Plenty Of Fish (Part 2: Growth and Learning, lol)

OK, it's time for the much awaited revisiting of the Great Dating Aquarium that I introduced you to back in September last year.  Apologies for the wait, but I've been busy gathering molluscs and mussels and little pearls of the ridiculous.. and these things do take time.  Plus there's always the propensity to wet myself laughing with all the nonsense that occurs in the online dating world.. necessitating a change of my old lady diapers.  OK I'm not quite there yet, but my daughter keeps cheekily touting the Depend underwear to me (peach for the ladies and grey for the men, lol) so it's perhaps something to consider going forward, if only they came in some decent colours...

Damn, just got distracted AGAIN.

So I dragged out my long hidden barnacle-encrusted briny profile, rearranged a few things to reflect this week's inner wisdom and positivity, crowned it with a few of my favorite happy snaps, and voila!  I waited for the sea creatures to ambush me again from all sides.

I checked an hour later.  Nothing.  Hmm.  I viewed my profile.  Then I checked to see who else had viewed me.  Hmm.  Lots.  Lots of follically challenged nursing home candidates, a couple of fat guys with crusty greying beards, and then the ordinary guy with lips firmly clamped shut.  (Remember what I said about the no-teeth rule and photos with no smiles?)  These fishies had had a brief nibble, and decided I wasn't to their collective taste.

Well, that's simply NOT ON.

It's clearly in the wording.  I'm being too cerebral, too deep, too thinking, even too bloody demanding that these losers heaven forbid actually READ something I take the time to write.  But easily fixed.  Highlight, delete, done.  What was about six wordy paragraphs became one and a half of light and fluffy mornay, designed to entice but with no substance to give them that heavy bloated feeling afterwards.  OK, hook rebaited with more whimsy fare, I cast it out there and logged off (and went back to watching Willy Wonka on the box for about the hundredth time while munching my way through a bag of chocolate bullets)...

Just as an aside, it's a bit disturbing that Mr Wonka (who as a child I used to think was a bizarre looking, eccentric crusty old fart with rather amazing blue eyes and hair like yellow fair floss and questionable dress sense), now has gone past looking kind of interesting and contemporary, to now looking a bit young for me, although a man with a chocolate factory and geese that shit golden eggs should never be lightly discounted.  Give me another ten years or so, and I'll be thinking I'd love to be his mother-in-law, especially if he's sharing the chocs around.

PING! PING! PING!  Sometime around when Violet Beauregarde was blowing up like an obnoxious gum chewing blue beach ball, the fishies went into a feeding frenzy, and my iPhone was fairly groaning under all those notifications.  Hehehehe.  Note to self: that's some good shit I've used as bait this time!

After a bit more, I figured my net might have a few choice catches in there, so I shook the net and peered inside.  Some of them had added me as a favorite.  Well, the only favorites I've got on my mind at present are Cadbury ones, but still I'll take those as they're free.  There's a few messages from the bolder ones, and then there's a whole pile of gasping carp who have designated that they want to meet me; it's the lazy cod's way of saying "Please pull me in, gut me and fry me, because I've no energy to do this anymore."  So after ascertaining nothing of any great interest, I emptied the net, put the phone on silent, and went to bed.  I know from experience that fish bite most during the wee small hours when they're apt to get lonely, and it's when an abalone starts to look like a full blown cray... so it was best to ensure no disturbance of my beauty sleep.  Once netted, I could sort them in the morning at my leisure.

So this morning I arose, brewed my morning cappuccino and then settled down to examine the overnight haul.  The net was bulging with fishy surprises.  Big ones, little ones, skinny ones, incredibly short ones (might even be illegal to keep, those ones!), old crepey looking ones, gummy ones, and tall ones with hats.  I noticed a few recatches in there as well; those I had hooked back in September on my last fishing foray, and which I'd  hastily thrown back, had come back for a second hopeful nibble, either knowingly or unknowingly.... at any rate, there were a lot of critters in there, competing for pole position in the net.

