I really should just allow this blog the death that it deserves, but every so often I do something that I'm a little bit proud of and I can't help showing off.
What am I proud of? (I hear you ask)
Why, my new drawings of course.Please would you peel back your eyelids and feast your peepers on these little jim-dandies that fell from my leaden pencil in recent days.
First up, that inimitable radio duo. The one with dreamy eyes, the other with a dreamy girlfriend.
Hamish Blake and Andy Lee ...
And while I've got you feasting - snack upon this tasty morsel of reality cheffery. With the magic of digital technology I have combined some spanking new caricatures of the toad like Gary and the Charlie Brown-esque George with my previous effort at the cravatted Matt Preston. And so I give you - Masterchef. 
That will be all. Return to your goings about.
After yet another retail disappointment, I'm feeling let down by my fellow consumers. When did we all decide to roll-over in the face of return and refund policies that deny basic consumer rights?
More and more often we spend good money on faulty goods - and then wait for indeterminate periods, with neither our money nor our goods, whilst they're sent off for repair.
I recall some months ago when we bought a HDD/DVD Recorder from our local (Traralgon) Harvey Norman. When it proved faulty, I returned it - with receipt - to the store for a refund. I was advised that they couldn't refund, and it would need to be sent to the service agent for repair. Sent by me! How's that for after sales service? Worse still, I knew from prior experience that the repair agent, Earl & Becker, were not the type of service-oriented business I cared to deal with - and on this count I was not disappointed in being disappointed. I rang, explained the problem, and was advised that I would need to bring it in, and that it would be 2-4 weeks before they could look at it. Now, given that the unit was only faulty in recording, but still worked fine as a set-top box, I suggested that they might place me in their queue and give me a call to bring the unit in when I reached the top of the list. But no no no. Much too difficult apparently. It would have to sit in their workshop for the 2-4 week gestation.
So, I rang Harvey Norman, and suggested that this was a less than acceptable solution. The sales assistant certainly sympathised with me, but unfortunately Earl & Becker are the service agent for that manufacturer (who I can't recall).
Not to be deterred, I wrote to the manufacturer outlining my concerns with the service agent. They, rather unhelpfully, responded with the number for Earl & Becker, and suggested I contact them if I had a problem with a product.
I felt somewhat frustrated at this point, so, arming myself with suitable information from the Consumer Affairs website, I returned to Harvey Norman and demanded a refund. Upon referral to the superior employee, I made my case and soon after took my refund to The Good Guys and purchased an LG HDD/DVD Recorder.
I'm pleased to say I've not purchased from Harvey Norman since (this having been at least my third unsatisfactory dealing - me being a slow learner and all).
I also responded to the manufacturer, as a courtesy to let them know I had returned their product and now had a trouble-free LG replacement. I didn't hear back.
But, this was all some time ago, and not the cause of my recent disappointment. I beg your indulgence while I recall my contemporary tale of woe.
In September, Suzy purchased a new digital camera (a Canon Powershot) from Dick Smith Electronics in Morwell. This in itself was interesting, as the Traralgon store had the same model, but such an appalling lack of customer service that she couldn't make the purchase locally. At the same time, she purchased an iPod dock for Jesamine's birthday.
When Jesamine received her gift in November, we found that it wouldn't charge her iPod. By this time, the zoom on the camera had also malfunctioned.
I took both of these items - with receipts - to Dick Smith this week and requested a refund. Of course, I'm again presented with an alleged store policy that after 14 days I couldn't be granted a refund and the items would need to be sent away for repair. I asserted my legal right to the allegedly superior employee to - to no avail. Thusly, I returned to work, printed some appropriate fact sheets from the Consumer Affairs website, and took them back to the store. I was successful in getting a refund for the iPod dock, but not for the camera as it was not a "complete unit". A complete unit, I was advised, includes all packaging and manuals. I know this will come as a shock, but I suspect I've thrown away the vitally important cardboard insert.
Why am I continually astounded by the treatment of customers by so many retail outlets?
The strangest part of the tale is, when given the refund for the iPod dock, the lady asked if I'd like to purchase a different model. I couldn't believe my ears! What aspect of the preceding dealing led her to believe I was the sort of satisfied customer who might like to deal with her again? And, I believe I suggested as such.
Any, I've lodged a complaint with Consumer Affairs, and whilst I can't say whether I'll get refund for the camera - I do know another store I won't be revisiting.
I somehow managed to forget in my previous posts to provide an update on the publishing phenomenon that is H.M. Brown.
I attended the book launch at a quaint bookshop in Warragul a week or so ago. A "quaint" bookshop - for those lacking specific industry knowledge - is like any other bookshop, only smaller.
Anyway, I've never been to a book launch before, so I felt terribly important to be invited.
Yesterday I went to a signing at the Collins bookstore in Traralgon. If I was a real friend and supporter, I would have provided some forewarning to drum up a little business. I thought about that afterwards.
Anyway, it's starting to pop up in newspapers and magazines. I think the verdict in yesterday's Herald Sun was "chilling" - so perhaps there's a learning in that for the publicist to send out review copies in warmer weather!
