Nerdy stuff, business, water, asbestos, bums, etc. Yes, really

I'm currently sat outside on our patio, in the sunshine typing this. I wish I had Internet access. I've been a busy boy the last couple of days but I've been hugely held back by lack of Internet.

Warning! Nerd Alert! Next few paragraphs are techy, feel free to skip if you want. I'll change the font just so you know where it's safe to resume.

I can connect to our neighbours wireless access point without any problem, but the thing is, so can everyone else with an ounce of intelligence. So that makes it very slow.

In Australia most broadband packages are capped. Once you reach a monthly amount of GB they slow down your access until it's cripplingly slow. So this poor neighbour has up to 9 people stealing his connection and while I only use it for blogging and checking emails, some people must be downloading movies, music, and stuff like that.

As I steal it myself, I can't complain, but I'm sure I'm one of the most considerate thieves. I type these things up offline and then just connect to upload. I'm seriously thinking about rectifying the problem with this cunning plan:

I knock on his door and say "Hello mate, I'm pommie from next door. I have wireless Internet for my laptop but your signal is so strong I keep accidentally connecting to yours. Also, I couldn't help but notice that lots of other people are also connected to you and using your Internet connection. Have you noticed them slowing you down?"

To which I'm sure he'll respond something like "I fought my interweb was slow but so am I. I know nuffink 'bout compooters, I just use it for looking at porn..." or similar.

So I'll suggest that I set up his security for him so that "those bastards" can't steal his connection. He'll look happy and I'll go in and secure it for him. He'll think I'm great, give me beer and try to talk to me about RFL. Then I'll go home and reconfigure my own laptop wireless (and TT's if she's a good girl) so I/we are the only persons stealing it.

What do you think? I know I'll still be guilty of being a thieving bastard but at least that's better than everyone and his dog stealing it. As they say, better the devil you know....

Ok, Nerd Alert over.

On Monday I wrote a post entitled Carpe Jugulum. Yes. Seize by the throat. I had a great day. I've decided not to publish it now as it's out of date, but the summary is this:

In the UK my company provides software to schools and parents that teaches kids English and typing skills. Since moving to Aus I've rewritten it to be more specific to the Australian market and rather than mess around trying to sell it to schools and parents I decided to go straight for the retail sector.

I've never had any dealing with "big-boy" retailers before but I have noticed that in Australia people seem to get down to business with much less "committee and red-tape" bollocks. They either want it or they don't. No meeting-after-dragged-out-meeting meandering down the path of business for months on end over here.

So with that in mind I decided to contact Australia’s largest educational supplier and sell my heart out. Within 20 minutes I was speaking to the biggest boss of them all, the owner - an almost impossible achievement in the UK. He's getting together his head of sales from Victoria, WA and NSW for a meeting. Giddup! I was happy.

Spurned on by this success I decided to open more avenues so I called Brisbane’s biggest bookstore. Again, I ended up speaking to the owner and got his home address. I've got to send him info and copy to trial personally with his own kids.

I found that a lot easier than I expected so I went for Australia’s largest nation-wide bookstore. That was a little more difficult but I've now secured a meeting with their board of directors in Melbourne.

I carried on doing this all afternoon. It was fun.

Where does our hot water come from? In the UK there are generally two options. We either have a boiler, (gas or oil powered, sometimes even coal if you live somewhere rural like I used to) Alternatively we may have an electric powered "immersion" heater. But those are the two basic options. Boiler or Immersion. You dread them ever going wrong, as they're expensive to have repaired/replaced. Normally they are linked to the heating system of the house. Here in Queensland houses don't have heating systems. Furthermore, they seem to have a lack of boilers or immersion heaters. I honestly haven't got a clue what make the water in our hot taps (faucets) hot.

We only live in a smallish two-bedroom place, and I cannot trace the source of our hot water. If we lived in an apartment block then I could understand it, but we don’t! I'm puzzled. The reason I was looking is that the shower tends to get cold after about 10 minutes. I know that's ample time for a shower, but occasionally I like to have a longer shower and I wanted to know whether it was possible to adjust settings to allow this.

And the water is generally too scalding hot. I also wanted to know whether it's possible to adjust the temperature. I'm so fed up with trying to do the washing up in asbestos gloves.

Oh, that reminds me. The real estate finally sent a guy around to look at the water damage to the ceiling in the second bedroom. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but they were insistent on the phone that it must be coming from the property above and they'd get a guy to look there first. I told them we didn't have a property above us, we're single level. They insisted we did. I went and took a photo and emailed it to them. They sent a guy.

The guy turned up, looked at slight water damage on ceiling, went outside and said "That's an asbestos roof, I'm not touching it." Fair enough comment, but I was silly enough to say "Asbestos?! That's illegal in the UK, do they allow it over here?" which lead to him giving me a ten minute lecture which can me summarised thus: "Asbestos is now illegal in QLD, we used to import it from the UK therefore it's your fault" Boy, was that fun...

Anyhoo, I'm off to the trendy Internet cafe to post this now. I hate trendy Internet cafe. My lack of trendiness, ney, anti-trendiness, makes me stand out like Martin Luther King at a Ku Klux Klan Kristmas party.

While I'm at the cafe I'm going to search this blog for "more info later" and similar and finally catch up on all the stuff I've been meaning to tell you. Wont that be fun?!

Oh, and finally, Fridays seem to be "Bad Beard Day" in Brisbane. All the beard-sporting bums come out in their droves and mumble stuff. Last Friday was like "Shawn of the Dead" but featuring only beardy bums. My favourite/scariest was when one mumbled/slurred something to me that sounded like "Don't suppose you suck cocks?" I looked at him aghast. Admittedly I was in the prostitute area of the city at the time, but I really don't look like a fucking rent-boy. And he didn't look like he had 2 pennies to rub together.

He sensed my lack of comprehension, possibly by the look on my face as I raced to decide between:

a) Spewing
b) Covering my mouth and bottom hole with my hands
c) Giving him a close-up view of a British fist.

He clarified his question and it turned out to be "Don't suppose you smoke Ox?" Ox is a rolling tobacco over here and he offered me a sealed packet for $5. That's about $10 under the retail value. Even when it's an almost toothless smelly bum offering the transaction I can't say no to a bargain. Besides, I would have gladly given him $5 just to go away and stop breathing near me. I didn't ask any questions. Best not eh?