Quite frankly, it can be a little bit overwhelming if you don't have a system.  Luckily, I do.  My first attention goes to the ones who have actually written something.  In a message.  And to me.  Most of those deserve some sort of reply, even if simply for their effort and sheer optimism.  Tell em they're dreamin' springs to mind, but I'm not quite so harsh.  So once I've inspected what I call the Grade A catch, I then move on to the Favorites.  These are the fishies that swam over, had a look, liked what they saw, but for whatever reason, couldn't act on their natural urges at that moment of discovery (likely because their wife was lying next to them in the marital bed.
Most of the Favorites I do nothing with, unless they appear to be a prime catch, which doesn't often happen I'm afraid.  They get consigned to swim in the Unwanted Favourites pool until they eventually find their way out back into the deep blue, and someone else's net.
Finally I get to the Class C, which are mostly carp, bottom suckers and mud eaters, so dispirited or inarticulate they can't even send you a message or even click the favorites button because they're too depressed to aspire thus far.  Those ones stay in the Unwanted Contact Pool forever and a day because they haven't the gumption to ever find their way out, and also never seem to disappear off the site, which is the only way this particular pool seems to get emptied.  My pool still contains some sludgy looking leftovers  drifting around in the muddy current in there from September last year, and unfortunately I'm not only powerless to cut them up and feed them as burley, but also to distinguish them from the newer freaks that have recently entered the pool.  Not that it matters, as long as they don't start to smell.

There was one particular fishy in the Grade A catch, a persistent little bespectacled minnow who had messaged me repeatedly months ago, but whom because of his sheer lack of photogenia I had never gotten around to meeting; it just was never a priority.  And here he was again, AND he remembered me from the last casting.  Well, I had to give him fish bites for his resilience, and there was obviously a bit of quality sushi still floating around in amongst the grey matter if he'd remembered me as well.  So I messaged him back, and there began the latest game of "We should meet" and "have a great day, maybe we can catch up later" which again was likely to leave him disappointed.  Except this time I took the fish by the gills and suggested we meet.  Today.  In an hour's time.  At the beach, and with our dogs.  I figured Boof would sort out his kneecaps if he gave me the shits.  I am a thinking woman.

He didn't reply for the longest time (I can picture the poor little fellow, lying gasping on his back, fins flapping in shock, spectacles akimbo and wondering how to reply to such a burst of spontaneuity he could not have seen coming), and by then it was time to take the lovely daughter to school.  So I bundled the Million Dollar Dog in the back of the wagon, did the school run and then we headed across to the dog beach regardless.

As we headed down the hill onto the beach, pausing briefly to bag about 2.2 kilos of dogshit that Boof obligingly provided before we got too far on to the beach for a change, because usually he prefers the tideline) I could see this little fellow standing all alone, madly flapping a fair old set of hands at me.  From that distance, he looked like little Johnny Howard.  Well, I like John Howard.  I thought he was an amazing PM, likely the best we've had.  And while I couldn't envisage Mr Howard in the bedroom with his clothes off, evidently Mrs Howard had thought otherwise, so maybe I could too.  I approached him and tried to spy his dog.  You can tell a lot from the kinds of dogs people own, and while that theory means I'm big, bull headed, brash and dominant, it also means I'm good looking and competitive and athletic, so it kind of works for me.

Johnny's dog was a most unusual coloured "grey merle apparently" designer collie dog, with weepy pale blue eyes and mountains of silky hair.  It was exremely thin (like its owner) and had the rather delicate name of Crystal.  Went well with Boof, I must say.  Anyway the two dogs looked at each other, and then Boof turned away rather pointedly to find someone a bit more interesting, which he did, in the form of two racey brown kelpies who had just arrived with their big burly bare chested owner.  I turned back to Johnny, and accorded him the respect of a quick peck hello on the cheek, and waited for him to pick his jaw up from the sand where it had fallen when he first laid eyes on me apparently.  And no, I'm not kidding.

After we got the formalities out of the way, his being "You're so beautiful, way too attractive to be single, where have you been? We've got so much in common, I can't wait to get started, and I own that huge house opposite the beach," and mine being, "Geez you look like Johnny Howard, do you ever get that??" - which apparently he did, and from his ex that he hated! - we then started walking and talking.  His dog disappeared a few times, and I would call it, as he seemed to have forgotten he owned a dog.. and Boof stuck close, being my macho red boofy man, eyeing the ex-PM doppelganger with frank suspicion in his eyes.  So thus we reached the end of the beach, turned around and began walking back.  Shirtless twin kelpie guy was heading our way again, tanned and magnificent, and I couldn't help casting a mental longing look in his direction, which luckily I was able to disguise as a "Oh look at Boof, he loves those kelpies doesnt he" kind of look, just as the ex-PM was looking a little perturbed at the direction my attention was taking.