Have you noticed that football commentators are able to turn any once inconsequential achievement into a bona fide record using only their mouths, a misplaced sense of achievement, and that bastion of and deceit and misdirection - statistics?
Once upon a time, when the world was far simpler and our goal umpires wore boaters and lab coats, we heard of records for the most goals in a season, the most consecutive wins and the largest winning margin.
Today we hear of the most goals kicked ... against an interstate team ... at the MCG ... in the third quarter ... by a number 5 draft pick ... in his 4th AFL game ... wearing yellow boots ... with a heavily strapped scrotum ... and an aunt name Vera.
I'm sorry Messrs Cometti, Hutchison, Lane, McAvany, Brayshaw and co - these are no longer notable achievements, and whilst I commend what is undoubtedly a stirling level of dedication and committment from your statisticians and researchers, perhaps it's all gone just a little too far.
"Getting active is the blog space" is corporate-speak for "updating my blog".
That's right, I've been to a conference today (or should I say- I've been active in the conference space) and I can't help but walk away feeling a little concerned for the future of humanity. We continue to bind ourselves in allusions and illusions of civilisation and progress, and it all feels so wrong.
Seminars, workshops, conferences - it's a world of genericised language, breakout groups and butchers' paper.
With everyone so active in their chosen "spaces", and I can't help but picture a NASA conference - "We've been very active in the space space this year"
And while I'm venting on corporate speak, and its unceasing strive to take language always to the next level of abstraction (what does human resources convey that personnel didn't?), let me ask - what ever happened to rain? As one active in the water space, I've noticed over the last few years that we can no longer refer to rain, or rainfall, or rainstorms. We now have precipitation, rain events, and significant rain events. Presumably rainfall was far too ambiguous, or didn't leave sufficient wiggle room for political manoeuvring if it turns out that the rainfall didn't really occur.
I'm not sure is you caught the news this week, but our State Parliamentarian with primary accountability in the Water space was temporarily mis-located during an ambulatory endeavour upon some of the State's more significantly elevated and botanically plethoric terrain. Whilst amply provisioned for such an eventuality, his co-habitant paramour expressed some concern following evidence of a significant rainfall event across the geographic locality.
Now isn't that much clearer than saying Minister Holding went missing whilst walking up a mountain and got caught in a storm?
But onto much chirpier matters. Long time readers of my blog ... okay, let's be honest, I have google analytics installed, so I know full well that no-one ever reads this bloody thing ... but anyway, I have previously written about the one I refer to as "The Mysterious H M Brown", and my excitement at knowing a real-life soon-to-be-published author.
Well, walking through KMart last Friday night - what to my wondering eyes did appear upon the shelves ....
I was ever so excited!!!! So I bought a copy. And, turning to the acknowledgments, who's simply adorable little name is there? Why if it isn't my own!
I've long had aspirations of novelling (which is brave new verb for a brave new world), and after many false starts I'm quite convinced that it's bloody difficult. But have no fear, I'm now in print, so bollocks to my own writing, I'll continue to live vicariously through the superior talents of those around me.
And just to make sure this blog post gets ample hits from search engines, thus giving Honey's book the publicity it deserves (did I mention it's a crackingly corkeresque read), let me finish with ...
underpants, backside, front-bottom, rumpy-pumpy, chestnuts, films about men buggering men, dangly bits, free pictures of attractive ladies pretending to get jiggy with other attractive ladies, oily turnips, free pictures of less-attractive ladies genuinely getting jiggy with ladies with boy haircuts and dungarees, free XXX footage of Angela Lansbury in unscreened episodes of Murder She Wrote,
free subscription for nasal delivery technology to make your slow cooker cook even slower, free pictures of some hot tennis player from Western Europe wearing tennis clothing and playing tennis with a tennis racket and tennis BALLS
Today I travelled from Ringwood to Merrimu for work. I stopped by Subway in Melton for lunch. Having ordered and subsequently received my elongated sandwich of choice (and accompanying oversized biscuit), I took a table in the street - much in the manner of a Billy Joel song. Not an old familiar place, as Mr Joel would have you believe - but you and I were certainly face to face. That is, or course, if you happen to an elderly gent with poor dental hygiene and the overpowering aroma of urine!
From my table, I saw just such a gent glance my way, and being good-natured as I am, I proferred a smile and some form of generic greeting.
And lo did said purveyor of stenches most foul approach me, and commence to enlighten me as to the back story of one Ray Neville - a sixteen year old jockey who rode Rimfire to Victory in the 1948 Melbourne Cup at odds of 100 to 1 in a controversial photo finish.
I fear I can do no justice in describing the odour that this minion of the devil himself secreted.
I was stunned by two thoughts - "Why are telling me this? And why do you not remove your pants before you pee?"
Of course, being the good-natured type I've already described myself as being - I kept my thoughts to myself. I also kept my lunch to myself - which proved far more challenging.
If you'd like to know more about Ray Neville's 1948 cup win astride Rimfire, try this link. You never know when information like this may come in handy.
