Sweet sweat

Something I read on another blog started me thinking about useful household items. I'm not big on gadgets and probably have less than half the appliances deemed necessary by my contemporaries but it's the small, useful bits 'n' pieces that give me real and lasting pleasure and those that don't work or become unused clutter cause me everyday angst.

Good stuff:
A wine opener that gets the cork out first time
A can opener that goes all the way around the can without catching and slipping

I've just spent 4 days camping so these invaluable camping tools come to mind-
The black metal hook with handle that is so useful around a campfire
The cheap, portable gas cooker with disposable gas bottle - so light and easy to transport
The fold-up camp grill plate with legs
Those zip-lock plastic bags in three convenient sizes

The cheap plastic toilet brush in a holder that allowed it to fall out every time the floor was mopped and drove me insane for 5 years that I've just replaced with a $4 version in a holder that... well holds it!

What household gadgets can you not live without?

Unable to sleep, and with nothing much to say, I followed a link to the world's shortest personality test. Does this sound like me? Good grief, I must be the world's most boring and judgmental prig!

You are pure, moral, and adaptable. You tend to blend into your surroundings. Shy on the outside, you're outspoken to your friends. You believe that you live a virtuous life... And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye. As a result, people tend to crave your approval.

A quick update for those who have been following the great GameHouse fiasco, it has finally been successfully resolved, but not without a parting shot from the beautiful Keith in effect telling me I am an idiot, he's right, I'm wrong and I better realise it!

Hello,

I have sent a second copy of your original receipt to your email.
It will have a link to download and your registration information. (emphasis added)

--Keith--
GameHouse Customer Support

Now my idea of good customer service at this stage would have been:

Hello, Obviously there's been some glitch between our shipping and your email address. I'm sending the receipt again. Please let me know if it's not in your inbox at the same time as this email. I do hope there are no problems this time and that you enjoy your game.

See Keith, that would have been customer service. a WIN/WIN as they used to say in the 90s. Nobody loses face, everybody goes away happy.

What is it with these people who have to be 'right' all the time at the expense of insulting other people's intelligence and hurting their feelings? I struck another in a work situation the other day. She'd sent me something, asked that I check the details and confirm they were correct. Only thing was, she was leaving the job at the end of the week and could I please reply to the new incumbent.

I checked the names and occupation details and confirmed they were correct. There were descriptions of events attached to the names that were supposed to be a summary of information I'd previously sent to her. These were very badly put together. There were grammatical and punctuation errors and one paragraph had been repeated. I corrected these errors in edit mode and sent the whole thing back to her successor, as requested. Trouble was, I did it on the Friday and she wasn't leaving till the Monday.

Back from her comes a reply - the new guy had obviously forwarded my reply back to her. "Those details were only to assist the judging committee. They will not be used for any other purpose. I cut and pasted them from your submission."

In other words - "they were YOUR mistakes, not MINE". And to this I say bulls**t!
Hello everyone out there - I AM NOT AN IDIOT!!! I could clearly see that she had cut and pasted my words. Only thing was that in doing so she would have had to change some of the grammar and punctuation in the new context and SHE DIDN'T! Also, I didn't have the same paragraph repeated next to itself...I checked!

I didn't bother to respond to her; she was leaving and I'd made the point that the words needed to be fixed if it was going to be used in advertising or something (which was a possibility). I've struck this woman before over the years and every time it's been the same attitude - aggressive self-justification.

Why bother? If there's a mistake, just go ahead and fix it is my theory. It's really not necessary to point the finger at anyone else to justify your own weaknesses and mistakes.

Yes, a week after I first tried to order scrabble online, GameHouse is still stuffing me around. Here's the latest.