By the conclusion of our walk, the information he'd imparted was that he was a squillionaire, had never had kids (didn't like em!) had two dogs but the other one was too fat to walk and had to be carried everywhere, an ex he hated, and every toy and watercraft known to man and couldn't wait for us to use them together, like yesterday.  He's mostly retired (like the good ex-PM is wont to be) but works occasionally when he's bored.  He can fix and build anything, and has been sucked into repair mode by countless women who use him for his skills.  He apparently even pays for the materials!  A thought briefly flitted through my mind that here was my big new garage to house all MY toys, come to find me, and then sadly put that one away.  I've never been able to do that, often to my own financial detriment.  He also gave me his address and suggested I come over and check out his house.  Can't miss it apparently.   I might, but from a safe distance!

On our parting, he asked me for some feedback. Um, maybe you try too hard, and I've never been attracted to the ex-PM or his kind of look, although I admire his intelligence tremendously, and this guy too was very intelligent.  So we left it at that, he giving me a little flounce of his head when I delivered the feedback (hey it's honesty if nothing else!) and I wonder if I'll hear from again... Damn, I wonder how Anna Nicole Smith used to do it... maybe her choice of feedback was somewhat more tactful...

Anyway in the words of famous Ms Durham, we've only just begun... I'm glancing over at the phone, which has been pinging its way through the afternoon, and the newer fishies are jostling in their net with the more established ones, so it might be seafood basket for dinner tonight...

Stay tuned, I'm sure there's more mileage in this topic yet!

(Ps the dudes below bear no resemblance to any that I've netted today...)

Plenty of Fish (or how to sort the carp from the crap when emptying your net!)

A blog such as this would not be complete without a foray into the world of internet dating...!

It's always more entertaining reading about somebody else's joys and mishaps, so here I am, sharing for your vicarious reading pleasure, and no doubt risking offending in the process.  I guess that's the writer's privilege..

So a few weeks ago, a girlfriend suggested I try internet dating, specifically on a site called .. wait for it... Plenty Of Fish (POF for short, how bloody imaginative is that!)  Apparently during her brief journey into the fishy realms of the deep blue dating pool, she had found some Joy.  And when there was no joy, it was a great way to while away an otherwise boring weeknight whilst waiting for XFactor to start.

So I thought, as any self respecting single female of questionable age and waning brain cells is wont to do, why the hell not.

Creating the profile was easy.  You basically pick a moniker that hasn't already been snapped up (probably the most challenging bit in the whole exercise), fill in a heap of questions, state what you want, what you don't want, upload a photo or ten (in my case, one because less is always more) and bang, you're swimmin' baby!

My fishnet filled up at the speed of light.  Never was fishing this easy!.  Oh, I'm so popular.  OK, apparently this happens to every new female; it sparks a veritable fish feeding frenzy while they all check you out, nibble, dart away again, circle like sharks, give you a bit of a disinterested chew, and then leave you floating on the bottom of the POF Pool like rejected burley, ready for the bottom suckers to clean you up and dispose of your carcass.

Four weeks into it, and I have some observations to share.

Rule No.1:  (Physical Selves) Men are never as tall or as athletic (or even as "average" for that matter) as they state in their profiles.  Standard six footers become 5'10", and 5'9" become the same size as me, or even shorter. (I'm 5'6").  An athletic build can mean anything from built like the Incredible Hulk, or built like Andrew Denton.  And average is the most frightening of all, because average would appear to mean anything up to about 25 kilos overweight.  I did meet one "thin build" and he in fact was very thin.  If only thin was what I really want my man to be, this would have been a good honest effort.  But I did not meet a single "average" man who wasn't markedly overweight.  So if this is the Average Aussie Bloke, frankly I'm a little alarmed.

Rule No.2: (Smiles) If a man is not smiling with his mouth open in his photos, he either (a) has really rotten teeth or (b) has no teeth at all.  I'm not sure which is better, but from this point on, if your gob ain't open, I surmise there's not much going on in there in the way of denatalia.  I don't want a man who I have to puree everything for; you're gonna burn out my bamix in no time.

And ditto for dudes wearing hats, but we're talking about hair issues here of course, or lack thereof.  Grey does not equal bald, and bald does not equal grey, by the way.  Your scalp may be grey with age, but that doesn't equal hair!  And no, hair on your face does not count as hair on your head.  Ditto hair on your back.  Plus side, you're not going to go through much of my shampoo.

