Trouble with Tribbles, um Telcoms

Well guess what, the Telkom guy actually arrived semi on time at 9:10 this morning, but I’m still as frustrated with Telkom as James Tiberius Kirk was with those pesky furry critters.

I had already gotten up at 6:30 (I'm excited in case you can't tell) and managed to setup the wireless network and then completely screw it up applying some measure of security. Then recover and decide that one day without security until I've got time to investigate how it's done won't be the end of the world. Speaking of security, I installed the wireless access card in my pc first and was very surprised to find no less than three unsecured wireless networks available to me. I suspect that they all stem from the Old Mutual buildings across the road. There I was questioning why I'd even bothered getting ADSL when a wireless network card would have done the trick. Unfortunately I was unable to get net access because that required a username and password, but I could freely browse the networks. I decided to avoid doing anything else illegal and told my pc to ignore these networks.

So back to the telkom guy. Well before he arrived I'd already tried syncing my modem with the DSLAM, but with no response. When he got there he pulled out his swanky HP laptop and did the same thing with his modem and again no response. Things were looking bad. He made some calls and discovered that the exchange technician had not yet connected my line to the DSLAM, arse bunglers, and places a call to set that in motion. It took him all of ten minutes to do this, it only took me two but I didn't have to unpack and pack up my laptop, which was nothing really and for that I'm going to be charges R400.

The two things that struck me as really silly were that they sent a guy out without doing the prep properly and that this guy had a 15K+ laptop to check it there was a connection, when a R1K- ADSL router would be just as good and more convenient to lug around. Hopefully the exchange dude will get his act together and make the connection today, chances?

No word from Granadilla Juice Guy today, loll.

My good friend Moonflake is running an interesting statistical study on Astrology for her blog. On the odd chance that you don't read her blog (really you should, it's much better than mine) go over there and take part in this scientamariffic study.

Do you swim on both sides of the Jacuzzi?

Because I haven’t linked in ages here are some funnies.

Zimbabwe has just released a Z$50 000 banknote. It's worth about R3.15 and with inflation expected to be between 700 and 800 percent in the next two months it'll be valued at about 50c. And that's the biggest they got.

Chinese migrant workers, who will be travelling home for Lunar New Year, are in for a 24 hour train ride that is so crowded that some of them have decided to wear adult diapers because it's impossible to get to the toilet.

While we're on the subject of crazy Asians, South Korea is going to give financial aid to rural farmers to help them pay for mail order brides. I kid you not!

Well it's 16:45 and I haven't heard a word from Telkom, who promised to contact me as soon as everything was properly connected. I'm fantasising that they're just being their usual slack selves about follow-up calls, but in reality I know that they're just being their usual slack selves about doing their damn jobs.

cheers
schpat