=========Customer Comments=====================
Thu Jul 14 03:34:26 PDT 2005
Hi Keith, I thought I might have heard back from either you or your fraud department or perhaps been told my purchase had gone through. Can you tell me when I might get a positive reply please?
========== End Comments ==========================

====== Support Response ======
Thu Jul 14 10:10:41 PDT 2005
Hello,

Your order was accepted and sent to you. Your order just needed a manual review (like the email stated)

--Keith--
GameHouse Customer Support

So now I've written yet again to the beautiful Keith letting him know I haven't received any receipt, confirmation or licence code and perphaps I'm just stupid, but could he please explain how I am supposed to activate the game!!!!

"A manual review (like the email stated)" eh? I thought the email clearly stated that my order was being sent to their fraud department. I was told in no uncertain terms not to try to order again before the problem was resolved. And lo and behold, I get this terse response but still no receipt or details to enable me to activate the game.

So, who cares, this jousting match is becoming much more entertaining than scrabble!

I've been tagged by TECH to do the ubiquitous book meme that's doing the rounds. While I'm pleased someone tagged me with something; I kinda wish it hadn't been this one. The reasons will become obvious when you read my self-revealing reply that I just know will turn into some sort of philosophical rant rather than a simple answer to this meme.

1. How many books do you own?
"Where do you keep your books, Aunty, I need something to read," said my nephew when he visited last year. He'd been a constant visitor to every home I'd previously had and just knew I must have heaps of books somewhere. The answer was, "they are in your room". 33! Yep, that's right, not 1,033 or even 133 but 33 -I just counted them. See that's one of the benefits of not owning a library, you can keep an accurate record of how many you own. The other is not continually running out of bookshelves!

It's to do with the stage of life you've reached, I believe. Once I owned hundreds of books, maybe close to 1000 and my partner at that time was continually hammering and sawing and building new bookshelves. Not only for my books, but bookshop son (read his answer to this meme here) recalls shelving 540 at that house -partner had a few of his own and even tv viewer son had about 3 shelves-worth (at 30 per shelf, even that's 90 books and he hated reading). But the thing is, you get to a stage of life most of you can't even imagine yet, where you don't want all those THINGS any more. They become just more objects to dust and house. You stop aspiring to possessions and acquiring more junk to clutter up your life. You start divesting yourself of THINGS.

I moved from that 4 bedroom, 2 living room, 2 bathroom house into a tiny camper trailer, dimensions roughly 14 ft by 5ft. Careful choices had to be made and they included a book of maps, a bird identification book, a mammal identification book and whatever we were currently reading, with maybe a couple of spares - you see I can't bear to have nothing to read. While travelling, we solved the problem by buying second hand in each new town and 'trading in' whatever we'd just finished, so my personal tally of books I owned was always around 6 or 8 - plus the reference books.

Now I borrow from the local libraries - 10 books at a time and I change them at least twice a month. You see, it's an economic decision as well as a philosophical one - I guess I read between $300 and $400 a month worth of books but I get them free.


2. Last book read?
Okay here comes the shameful part of the revelation. I can't remember. No, no, I don't mean it's been so long since I read a book that I can't remember, I mean I don't remember anything I read (so you can see why it's not worth spending money on books). I probably average 3 or 4 novels a week. I love reading but I'd have trouble most times telling you the name of the book I'm currently reading without looking at the cover - I just did and it's called Tricks of the Light by Alison Fell (I'd remembered that as The Quality of Light). I've always had the problem - can't remember anything much about the books I read, the movies or tv shows I watch or the names of singers I like or songs. I don't know why- it's bizarre, very embarrassing and severely limiting on conversation. But there you have it - and it gets worse with every year older I get. In fact someone dear to me once made the remark that it wasn't such a bad disability to have, since soon I'd be able to own only one book I really loved and read it over and over again... I'm almost there mate! The only linking factor I can find with these things is that they are all things I do for pleasure. I remember a little more about work or business things. Perhaps there's a psychologist or a neurosurgeon out there who can explain all this - I can't.

3. Last book purchased?
Oh God, yet more shame!!!Hollywood Divorces -Jackie Collins. I was catching a train and was terribly upset by an altercation with a loved one and bought it at one of those tables of cheap books you find in shopping malls and railway stations. I needed something crappy and shallow that I could sink into and take my mind off things - and it only cost $5. It's not my usual fare, promise!