Those without any photo at all should be avoided at all costs.  You might think you'd like a surprise, but it's apt to be a scary one.

Having said all that, most of my experiences turned out to be positive ones.  If nothing else, it was a pleasant way to while away an hour or so, enjoying a coffee or a beer, swapping dating stories, and then doing the big Exit Stage Left.  And I have met a couple of very friendly decent fellows amidst the mayhem that turned up in my dating net, some of which I can already tell are going to remain friends going forward. So all is not lost.

A sense of humor is mandatory.  Also most of these blokes informed me that from their side of the fence, they didn't fare a lot better from the fairer sex in the honesty stakes.  So on that note, I'm putting my teeth back in and getting the hell outta dodge...

(to be continued..) Xox

Hot Children In The City

I wrote this back in June 09 about my adventures in good ol' Melbourne town on a fresh winter's night... 

Enjoy!

HOT CHILDREN IN THE CITY

By Carol Howden

21/6/09

The perspective of an almost 45 year old single suburban mother - that would be I -  was sorely tested last night, as I ventured upon an alien planet known as "the city."  It's a place I cannot remember being this way from my own wild adolescence, and I'm happy never to return.

But let me begin at the beginning.  Saturday night, cool winter evening in Melbourne (which would later become freezing, but I had no plans to be out in it that long).  I had hooked up with my friend Elly, a previously suburban single mum of one 20 year old boy, who had moved to the big bad city last year to "find a life".  I had plans with her to hit the town for dinner, maybe some dancing, some drinking, and back to her chic city pad early so we could do some cycling city-style the next morning, preferably without a hangover.  Well, that was the plan.

The first part went according to plan; dinner at a funky little pub around the corner from her place, charmingly called "The Local".  The obligatory parma and a couple of pots went down very well, the talk was interesting, and the rest of the place didn't matter.  We whiled away a couple of hours there, and then went in search of some music to tap our toes to.

We stepped into several pubs all within walking distance of Elly's place, but apart from a very realistic 80s band (complete with dreadful outfits and miming skills which put Milli Vanilli to shame) there was nothing of any quality to be had.  There were a few stray souls at the other pubs, and another venue which was touted as "the place to be if you're over 35" had four people mooching about hopefully as we walked up.  Then there was another place which was rather humming, but where the doorman said to me, "There's lots of older people in here, 30 to 35s," and smiled encouragingly at me.  He of course was about 14.  We did stick our ageing heads in the door, and promptly pulled them out again and walked on.

Our next plan of attack was to go into Big City Proper, on our pushbikes of all things, thereby incorporating healthy cycling activity into what was to become quite an adventure.  Interpretation: if you live too close to the city, no cab will take you to/from there.  Moral: either live IN there, but if you don't live in there, make sure you don't live NEAR there, because that means you won't be able to GO there and GET HOME afterwards. 

Elly's son was at a venue in town, extremely drunk (which apparently was how he spent all his weekends) and for some reason he rang wanting his mother there.  This struck me as somewhat unusual, but the reasons became plain once we arrived there.  By then, I felt like I wanted mine there as well!  My father also.

The bike ride was fast, furious and dangerous, but we survived it, we cycling mamas.   We had detoured past the casino, along the Southbank, dodging lots and lots of people who were still able to walk at that stage.  Had I have known what a rare species I was passing, I would have been taking photos as I rode.  We then went down some seedy back ways where I rode like the wind out of a sense of self preservation, and finally we pulled up at our destination.  We could hear the place rocking when we were still half a km away from it.

The venue was like a big glass box, packed to the rafters, thumping music and raised voices spilling out of it like an overstuffed bag about to explode.  Elly's son Joseph was hanging out of the lung cancer enclosure, eyeballs like pin pricks in the snow, waving his arms enthusiastically.  We could feel the love.

My impulse was to climb over the enclosure, pull him out over the top of it, and get him out of there, but the baboon at the door had firm control of the situation, insisting we queue up for the privilege of entering the mother ship.  So we duly did, along with approximately 100 others of various shapes, sizes, ages and states of sobriety and undress. 

It was a bit like queuing at a Sizzler restaurant; as you stood in the queue you could see all the excesses going on within, but like Sizzler, you often weren't very keen to get in amongst it and get started because you knew it wasn't going to taste any good.

