250 rather than the 330 we had to pay the bastards last year. But that's before taking into account our deductions so maybe we can get it down to almost zero.
Got to send an owl to the evil beasties in charge of the ticket machines at the train station who snatched 2 silver sickles off the Iz and gave us nothing in return. Getting money tossed back and rejected is one thing but having it grabbed without any credit going towards the cost of a ticket is something else altogether. Could have so so bashed the shit out of the stinking sneaky thieving thing - it was like last week when we unexpectedly got the dopy dodo default page with a whole 5 days left on our account. Was simply murderous and manic - way out of proportion to the seriousness of the situation. Maybe it just brings back memories of the impotence of the individual against a mindless indifferent and utterly unaccountable bureaucracy.
Well - today at work - the Iz finally had the confrontation concerning a very dubious contract but that will have to wait for another day. Nothing like pissing off Piggie, Peggie and their minions. Oh what an uppity house elf is the Izzie.
Problem is - there's only two places the Izzie knows of where we can slink about with the Preciousss. One is the Angel's Waffle Cafe in Fremantle with download speeds of around 50bps and the other is the nasty Netcom internet cafe in Downtown Dursleyville which does some what better - at speeds between 300 - 450 bps. Problem is - for some inexplicable reason - you cannot do anything else at the time - due to the constant presence of the evil spinning beachball of doom - slinking about in Cyberia simultaneously is simply out of the question
But it does have its advantages. Angel's Cafe is only open until 4pm - and when it's not raining - such a dreadful waste of precious daylight hours. But the big minus - unlike Angels - it is not a coffee bean corner with the added advantage of wireless access but rather a dedicated netcafe where you do nothing but gawk at the screen and using their LAN laptop facility costs 40 knuts for 5 minutes. They normally date the tickets 15 mins after the actual purchase time which we guess allows for getting all set up and stuff. Fine when you plug in and play right away but totally sucky when some 20 mins later you still cannot get online.
And that's exactly what happened on Thursday evening Was two of us with laptops - quirky eccentric Izzie and a yuppie with a briefcase - his looked like a Dell. Neither of us could get online which was unusual since every other time - was within 30 seconds of plugging in the blue cable. The guy at the counter checked and it turned out there was something wrong with their router. By then - the free 15 mins was well and truly gone
Iz then got in but the other fellow didn't and he just gave up and left.
Friday was supposed to be sunny and the Iz had no desire to be indoors or lugging the Preciousss around when we had other more interesting plans - most involving sitting in the sunshine in the gardens of our favourite lunatic asylum. So that meant that if we did not snatch our podcasts on Thursday then it would be not at all until next week.
Well - finally got connected and after an eternity got into our iPodder program. Clicked on Late Night Live - expecting to get the list of the last 14 programs and then to tick off the ones that we did not want. Well - that's the usual procedure. But not this time - it just went all funny and the next thing we see on the screen is 'Downloading 1 of 13' Stupid twits thinks Iz. We doesn't want all 13 but only 5 or so - particularly the interview with one Mikhail Gorbachev and the Indian socialist guru.
Then tried to be devious since iPodder was being so pathetic. Would sneak in using iTunes. Had no problem finding Late Night Live amongst all the Japanese stuff that seems to be the default setting in the Oz area. But the little bugger just went and downloaded the latest prog from Wednesday 2nd August which we did not want. Captain Cook and Cuba are not exactly Izzie's idea of stuff worth saving for posterity.
Well. So about 40 mins later - our tolerance for spinning beachballs and unresponsive programs had finally reached its limits. Unlike our previous visit that cost the princely sum of 80 cents - had got online straight away and snatched most of our poddies within the free 15 mins - this visit ended up costing 4 silver sickles. We'd got 6 programs but was utterly frustrated and exhausted. But at least it meant we would not be wasting preciousss daylight hours on Friday. And the little bugger may not be that big but is certainly heavy - probably 2.7 kilos or so.
So, the Iz has come to the conclusion that Netcom will be a place of last resort. There's always the pa's place when we get really stuck. They have got broadband but hardly ever use it. Is wasted on that ancient windoze 98 relic they've got.
So Friday - did spend some wonderful hours doing some very interesting things in the Garden of Arcane Delights but once we left there - just got uber cranky. Got back to the Lair and went on a bit of a decluttering blitz and finally got to doing that evil tax return. Got the rough draft done and all the numbers in except our union fees - not so straightforward since we left in March - so will have to work out the number of weeks for the year and multiply by $$8.10 More of that later -
Looks like the Iz will yet again have another bill but this time 250 rather than the 330 we had to pay the bastards last year. But that's before taking into account our deductions so maybe we can get it down to almost zero.
Got to send an owl to the evil beasties in charge of the ticket machines at the train station who snatched 2 silver sickles off the Iz and gave us nothing in return. Getting money tossed back and rejected is one thing but having it grabbed without any credit going towards the cost of a ticket is something else altogether. Could have so so bashed the shit out of the stinking sneaky thieving thing - it was like last week when we unexpectedly got the dopy dodo default page with a whole 5 days left on our account. Was simply murderous and manic - way out of proportion to the seriousness of the situation. Maybe it just brings back memories of the impotence of the individual against a mindless indifferent and utterly unaccountable bureaucracy.
Well - today at work - the Iz finally had the confrontation concerning a very dubious contract but that will have to wait for another day. Nothing like pissing off Piggie, Peggie and their minions. Oh what an uppity house elf is the Izzie.
