Gods above, Harvey Norman in Palmerston North suck. Yet again I’ve had to return a dodgy product. Bought a Bluetooth Headset with an inbuilt mic on Friday. Turned out DOA. Returned it for a replacement. Which worked, but turns out has some serious design flaws, not to mention was horribly uncomfortable, and does not in fact work with the iPod Touch, as it does in fact lack Bluetooth. Under the Consumer Guarantees Act, I can refund it within 7 days, no questions asked, so long as it’s in original condition. Again, had to go through hell and back to get cash instead of store credit, and endure hilarious, yet still awkward looks exchanged between staff members. There’s no way in hell I’ll be getting a job there anytime soon, they’ve probably got dartboards with my face on them by now!

But yeah, life’s life that. Harvey Norman isn’t a big loss. After-Sales Service just sucks, it’s not worth the hassle. But big thanks over to Dick Smith Electronics, when one of their salesmen alerted me to this possibility through the Consumer Guarantees Act. They’ll be getting their iPod Touch sale from me, there’s for sure.

Oh yeah, I’m getting an iPod Touch soon. Gotta start saving up though… but it sure beats the hell out of the iPhone. For those with the misfortune of not living in New Zealand, the iPhone release was a massive flop. After announcing the NZ$199 iPhone (ZOMG!), they released it and kept their promise alright, but they neglected to mention the NZ$240/mth plan you’d have to be on for 24 months. No prepay option, either. And to top it all off, it turns out the guy who camped outside the store for three days to be the first in the world to get the new iPhone was in fact paid by Vodafone to do so. Vodafone gets thrown a golden opportunity to convert the nation, and they fuck it up royally. ‘Gratz, Vodafone NZ, you won’t see an opportunity like that again for a long time.

Other than that, life was good. New Zealand Business Week turned out fantastic as per usual, though I did have the decision processing day from hell. Long story:

Basically, one of NZBW’s core activities is the Business Simulation, where students submit their decisions about how they run their clothing store (stock ordered, price tags, etc). I then feed it into an incredibly old DOS simulator, which then prints (and only prints) the results to LPT1. Ever tried printing to LPT1 nowadays? Only way I could figure it out was witht he old ‘net send’ console command, and with a Virtual ‘Local Loopback Network Interface’ installed. Ugh.

Anyway, after fetching the printer out of the back of my boot, it promptly told me it was too cold, and that I should wait 4 hours for it to defrost. I had 45 minutes. My solution after about 10 minutes: a portable heater!

My problem after about 10 minutes: a melted printer!

My paper tray melted due to me putting it too hot, too close. Thank the gods above it worked, though I had to chuck out NZ$90 of ink. Printed the pages off, went to the photocopier to make the copies.

Ran out of paper.

Ran around everywhere to find more paper, finally found some, loaded it in.

Ran out of ink.

Rinse and repeat the above, and loaded the new ink in. Printed the copies off, arrange the results, then delivered them their now 15 minute late results. 10 minutes later, it turns out I totally stuffed up one teams results by entering their two stores submissions around the wrong way! ARGH! I managed to figure out how to fix it without affecting anyone else after another 15 minutes, then delivered them their revised results with 15 minutes until the next bus left. By the end of it, I was eyeing the windowsill with an eagerness to jump. Trust me to screw up that badly, really.

But yeah, all in all, a good week, albeit busy, and utterly riddled with things going wrong, but that’s fine, it keeps me on my toes, and keeps my blog posts long and interesting. Though an easy week would be appreciated now, especially with next semester starting. Might catch Kung Fu Panda with DarthMeow on Tuesday or something, cheap tickets. Nothing could go wrong there, I’m hoping, assuming my tickets stay well out of range of Harvey Norman Employees with a taste for my blood, heaters with a taste for melting my stuff, or my ‘awesome’ ideas, which seem to have developed a taste for my sanity!

TC,
Posting the blog after last week, for safety reasons…

July 14th, 2008 | New Zealand Business Week, Personal Life (or lack thereof), Ranting, Social Marketing, University | 1 comment

Well, hell. I did it again. I cooked my brain.

Traditionally, holidays are a dangerous thing for me. If I don’t keep busy, I get VERY bored, and take on WAY too much work to keep myself entertained. So, naturally, I poured every waking hour into thinking, writing or getting pissed off at code for my latest PHP project. Idiot.

End result is my brain was fried, and I’ve now lost two days of productivity trying to recover it. I couldn’t concentrate on a single bloody thing. To everyone I’ve had awkward bizarre conversations with which have resulted in me looking bizarrely phased out, yeah, my bad. I’m better now.

Which is a fat load of use really, since I’ll be offline, off society and basically as busy as hell for the next week helping run a national competition. I won’t even be living where I normally do, which makes life outside the event somewhat tricky, since it’s a 7am-10pm commitment. Whee.

But yeah, aside from that… life’s well. I’m through 45 2Sence shows in three weeks (trust me, that’s a lot of hours racked up on the iPod), caught up with old High School Friends, sorted stuff out with FurcoNZ, and got most of my Uni results back. Naturally, all computer science papers were A+. And again, all mathematics papers were C+. I passed! *dances*

Til then though, I’ll be back next week! Catch ya all!

TC,
*sleeps to the sounds of 2*

July 6th, 2008 | Furry, Personal Life (or lack thereof), University, Web Technology | No comments