There was the obligatory Asian prostitute dressed in what looked like a red satin handkerchief, which her young Aussie boozehound was trying desperately to relieve her of, and was succeeding on many levels, or maybe he was just trying to blow his nose on it.; and watched by our bored queue of waiting fellow thrillseekers.  There were drunken disheveled young women wandering out of the place, and then wavering back in, or falling back in, drinks sloshing in hand, lit ciggies clenched firmly between highly varnished fingertips, all breasts and legs and items that should be hidden spilling out everywhere.

I glanced down at my own attire: Levis, red t-shirt and black leather jacket, and decided I was on the wrong planet.  Heck, you couldn’t even see I had breasts!  Would they even let me in?  We waited nonetheless.  Meanwhile three young chickies, obviously already intoxicated and beautifully dressed in Sexyland attire, staggered past us to be ushered into the lair by the door men, in exchange for leers and some fondlings.  I wondered if they'd want to fondle me., but decided my parcel was too tightly wrapped.

Finally we reached the rope, and the head baboon looked us over, finally grunted and lifted the rope reluctantly to admit us into the bowels of entertainment.  He probably figured we wouldn't be in there long, and if I had my way, he'd be correct on that one.  We then sailed into hell.

The first thing I noticed was the floor was sticky and crunchy---alcohol and broken glass.  Maybe a safety measure, as you can't fall over if you can't lift your feet off the goddam floor.  The floors were coated with alcohol, yes even in the ladies toilet where I ventured to go later.  But in the meanwhile, we shuffled forward into the ever thickening mass of bodies, subjecting ourselves to strange gestures and slurred words from the males, even a karate kick or two, some odd looks from the young females, all with glasses half full, half empty, sloshing, spilling, slopping, clinking, smashing…. And all the way through to the smoky doors of the cancer cell, where Joseph (a non smoker incidentally) was hanging out.  Literally.

As we entered that area, while the open air was a godsend, yet adding to the clinking, smashing, slopping mayhem going on around me was now about 3 million lit cigarettes, wafting, puffing, smoking, burning, flicking and dropping.  I was choking, suffocating, smelling, screaming inside my head "get me out of this toxic waste of human life," and I could feel what must have been at least 20 cigarette butts glueing themselves to my soles as I walked through this funhouse.

And then we found Joseph and his friend, with two girl-clones sporting the regulation straightened with military precision long black hair, complete with the three ultimate fashion accessories one had to have for peer acceptance; lit ciggie, sloshing glass and a mobile phone endlessly texting.  I felt like a deprived leper.

Their first question to us was "How old are you?"  Elly was quite taken aback, but admitted she was 53, to which they gushed how great she looked.  They then turned to me.  "64," I solemnly offered, and when they showed a kind of reverence about how well preserved I was, I did coyly admit to the odd shot of Botox of course.  This obviously was the highlight of their night (understandably so, I thought) and they spent the next hour staggering forth and bringing their peers over to point out my wondrously impressive aging process, and how it gave them all hope.  I wanted to tell them not to hold their breaths hoping to emulate same because they'd be lucky to make it to 25 the way they were going.  But instead I gritted my teeth and told them I was considering a facelift soon, as I wanted to look younger.  Like them.  They applauded that one, and I was a hit.  Yay..

Joseph was spilling his inebriated guts to his dear Ma (something apparently he never did sober, so of course his mother was all ears) and I entertained myself by fighting my way to the bar, trying not to lose my footwear on the way as the glue on the floor became more and more pervasive.  I briefly considered ordering a vat of beer and drowning myself in it to enable numbing myself into this environment proper, but then decided I'd rather pay $8 for two child sized bottles of water so I would have the wits to get out of there sooner rather than later.  Hell, if I wanted a real drink I could have just bent down and sucked on the lino.  I also attempted a visit to the toilet, but there was a longer queue to get in there than into Paris Hilton, and mixed with the smells of everything else, I could detect something even more unpleasant which I choose not to name..  I did a quick exit stage left and went back to ingest more "atmosphere".

All around me, people were texting.  There was the glow of 500 phones operating at full bore, and in a lot of cases people were just sitting alone, texting.  I saw three women sitting side by side, eyeballs glued to their phones, texting away, not speaking.  I wondered, can't they just do this at home?  They could sit in their PJs and do it in comfort.  Style even.

There was one young woman there, a fairly curvaceous girl who thankfully was fairly covered up as well, and she was sitting by herself smiling at the world at large.  She was the most attractive person in the room.  But nobody noticed her of course because they were too busy texting.

