Displaced Aussie » Random

I hate BT

Daniel — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:37:44 +0000

We’re moving house soon. Last week, Sherry called BT to get the phone line sorted at our new place. Everything was arranged, we had an order, a phone number, but they’d given us a stupid connection date.

For some reason, they were unable to connect the new line at the date we wanted (any day around the time we were actually moving). They were also going to disconnect our current line on the same date. The only time they could apparently do this was 13 days before we moved.

13 days here without a phone line, leading up to a big house move, wasn’t something we could live with, so we cancelled the order and today I went to place a new one under my name.

But in the last week, it looks like BT have disconnected the phone line to our new house. When I called BT this morning there was apparently no connection, which means an engineer has to go to the exchange to connect us.

They want to charge us £122.50 to reconnect a line they disconnected in the last 5 days.

Thanks a lot BT.

A Brief Update

Daniel — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:00:04 +0000

I now live in a cottage on a farm, just outside of Carhampton
Baby bean is doing well, but blimey it’s an active little thing.
This is how much I love having a woodburner and an enclosed garden:
—> <— (not to scale)
The last really good book I read was this one.
I now have Windows running via Boot Camp on my Mac, so I’ve been able to start playing Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Team Fortress 2.
I followed it all, but didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
I think this is gorgeous and would love it if someone bought me one (wink wink).
I was cheering on Selby all the way to the end.
My wrist no longer hurts (after 14 months) thanks to this.
If I look outside my window I see lots of these.
I loved my first trip to Ikea and then the many hours of furniture assembly, largely because of these:
And… we have just over 100 days until baby bean is supposed to show up.

Note to Self

Daniel — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:37:33 +0000

Do not top up the oil in your car when you haven’t slept properly for over a week.

Do not forget to check the oil levels after adding new oil to your car.

Do not put too much oil in the engine of your car.

Car might go boom.
Car might smoke a LOT.
Car might nearly be unrecoverable.

You Choose

Daniel — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 04:10:25 +0000

Alas.

Where’s the cheese

Daniel — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:19:04 +0000

YouTube is too awesome.

I’ve been looking for these for ages.

“Where’s the cheese?”

If I’m spending my money, don’t make it hard.

Daniel — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:07:15 +0000

Too many online stores make it hard for me to spend my money. If I have to think too much, or if there is some kind of barrier between me and the “buy” button, I’m much more likely to just give up than I am to spend the money.

Let me opt-in

This morning I went to book tickets to see Ratatouille. Odeon have a reasonable website (infinitely better than their old one), and their online booking system is easy to use and lets me to choose the exact seats I want.

But just before I can click to give them my money I have to read this:

I have to work out what it says, and realise that if I don’t tick the boxes I’m going to get spammed with crap I don’t want or need.

If I’m spending money, I shouldn’t have to opt-out every time I buy tickets. It’s unnecessary. It’s frustrating. It means I’m less likely to use the online booking system in the future.

Decisions decisions

Recently I reinstalled Windows for a friend, and in the process copied his iTunes music between machines. I gave the laptop back, but when I got home I decided that I wanted to find an application that would let him copy all the music from his iPod to the fresh iTunes install.

It was on Windows, so he couldn’t use PodWorks. I eventually found an application that looked like it might do the job.

And then I got to the order page.

That was too much of a barrier.

I didn’t know his iPod serial number, and it was going to be too difficult to ask
I didn’t know how many computers he had and whether he might need to do this on more than one computer
I didn’t understand how the licenses worked, or why I was being limited to one of these two options

The “Knowledgebase” didn’t help much either.

So in the end I just gave up (it didn’t take me very long to give up) and I decided not to bother buying a license, or indeed an application, for him.

Please make it easy

So please, if you want my money, and if you’ve got me to the point where I’m about to hand it over, don’t make it hard for me to do so!

A sticky confession

Daniel — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:23:17 +0000

I like finding the end of a roll of sticky tape (sellotape) even more than I like opening a jar for someone who can’t quite open it.

Staying Alive

Daniel — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:12:01 +0000

Some confused people are under the impression that Pope John Paul II waved at them from beyond the grave.

The pareidolia pope.

I showed the picture to a few people and they were all convinced that it was John Travolta, still burning up the dance floor.

Buffy DVDs

Daniel — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:24:00 +0000

I am the proud owner of Seasons 1 and 2 of Buffy on DVD. Last week we were planning to have a nice afternoon in front of the TV watching them. But could I find them? No!

My question is: did I bring my Buffy DVDs with me to the UK, or did I leave them in Australia?