So with the synchrotron contract coming to a close at the end of this month I have been looking around for replacement work. I managed to get myself a gig until the end of August with VICNET. Their resident sysadmin is going away for while and I’m going to be holding down the fort while he’s away. What is probably more exciting is that it’s at the State Library building. Looks like I’ll get to try out Melbourne’s train system after all.
At least I’ll be able to cut down my driving Kilometers. The car has currently done almost 15K and it’s less then six months old. Still loving it though.
In other news the new place is coming along. We’ve ordered a fridge and it’s expected to arrive later on today so that’s good news for keeping things cold. Next on our list is a couch but I suspect that this will be the upcoming weekends challenge.
So I joined iinet on the 4th(June) and they were all like: “No probs. 15-20 working days”. That’s quite a lot of working days in real time. In fact that’s a month in real days. So anyway, I’ve been getting emails from the iinet automated provisioning system over the last 2 weeks saying that my order is progressing and i should get Internet real soon now. Last week i got a different email that said that there was some sort of delay but not to worry because iinet are looking at it and if they have any problems at all that they would call me to resolve it.
I was quite content and not really worried, I mean it said it was all fine and we were just waiting. So i waited a few more days. Today is the 13th working day in my waiting period and I thought I might just give them a call and make sure it’s all going well. Turns out that my order hasn’t progressed at all and that they they can’t find my address in the system. So I confirm my address and the guy tells me he’ll have to put me onto provisioning and that there could be a $299 charge for a new phone line attachment if no one has ever put the phone on before. Doubtful, I agreed to talk to provisioning. So I end up at provisioning(at least I got announced) and I then spent a few minutes with the girl finding my address. I mean Mount Alexander Road is a fairly major road. I mean I’m 9NN, it’s not like there are only a few addresses or anything. So it turns out that they seem to think I’m in Essendon West(I’m actually not near Essendon West) and that it’s “Mt Alexander Road”. This in contradiction to all my other utilities that had to have “Mount” rather then “Mt” but I continue anyway. So now that they have my actual address sorted it’s 15-20 working days FROM TODAY. Fuckers.
So with the lease signed and us destined to move into our new place in the coming week it’s time to organise the essentials. Interweb tubing.
Every time I go searching for internet provider I am amazed at how crap they are. But hey, Australia. We all know this already so I’ll save you the rant.
What I will however rant about is TPG’s customer service, or lack there of I should say. So I’m already with TPG at my Tullamarine house and the service is OK, well no complaints anyway. I think Great! No problems, I’ll call TPG and get them to connect another connection to the new place. Don’t need a phone so connect me up a naked ADSL2+ connection. So I call TPG and say I’m an existing customer and I want a new account in a different location. No problems she yells at me over the dull roar of whatever call centre she’s in. “What’s the phone number of your property?” So I’m like, I don’t have a phone number, it’s my new place and I just want to get Naked DSL, I have the address. Not possible she says, “You have to give me the phone number”. So I tell her again that I just have an address and she says “One moment please” and puts me on hold. I then end up at the accounts department with no introduction. I tell this person my story of wanting Internet to which say says “So you want a new account?” I say I’m an existing account holder, just have the new address and need a new connection. “One moment” again and I go back without introduction again to the new account department who I proceed to tell for the 3rd time my woeful tale of not having a phone number and needing the Internet. This new person who is in the loudest call centre yet then tells me that “I must have a phone line and number before I can get Naked DSL” and that I need to “Call Telstra, get them to connect the phone line and we’ll disconnect it when you go to Naked DSL” Not being sure I heard her correctly I repeat it back to her. You want me to call Telstra, get the phone connected so that you can disconnect it? Correct. Not quite sure what to say I proceed to tell her the same thing in a different way hoping to somehow breach what must be a communication problem. “No she says(starting to get short with me) It’s the only way, call us back when you have a phone number we can disconnect”. So I start to tell her how ridiculous that is and she sighs at me and hangs up. I mean WTF?
Pissed(and already wording my old man complaint letter) I do a quick survey of the other providers. Netspace(who connected my last internet connection in Bendigo without and existing phone number) but remember that I vowed never to go back to them after still being changed random small amounts on my credit card causing me to call up once a month to get promised that it will never happen again. To be fair the do reimburse their small charges, it just takes them a month.
So I end up calling iinet(who to my delight, are not answering the phone from under a waterfall). They have no problem connecting me without a phone number but warning me if they have to lay cable that there will be a charge but it can be discussed as required. I tell her my details, she says it’s all good and now we wait. So all in all, iinet your my provider. Your customer service rocks and if all goes well I’ll change my other account to them as well because TPG clearly don’t deserve it. iinet++ don’t let me down.
So our quest for a place to live together has finally be conquered. We will now be living in Essendon at the above pictured residence.
It’s a little on the pricey side but the location is excellent(I can visually see Essendon train station). It has a car park for me and the place itself has enough room for us and we get a view of the city from a great little balcony.
So if you have a wide open space and a few witches hats it turns out you can have quite a bit of fun.
This is me doing one of the courses at the Motokharna in Shepperton on the weekend past. Not really knowing what to expect or even really what a motokharna was i got up at the still dark time of 5am Saturday morning to make the trip drive up.
Armed with only the information that its “awesome” i arrived before everyone else and proceeded to drink my coffee on the side of the road while someone arrived to open the DECA ground. While waiting a few other WRX club members turned up and generally stood around until the gates opened. From there we headed to the carpark and proceeded to strip out most of the rear of the car(spare wheel etc). This is apparently to reduce weight but i dare say it’s more related to the illusion that we should be preparing our cars for the event. It’s a mental thing.
An hour or two later we were inspected, briefed and divided. The first event, the phallic named “Long Wang”. Essentially in this event you launch you car only to go through two small chicanes on a hill, go around a small bend. Go through the “bus stop” which is just another tighter chicane. From there we head screaming and squealing into a small square where we 360 around hat then proceed to a small “garage” marked with yet more ominous orange hats.
The goal of course is to do this course as quickly as possible without hitting any of the cones. This is a little easier to say rather then do. The problem really is, is that you only get two goes at it. The first time your really just seeing where everything is and by 2nd you’ve just got confident enough to go fast. I think if i had had a few more attempts i could of got significantly faster.
The “Short Wang” (the equally appropriately named course) followed and then we went back again in a round robin type arrangement. Just like it’s larger brother you essentially go fast, turn go through a chicane and stop in the garage. Only this time there is less wang.
After a solid wanging we moved onto the skid pan in which we had were presented with maps outlining where we were meant to go. I generally feel I’m good with a map, I can read it, I can understand the intent, I can(being male) mentally rotate the image and gain a more relative perspective. I can even imagine myself going through the course cone by cone. The one thing however it seems that I can’t do is remember more then the first turn after I launch my car. So essentially there was a lot of “which way now?” but ultimately by the 2nd go i got it straight. Same as the wang, if i had a few more goes, i would be like lightning. There are a few designs and they all involve areas where your meant to hand-brake your self around a small orange cone without touching. Lather, rinse and repeat using different courses well into the afternoon. There is even “battles” where two people “race” each other on the same course but next to each other.
Overall it’s great fun and there is nothing like scraping the rubber chunks out from under your wheel guards to let you know you’ve had a great day out.