The next stage of the adventure was finally managing to depart Planet Hell..  At about 1.30am the baboon brigade came out to the cancer cell and herded all the inmates inside, as the cell was officially closed.  I couldn’t work out the logic behind this, it was like trying to squeeze your boobs into a bra three sizes too small; all those people being forced inside, as well as what was already in there, weren't going to go…but I figured that was their problem.  I was happy to be squeezed right out of the place, as the buns of the venue excreted me onto the footpath yonder.  Elly came with me, and Joseph wandered back inside like a puff of smoke, looking dazed as before.  I couldn't imagine letting anybody I cared about go back into that place, and said so…but apparently his friend would look after him.  Double yay.

Coming out to our bikes, and of course mine had a puncture, its first ever.  We then had a long walk along the boulevard, through dark corners and crannies with black shadows lurking, myself praying and promising I'd never do anything quite so stupid again, and wanting the safety of boring suburbia so badly it was almost a physical pain.

We arrived outside the casino, downed a couple of hot chocolates, and then debated what to do about our transport problem.  After I had a full on stoush with one taxi driver who refused to take me and my bike, or even me for that matter (hey it's only a five minute walk was his comment, although his Arabic translation of minutes equals kilometers was somewhat off the mark)  we decided the only thing to do was for Elly to ride back and get the car, and come back and get me.  Which she duly did.  So I stood about, warming myself up on the inside by worrying about her, as my outsides slowly refrigerated.

Meanwhile I hung around opposite the casino, in a well lit area.  A police car was there, and two police were in the process of trying to lift up a guy lying flat on the footpath.  He was either dead or dead drunk.  I figured whilst they were engaged in this activity I had the safety of their presence, so this was as good a place as any to hang..  By the time they finally had hauled him to his feet, he was spitting and heaving all over them, and they had become enraged enough to arrest him.  The police called for their garbage truck to come do a collection.  Meanwhile countless other staggering, abusive, vomiting straggling pieces of ex-humanity cruised past, singly and collectively,  and the unlucky arrestee obviously would have felt even more unlucky to be singled out in this way when there were so many obvious moving targets..  Behind me, two people who had been having a tongue-fest on the steps of Jeff's Shed were now having sex on the concrete like a pair of terriers, and someone else was vomiting loudly behind a pole nearby.  A great night out in our fair city..

My getaway car duly arrived, and we bundled my broken bicycle into it and left.  I couldn’t wait to return to suburban surety, and didn’t stay in Elly's chic city pad as planned, but drove on home instead at 4.00am.  As I drove, calmness descended upon me like a warm blankie, and I left the madness behind as a technicolour blip in my rearview mirror, with lots of disturbing memories and a lesson relatively well and cheaply learnt.

Elly's comment at the start of the night was that we needed another Ice Age so that humanity could begin anew, and now I can wholeheartedly concur.  What have we created, where are we going, and what's the big picture?  Young humanity has lost its way, I thought.  I think of my sweet not quite ten year old who would be fast asleep clutching her little stuffed leopard, and I smile.  Not yet.  There's hope.  This night is not wasted, and I have seen and learnt much.

Note to all those hot children in the city: (or some things your mothers should have told you, but obviously didn't):

If you need to become falling down drunk to tolerate a place, it's NOT the place to be.

If you need to display every body part you have in the freezing cold in order to attract attention, then this is NEGATIVE ATTENTION;

If you need to ingest vast quantities of toxic chemicals into your lungs in order to feel accepted, you are ACCEPTING YOUR WISH TO DIE YOUNG

And last but surely not least, if you submit yourself to all of the above in order to spend the evening texting, THIS CAN ACTUALLY BE DONE IN THE SAFETY OF YOUR OWN HOME!!!!        Wow!

Failing that, how do we kick start an Ice Age (apart from standing around outside the casino at 3am?)  Maybe Kevin Rudd's glorious government can borrow some more funds for this, and the beauty of it is that this loan won't need to be paid back…. J  

Telco Hell

Heaven help where this great land of ours is heading, where we can't even keep any of our service centres in our own country these days.

Calling a telco is a total nightmare, and I mean ANY telco!  Over the years, I've butted heads with Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Three.  Hmm, is that enough?

