Bloody broadband..

OK, I'm going to have a wine about the Internet. Well, more about the telephone company who provides the service (there's an oxymoron for a start) to our locale. We live in rural NZ, and Telecom, who've had a monopoly since the far-sighted NZ govt sold the system off some years ago, have an inadequate system in place for the year 2006. We were told, however, by a man who sounded as though he were talking to 5 year olds that when they put the system in it was state of the art... spare no expense. Back in 1992, that was.

After much lobbying by local residents to Telecom moles and our local MP, (yes I know, a politician) Telecom despatched three souls from three far-away places (at great expense)
in NZ to confront a simmering gaggle of local residents, farmers and business people. It was to be an afternoon of pie-charts, graphs and defensive rhetoric. After one and a half relentless hours, no questions out to the panel were satisfactorily answered, and several residents were pretty darned hot under the collar.

All questions were defended with the beloved and utterly inaccurate charts. Our local MP ran a tight ship, and defused several potential murders... all justifiable homicide in my opinion. She took copious notes and is to present a cogent plea to the CEO of Telecom sometime in the near(?) future. Maybe it will bring results given that it will be woman-to-woman, but I doubt it.

Oh, we got the grand vision... no promises mind, but a grand vision of how rural NZ was to become blah blah blah.... you know.

So we have no access to broadband (highspeed), a dial-up speed of 19.2kps, and the frontline telephone Helpline (another oxymoron) tols two residents recently that if we choose to live in a rural community that we have to expect poorer services. Good one, Telecom.

It all comes back to shareholders...

I think I'll blow up Telecom headquarters...

icarus...

Flying close to the sun...

Househusbandry Horribilus...

Herself, ensuring that I remained chained to the stove at her beck and call, hurled herself face forward onto the bitumen road not far from home on Monday afternoon, late. As if having two damaged shoulders and the lurgy, she now has a seriously-sprained angle, a grazed knee and two grazed palms.

Of course any sensible person would have come straight home, but the attraction of a stroll (hobble) on the beach was too strong. Arriving there, she duly collapsed (surprise, surprise) and sat waiting for me to miss and retrieve her. Hah... I was busy cooking dinner, and anyway it wasn't all that unusual for her to stay away for hours with her book.

The following morning she returned, all crutched up, from another visit to the doc with ankle duly strapped and a bag filled with homeopathic remedies. The good news (!) is that she'll be laid up for 5 weeks or so, and that means I get to do the dishes every night...

She is all set up downstairs with her beloved PC, near the kettle and the dunny...

I'd say the whole episode deserves a poem... what do you say, missus Mo?

Got to go... dishes to wash, food to prepare, floors to sweep, job to go to.

Sigh........................

California dreamin'....

Not really, but the other day I played an old Peter, Paul and Mary album (yes, an LP) for the first time in yonks, and that song was on it. "California dreamin' " has more in the way of musical asthetics than "Australian Outback dreamin'," alas. And that's where I'd like to be. Dry and without humidity means no nasty respitory viruses and colds or bronchitis. Give me scorpions, deadly snakes, 6" spiders that leap and crocodiles any day, but not those chest infections and buckets of snot.

Herself is still very much under the weather, sick and tired of herself. Poor bugger...

Anyway, no more moaning right now.

Cheers, John

Flying close to the sun...

Flying close to the sun...

Boxed in with bloody bastard bronchitus, and feeling like a nun's twat after a long climb up the bell tower stairs. Don't ask...

I hate being crook, I'm very bad at being crook, I'm not even good with other crook people. So I'm ill-tempered and selfish. Did I ever deny that? Ask any of my wives... at least ask the ones with their heads still on. I hate coughing, I hate the thick, oily, slithery, resinous taste of a deeply-mined gob of phlegm... but I do like to watch it struggle for air in the toilet bowl.

The missus is still buggered, and moans a lot. All the time, really... genuine moaning, I mean, not the usual pommie whinging stuff. Poor bugger.. I feel sorry for her, but ya can't let them know that ya sympathise, right, or they step up the act. I help her when I can. I take out the rubbish once a week. I cook. I help her lift the pots into the sink to be washed up. I get her every second drink... am I a saint, or what?

What a load of twaddle this is. I'm off to get a third glass of this teriible boxed red wine. It's from Griffith in NSW, Australia, probably the worst wine-growing area in the country. Inhabited by Sicilians and Italians who hate us, and inflict their crap plonk on us by making the price irresistable... they know Kiwis have a reputation for long pockets. We're cheapskates, let's be honest. If Griffith can make its vin ordinaire, box it, ship it to NZ and retail it for $10 less per box than the equivilent Kiwi crap you understand what I'm saying.

But I'll drink it. Anything, really...

Iccy