Sorry for the sporadic postings, we’ve recently moved from New Zealand back to Australia and we had a devil of a time getting broadband.  First we couldn’t get it at all, wouldn’t even take our application, and then it was that we’d get it in November 2011.  Why?  Because there were only 2 free lines from people who’d moved out and they were being saved for future owners.  That’s just how it works.

Mr. Flirty is a geek of the first order and not to have the highest possible connection was driving him nuts.  He called and got a phone company rep in the Philippines who said we couldn’t get broadband at all and had half a paired set of wires for our phone connection.  That’s where it started going bad.  He called the business office and got no joy.  He called the regional office and got no joy.  In an offhand comment to our of our new neighbours, they suggested just talking with a phone techo because they are the ones who really know what’s going on.

So that’s what he did next.  The techo said there were 2 free wires that went straight to the exchange but we couldn’t have a set because they were on hold for 6 months and 1 day.  Mr. Flirty had smoke coming out of his ears that this point.  The techo then did something that’s rare in any industry.  He said he had a buddy that owed him a favor and he’d see what he could do.  In 15 minutes we were connected on one of those 2 wires to the exchange.  We couldn’t access the net because we didn’t have a broadband account.  He called the phone company again and was told that it would take 10-15 working days to get it installed.  He explained that it was already connecting to the exchange and someone just had to flip a switch.  Nope, nothing could be done to make it go any faster.

That’s when he hit on the magic phrase.  “Is there a performance standard that you must meet and can you tell me what that is?”

Well, that person wouldn’t tell him what it was, just said there was nothing she could do.  So he asked for her supervisor and asked the same question.  She gave  him every reason in the book why it took 10-15 working days and he said, ‘If you cannot tell me what the performance standard for connections is, can you pass me on to someone who will?”

She put him on hold for nearly 25 minutes and he waited the whole time.  She came back and still didn’t tell him what the performance standard is for connections but told him we’d be online by the following afternoon.

He spent literally hours and hours on the phone and going to the offices in person to make this happen but *finally* we’re back on and I have a brand new zippy computer so I should get lots more done.  Maybe.

Do you have days where you just want to crawl back in bed and not think about all the things you have to do?

That’s how my day started today and I can tell you that things have gone down from there. I burnt myself quite badly a couple of weeks ago and so I’m in a lot of pain. It was with boiling water and it’s big and you don’t want to know the rest. It’s gross. I started working (because I work every day) and I was uncomfortable and tired and cranky.

Some guy uploaded an erotic story and we view everything before it gets published on our site and it’s a good thing too. His story was a page and a half long and it was one sentence. Yep one sentence. So being the kind person that I am, I wrote to him and explained that nobody would read a story with only one sentence that went on for a page and a half. I even pasted his story back to him in case he hadn’t saved it. I asked him if he could please check it and add some punctuation and paragraphs.

He did his best and resubmitted it. There were paragraphs in there but it took me nearly 45 minutes to fix 328 errors in it. Now I know I should have just deleted the damn thing and just moved on but I felt bad that he was stupid and I fixed it. Then I was mad at myself for wasting all that time.

Truthfully, I’m rarely in a bad mood so when have the “can’t help its” they seem much worse than they really are. I’ve tried thinking a happy thought for 17 seconds and I smiled for 3 seconds and then I went right back to feeling pissy again.

Someone suggested that I should look at peaceful photographs. I tried that and all I saw were pictures of places I’d like to visit — without me in them.

Someone else suggested that I meditate. How can you meditate when all you really want to do is throw rocks?

What are your tricks for getting out of a shitty mood? My husband would like me to find out.

For those of you who’ve wondered if I fell off the turnip truck on the way to town, nothing as lucky as that. I had my gall bladder out and ended up at home with a nasty staph infection. I never realized how serious the superbug crisis was until it happened to me.

If you have surgery or really if you go into the hospital for anything at all, make sure that you wash your hands every 30 seconds or use that instant hand santizer stuff. I wish I had.

But, I’m back, sort of. Still on drugs but feeling immensely better and I have a smile on my face today.

I know times are freakin tough the world over. Rising food prices because of the rise in the price of a barrel of oil. So to all you Americans who are groaning over what you pay for a gallon of gas, you are doing pretty well. I just filled up here in New Zealand and at $2.099 per litre and then converting the litres to gallons and converting it to US Dollars on xe.com, I paid a whopping $6.09 U.S. per gallon. Compared to your $3.85 – $4.00 U.S. a gallon, I’m feeling really poor right now.

So the next time you’re feeling poorly that you are struggling to fill the tank, give a thought to those paying even more than you are. It ain’t pretty.

Let’s hope the change in government will turn things around and the dollar will be stronger and that the oil situation will ease. My fingers are crossed.