I borrowed a new lot from the library this week, they are:
* Manhattan Is My Beat - Jeffery Deaver - I enjoy psychological thrillers and serial killer novels.
*Names for Nothingness - Georgia Blain - billed as a story of mothers and daughters- what happens when the life you choose involves denying everyone you love (introspective, gut wrenching relationship stories get me every time).
* The Mythology of Self Worth - Richard L Franklin -no comment needed
* A Seahorse Year -Stacey D'Erasmo -another 'family/relationships book.
* Queenmaker - India Edghill - a novel of King David's Queen in the tradition of 'The Red Tent' - I remember I really enjoyed The Red Tent, can't tell you what it was about but if the name has stuck in my memory it must have been exceptional, so...
* An Imperfect Marriage - Tim Waterstone - more family/relationships stuff
* A Woman's Place - Edwina Currie - not sure whether I've read this one before or another of hers that I liked. That's the good thing about library books, you don't need to be selective. If you don't like it, you've lost nothing.

4. Name five fiction books that mean a lot to you.
Since almost everyone will have stopped reading long ago, I'm not going to rave on about these. I could give you a brief, potted history beginning with The Billabong books, a children's series about outback Australia that threaded strongly through my childhood and taught me that the place I lived and the things I knew were just as valid as moles and toads and tea in the nursery featured in all those English children's books, Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' that illuminated my right-wing twenties, the books I read to my children such as 'The night before Christmas'. So many, hundreds? thousands? that have shaped and informed my life, but instead, I'm only going to tell you about one; the book that means the most to me of any.

Suburban Aliens is not a well-known book. Published by Lothian in 2003, it's billed as "a report from the front line of teenage life in the suburbs in the early years of the twenty-first century. Honest and relevant, it describes a world that young people will recognise and adults won't want to believe." It's beautifully crafted, a spare, truthful vision of teenage life through the eyes of a participant. It's a damn good book that anyone could relate to. But it has an added edge that makes it THE BOOK THAT MEANS THE MOST TO ME. It fills me with pride and gratitude. The author is my son - Nicholas Carvan.

5. Tag five more people.
Sorry, I can only think of one who might be interested; all the rest have already been tagged by someone else, don't blog, or have given up blogging (you know who you are!). I tag Mellipop

I'm a bit nervous about purchasing over the internet. Being of the 'older' generation and knowing I don't understand much about how it works or how fraud might be enabled, I tend to shy away from it. But occasionally, when needs or desires dictate, I do pluck up my courage and do it - give my credit card details to some anonymous website with a little gold lock symbol and hope for the best.

The response I've received to my latest foray into cyberspace has not filled me with confidence. I thought Gamehouse was a pretty big show- I thought I'd probably be safe- I thought I'd be enjoying a game of scrabble instantly! Instead, here's the official summary of my Gamehouse experience... and I still don't have the game!

Thanks Gamehouse. Thanks Keith. Thanks bloody internet, bloody shopping, bloody credit card...

Date Opened: Jul 11, 2005
Original Description:

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Me: I've had three tries to order scrabble at your website and each time get the
answer unable to complete order. Can you tell me why. I do have a valid
credit card. Cheers

Bug History:

====== Support Note ======Mon Jul 11 07:25:27 PDT 2005 - Keith: Assigned To Keith====== End Support Note ======
====== Support Response ======
Mon Jul 11 07:25:27 PDT 2005
Hello,

Recently we have implemented new security features on our store to help prevent credit card fraud. Unfortunately, this is stopping some valid orders from coming through. Since you have contacted us and do appear to have a valid credit card, please let me know the last 8 digits (no spaces) of your card number and your address and I can then unban your card from our store and you can then place a new order.