Vodafone wins hands down when it comes to BS.  I tried them twice, but can't imagine why.  The first time, I had  a mobile phone that used to drop its calls out around the western suburbs of Melbourne, such as Sunshine, which happens to be only about 10km for the CBD.  When I rang Vodafone to complain about it, their answer was, "Well, when you signed up, did you say you wanted to use it in Sunshine?"

Of course, I didn't think of that.

The second time was a couple of years ago, having a Vodafone internet experience this time with one of their USB stick internet things, which used to drop out every ten minutes or so.  They suggested I move my desk near the window.  And open the window.  And try and dangle the dongle out the window.  Being in the depths of a Melbourne winter, the strategy just held no appeal, so I sacked them.  Again.

I had a mobile service with Optus, but I had to stand on my back deck to get any service as there was none to be had inside the house.  Again, not a problem if you live somewhere warm.  I didn't.  But I persevered with them for the two years of the contract as they didn't think I had enough reason to "opt" out of it.  So I spent many chilly nights on the deck, until I decided it was easier and more comfortable just not to answer the phone anymore when the weather went bad.

You probably think by now I was living in the sticks somewhere, but actually I lived in a heavily populated suburb of Melbourne.

I also didn't get a broadband service until about five years after everyone else, because I apparently lived too far from the exchange.  So I was still on dial-up when everyone else was zooming on the 'band.

And then there was Telstra....

I think one of their best efforts was the "high speed cable broadband" which they sold to me as if it was the second coming.  Well, I thought so too, until it would drop out everytime it rained.  Apparently the pits used to fill up with water, so on rainy days there would always be dropouts, and sometimes outages that went on for days.  The salesman had helpfully omitted this minor detail when selling me the package, and even more helpfully, had departed his job at the local Telstra shop in Parkmore when I went over there to hang him out to dry.  He had probably taken a job in a call centre and relocated to Mumbai.

More recently, upon moving to Qld, I ordered an ADSL service, which took roughly a month to transfer across when I moved house again.  Given that I moved all of a kilometre, I couldn't understand the difficulty but apparently these things take time.  It's not just flicking a switch, and even when your new phone line gets connected, it takes at least four days for your internet to come on.  You also can't run them concurrently at your old house and your new house to alleviate the gap; they expect to turn off your old service, wait a minimum of four business days, and then hopefully be able to activate your new one.  I say hopefully, but mine took a month.  And I know others who have had a similar experience.  As my job depends on a stable internet service, this is extremely frustrating to say the least.  So they sold me a stick internet to use in the interim, which drops out roughly every ten minutes or so, costs a lung and a kidney in data, and often informs me that my computer is too old when I try to get it going.  Otherwise OK.

I had yet another outage last week, which occurred during the busiest part of my work day.  After dangling on the phone for two phone calls, each of around 40 minutes duration, the bright spark who was managing my second call decided to do a line check.  Voila!  I had an outage apparently, myself and ten other unfortunates in the area, and it would be reinstated in about five days time.  Well, THANK YOU for letting me know that one was coming, and great to spend 90 minutes on the phone to find that little gem out.

So when the internet finally deigned to return to me, which was over the weekend, I found my laptop could no longer wirelessly connect.  There followed a flurry of phone calls on the Saturday, roughly three hours in total, being put through to areas that were closed, which would then necessitate my having to ring back and start the whole process all over again.  I didn't know whether to scream, cry or drink.  The wireless thing is a big thing, simply because there is only a phone point in the kitchen (where everybody would be having their office, of course, not)  and therefore it would mean that to connect via cable, I'd either have to move my computer into the kitchen, or run about a 20 metre cord to the bedroom where I work. 

Anyway after spending all those hours on the phone talking to a succession of Indians who were increasingly hard to understand because I think my ears were just shutting out those accents in sheer protest in the end, of the fact that we can't have a person who speaks our language to help us anymore, the end result was pretty much as it was always going to be.  It was all my fault, my computer's fault for not recognising the modem wirelessly anymore, even though it was working fine when Telstra pulled the pin on me all those days ago, and I had three choices apparently: either get my computer fixed, buy a newer computer, or use a line extension so I could cable across to the modem.

I chose the third option in the end, $14.95 from Hardly Normal.  And I now have a squiggly phone cord that runs all the way from my kitchen bench, through my lounge, and into my bedroom.  It has been there since this morning, and I have tripped over it roughly 15 times today.  But at least I can work.

Too bad there was no work today, as it turned out.

I need a drink...