Further irritation with the so-called sixty hours of paperwork and checkboxes and form-completion which took me forty minutes. I completed it to the satisfaction of the computer systems, but it took the better part of an hour to wring out of the human cross-checker the fact that she didn't want to approve it because the next level of auditors ( Read more... )

Having lived at a number of different rungs on the economic ladder at times, it's kind of interesting to notice the symptoms of moving from one to another ( Read more... )

Well, it looks like the credit crunch has bitten and it's time to sell the house ( Read more... )

For the second time since switching to this provider, we have no dial tone in our landline. Call the 24-hour fault line on a mobile...

"Our phone has no dial tone. ADSL on the same line is still up, no dial tone. We have landline and a cordless base station on it."

Can you unplug everything but the landline? (aka a quick hangup if caller is ( Read more... )

Did the eye test again today at the doc's office. Looks like I'm about 20/10 in the right eye and 20/16 in the left (my guesses based on the various chart lines). A computer-screen test just now puts me more at about 20/16 in both, but a glowing, pixelated Snellen chart may not be as accurate as a paper version at forty times the resolution ( Read more... )

Sent off an email to JETRO Australia about setting up a Japanese nanobusiness.

Why, you may ask?

( Well, it's a long story. )

Note to self - do not reschedule Pilates for Tuesday mornings any more. Especially when I haven't been for a couple of weeks ( Read more... )

The car has started screeching on turns. Again ( Read more... )

Now the dregs of the settlement appear to have finally materialised, but the bank it went to has decided to cut off our ability to transfer funds out of that account via internet banking. Sigh ( Read more... )

Have decided that poking a government department is unlikely to accomplish much, especially not in the short term ( Read more... )