Keith
-GameHouse Support

===============================

=========Customer Comments=====================
Mon Jul 11 15:38:10 PDT 2005
number supplied
address supplied
NT
Australia ========== End Comments ==========================

====== Support Response ======
Tue Jul 12 09:09:19 PDT 2005

Hello,

Your card has been granted access to our store. Please place a new order.

--Keith--
GameHouse Customer Support



===============================

=========Customer Comments=====================
Tue Jul 12 17:48:54 PDT 2005
Hi Keith, Far from resolved, I'm now being 'referred to your fraud department'. Here's the response I got to placing my order - I'm not happy! "Thank you for your order. Your payment information is being verified.
Your financial institution was unable to verify your personal information.
For your protection, your order has been forwarded to our Fraud Detection Department.


Please do not attempt to place this order again.
You will not be allowed to place another order until your pending order has been resolved.

Upon verification of your payment information, an email receipt will be sent to your email address.
Your receipt will include all the information you need to download and register your games"


========== End Comments ==========================

I don't know why the Darwin awards always seem of particular interest to people living in Darwin -perhaps they simply associate with the name, perhaps there are so many potential winners living here that they don't know the awards are not named after the town... but they are always a good laugh. See, you are not as stupid as you feared you might be if you didn't do any of these things this year. :)

Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the glorious winners:

1. When his 38-calibre revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked

..... And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger.

The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.


4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.


5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.


6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)


7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.


8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store.

The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."


9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away. A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!


10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

In the interest of bettering human kind, please share these with your friends and family... unless of course one of these 10 individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

She's a tall woman, almost 6ft, and once she was strong. She always worked hard and expected little. She's never owned a house; or a car. Life hasn't been generous to Eve. Now she's old. Her thick, dark hair has turned steely. She doesn't see or hear as well as she did and ten years ago, she lost a leg to a rare bone cancer.

Eve doesn't have much in the way of family, just one son -who neglects her shamefully- and his four children, growing up now. When they were small and she was strong, she looked after them all. Oh yes, she always earned her way did Eve. She cleaned for 20 years at the local hospital before she retired and after work, well she went home and cooked and ironed and cleaned for her son and his children.

She's never been an easy woman to get along with - a bit of a rebel and too outspoken for her own good most of the time - but her heart has always been in the right place.

Now she lies in bed in her sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean public housing unit and for the first time in her life, Eve is afraid.

She's known a few criminals in her time, lived through the war years and earned extra dollars taking bets for an illegal bookmaker. She married late and her husband died before too many years. She's always relied on herself; never been afraid to stand up for herself.

But last week something happened to Eve. She was asleep in her little unit when thieves broke in through the back door. Probably just as well Eve doesn't hear too well these days because she didn't hear them break the door down. She slept through them ransacking her cupboards and rifling her handbags and didn't wake when they threw her bottles of medicine on the floor and crushed the tablets she needs to keep the pain at bay.

She didn't see them when they left with what remained of the fortnightly pension cheque she'd cashed that day. She didn't know anything about it till after she struggled out of bed in the morning and swung herself clumsily into the kitchen on the crutches she uses these days.

Now her one sanctuary has been denied her. The little unit she loved. The nicest, newest place she'd ever had just doesn't feel safe anymore.

And sleep won't come as she lies awake every night listening for the sounds of someone else coming to do her over.

Lacking inspiration for a blog post, I started turning the pages of a couple of little books I bought ages ago. I guess I bought them for just that reason, that I thought they might give me inspiration. Not so much inspiration for a blog post - I have to admit that never occurred to me- but for life, maybe to get through that particular day or that particular problem. I don't look at them much and many people I know would deride me for ever looking at them. However, sometimes, when friends fail, when truth is hard to find; well a little flick through one of these books can't hurt.

Here are a few I liked today:

From the book of Hope:

Every exit is an entrance somewhere else - Tom Stoppard

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional - Unknown

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta be willing to put up with the rain. - Dolly Parton

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on. - Robert Frost

I read an interesting letter to the editor in my local paper today. I can't share it verbatim, because I didn't bring the paper home, but the sentiments went something like this:

Why is it that the law treats rape victims so differently from the victims of any other crime?

