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Grump's
Corner (directly related
to 'things' affecting my lifestyle in NSW, Australia) |
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November 2013 Telstra (again)? Will somebody
take the genius web designers at Telstra outside at playtime and make them
pick up scrap paper in the playground. 29 September 2010 Telstra Shops I do not know if my experiences at the Castle Hill Telstra Shop are
typical, but it is consistent: ·
Twice in the last
month I have attempted to change my pensioner discount from one line into the
house for another, ·
Can it be done on the internet: who knows? Don’t try searching the Telstra website: it
is singularly unhelpful in this regard. NSW Radar Speed
Cameras How come the average driver will be booked for doing a few ks over the speed limit, when L-platers and red P-platers
can exceed their limit by 20kph without being booked? 30 January 2010
Sydney
(or, insert your city here) Drivers
A recent trip across the city from the Baulkham Hills Hilton to Cape Banks
reinforced the lemming-like behaviour of drivers:
Drivers intending to take the off-ramp (i.e. the left lane) perservered with the left lane despite the signage, red
'X' indicating the lane was blocked and the radio notifications until they
could see the broken down vehicle, then tried to merge right... 15 November 2009 Telstra/Bigpond - their website... The two best things that Telstra/Bigpond could do are:
21 September 2009 My first experience of a 'domestic' flight on the internal leg of an
international flight... Part 1 - Sydney to Brisbane (the 'international' bit):
Part 2 - Brisbane to Sydney
Not the end of
the world, but the plane landed 21:15 and I get out of the car park about
23:00 Both Qantas and Macquarie Airports need to get their act (including
information and signage) together! And congrats to STA for the busses and staff! 17 March 2008 The criteria for a truly successful con is that the marks NEVER
realise they are being conned. The ultimate example must be having marks that are prepared to die for
a cause, in the belief that their cause is just (funny how the power brokers
never fall into this category). The sickest example is that there is an unending supply of marks. 4 February 2008 Development
of 'service desks' subsidised by the pharmaceutical companies? Having just 'invested' an hour or so of my time trying to resolve a
problem with my Bigpond website hosting I am left with:
Telephone help
desks
Internet
help pages
And
the connection with pharmaceutical companies? Presumably they make money out of selling happy pills; after this
evening's example, there must be a lot of people that need happy pills to
cope with 'service' desks! 29 January 2008 Vehicle Tail/brake lights Over the last 30-odd years or so, car 'designers' appear to have let
the design of headlights to the otherwise unemployable - there is no
excuse for what has happened, and also inexcusable that the regulators (ADRs
in Australia’s case) have allowed headlight design to become an expensive (and
potentially lethal) fashion accessory. Having successfully developed (???) headlights to their current idiocy
level, vehicle manufacturers have discovered that they can let their wannabe
designers loose on tail light assemblies. It is bad enough that some (too many) taillight assemblies are
designed (?) such that minor carelessness when loading something into the
boot/hatch/rear door becomes a big-dollar expense to replace the assembly
(and they break or crack SOOOO easily) - the wannabes have discovered
LED lighting; and if a few LEDs are good, lots must be better. There are cars on the market that have tail lights so bright in
darkness the driver of a following vehicle has trouble seeing - and then
there are the brake lights. With all the whiz-bang computer technology available, surely if the
manufacturers want to use such intense lighting there could be some way of
reducing the intensity in relation to the ambient light level (gadzooks, 1950s technology?). 2 January 2008 News (or the
lack thereof) Those with little interest in the 'how' can skip to the last paragraph We live in an age of (near) instantaneous media coverage of 'news';
but what is 'news'?
And the
whinge
If there is something newsworthy, it will be done to death. If there is something remotely newsworthy, it will be done to death. If there is nothing newsworthy, opinion will provide enough to fill the
gaps. 19 December 2007 If only to show that a 'grump' is not that way due to some innate
disposition It is one of those 'evenings' in Sydney suburbia - low 20sC,
gentle breeze, no mosquitoes or flies, not overly humid, twilight as I finish
off mowing the backyard lawn after a pleasant evening meal. The aging cattle dog has spent the time
watching me on the sit-down lawn mower (not REALLY quality cattle-dog time,
but the next best thing). Sigh! 2 December 2007 Cable TV Why are there advertisements on cable TV? The increase in monthly
costs of 'cable' have vastly exceeded CPI, together with economies of
scale and advertising has been added??? 20 November 2007 M2
Westbound... In conjunction with the 'widening' to three lanes from the toll booths
to the western side of the Epping tunnel (actually, no widening; only
narrowing of each lane to fit in three) have come a number of other changes:
Is the speed camera for the 70kph limit area, or is the 70kph limit
for the speed camera? Arggh! (no, I have
not been 'booked') If the triplication of this section of the M2 is such a perceived
safety problem, why was is undertaken? 10 November 2007 - OK! So I have been occupied on
other things King
Georges Road - Wiley Park How much longer does the vehicular traffic in Sydney have to suffer
this permanent traffic chaos? Isn't 50
years long enough? Parked cars near the shopping precinct on King Georges Road were
creating a bottleneck back in the 1950's... Every day of the year, thousands of drivers are inconvenienced (at the
best!), an untold amount of excess fuel is consumed, and no bugger cares. 16 October 2007 40 days of
Federal Election Campaigning... What did we ever do to them to deserve such treatment? We give them a sense of (self-)importance, staff to wait on them hand and foot,
chauffeurs, overseas trips, massive remuneration, arguable the world's best
superannuation - and how do they repay us? We have this spectacular system where those people who we do not want
in general society are identified (called pre-selection), and isolated in a
series of padded cells cleverly disguised from them (called parliament
houses) where they can undergo mutual mental masturbation without disturbing
the populace or calling on any intelligence... 6 October 2007 Why do
Winemakers put preservatives in wine? My wife and I used to enjoy a bottle of wine with the Sunday roast
meal - we no longer have a bottle of wine with the Sunday roast... Not that either of us have become teetotal; simply, if my wife shares
the average mid-range Australian wine she ends up with a violent headache. Q - What has changed? A - Preservative 220 (sulphur dioxide) In common with many households, the mid-range (A$15-35) bottle of
Australian drinking wine would not last very long in this household. It is purchased for drinking in the
(comparatively) short term, not for cellaring. So, why do the winemakers put so much preservative in it? Surely not so that it can be cellared for
decades this is drinking wine, not connoisseur's wine! Have you tried buying a bottle of wine without the dreaded
preservative 220? Ask at your local
bottle shop and chances are there will not be a very big range. Preservatives undoubtedly have their place. It is an ancient art; look at how
successful the ancient Egyptians were at preserving bodies - but then I would
not take one of their pieces of handiwork out for a good time on a Saturday
night... I would like my drinking wine to be something I could share with my
wife - not something on a shelf to be admired for how long it will
remain (further) 'unspoiled'! 27 September 2007 Headlights
of oncoming cars (at night-time):
Maybe, if the
police started to book a few drivers for having misadjusted headlights,
driving towards oncoming traffic when on high beam, and/or driving towards
oncoming traffic with the driving lights on, together with a bit of an
advertising campaign there would be fewer accidents caused by drivers being
blinded certainly life would be a lot more comfortable for oncoming traffic. |
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