Can you imagine this scenario. A man is walking down the street. He is physically attacked and has his wallet and watch stolen. The perpetrator is caught and the case goes to court. The victim is questioned by the defence lawyer.

Lawyer: Where were you when the alleged offence occurred?
Victim: Walking down the street
L: What time of day was this?
V: About 11pm
L: Had you been drinking?
V: I'd called in to the pub and had one drink after working late
L: Was the street well-lit? Were there many other people around?
V: No, it was quite dark and deserted
L: So you had chosen to walk along a dark and deserted street, affected by alcohol, in the middle of the night. What were you wearing at the time.
V: A business suit
L: So you deliberately put yourself in the position of walking alone along a deserted, dark street in the middle of the night, somewhat the worse for drink, dressed in clothes that would advertise your affluence. Don't you think this might have been unduly provocative towards a person who wanted what you so obviously had? Had you ever walked along this street before?
V: Yes, often, it is on my way home
L: So you made a habit of getting tiddly, walking the streets in the middle of the night tempting those less fortunate by your manner and dress?
L: Have you ever given money away?
V: Of course I have
L: So you put yourself in a vulnerable position, one designed to tempt a certain behaviour by my client and you are now complaining of being robbed of the very thing you have at other times given away for free.


Moral: No matter how a woman dresses or how many beers she's had, or how many times she's had sex, she should be free to walk wherever she chooses without fear of being raped.

Obvious really, isn't it, but it seems not everyone is equal before the law!

Territory Day celebrates the declaration of the Northern Territory as a separate entity (I think) but to Territorians, what it means is crackers; fireworks, lots and lots of fireworks!

They're a mad bunch up here in the far north of Australia.

If I had sound attached to this post, you'd hear a deafening bombardment of whistles, cracks, bangs, pops and downright blasts.

But this year it's relatively quiet around my place.

The first year I lived here, the government put on the official fireworks display from the Casuarina cliffs, just across the water from me. The park opposite my unit was jam packed with people. Family groups, friends and mobs of hoons, each with their own bag of crackers. To amuse themselves while they watched the big starbursts zooming across the bay, they all let off their own fireworks. Having so many people in one place, all letting off fireworks, is a sight to behold, especially when one group decides they are being attacked by a neighbouring group, because then they start deliberately pointing the skyrockets and throwing the biggest bungers at each other.

I can only liken the level of noise and brilliance of the explosions to living in a war zone. It was funny for a while - but when the booms were still echoing off the buildings at 2am, my sense of humour just about deserted me.

The next year the government put on the big display at Mindil Beach but people still came to the park opposite my place and the noise and light show was almost as big as the first year.

Since then the crowds have gradually dwindled and tonight when I got home there appeared to be only a dozen groups in my park.

That was 7.30pm. It's now 10.30pm and still the bangs and shouts, crashes, crackles, whistles and booms are resounding around the unit. Those people sure must have spent a lot of money on fireworks.

The later it gets, the closer and louder the bangs get. I think the stalwarts decide it's even more fun to throw the crackers under the buildings or into the carparks - and these tall unit buildings echo. You can listen to the one cracker six or seven times.

Still, it's quiet here tonight; relatively speaking.

I was in Darwin at 6pm when the fun began and there are more units in taller buildings there. The noise was physically painful.

I saw the giant starbursts of the official display lingering above the palm trees while nearby children scared hundreds of bats out of their feeding grounds with lesser but louder crackers; and they rose in screeching black clouds across the reds, greens and silvers pulsing through the night.

Ah, the first fire engine; probably not the last...and for another week, the shock of a huge bunger thrown into the front garden when you least expect it!

Territory Day! The only place in Australia where people can still burn up thousands of dollars in one night of mayhem while dogs cringe in terror and small children wail with exhaustion, rocked by the rhythm of flashes and crumps and bomb blasts!