Damn right the public don't understand 'justice'

Apparently Queensland's Chief Justice, Paul de Jersey, has stepped forward to complain that the public didn't understand the 'mitigating circumstances' mentioned by the judges who granted the appeal of Brisbane's bikeway rapist, Luke Colless. Sure the Courier Mail, to its discredit, did not publish these mitigating circumstances (Fairfax did) in announcing the cut to Colless' sentence, but even the drooling masses who comment on the CM website have sufficient olfactory capability to know a giant stinking pile of bullshit when they smell one.

The so-called 'mitigating circumstances' have since been published by the Courier Mail.

One of what the judges referred to as 'substantial mitigating circumstances' was:

The applicant’s cooperation with the authorities from an early stage, including his confession to the crimes, saving an even more substantial police investigation

What rubbish. That stinkhole committed his crimes over a period of years. It's not like he turned himself in. Rather, when he was finally caught he confessed. Probably after being told that the police had a bunch of evidence that would convict him anyway.

The second 'substantial' mitigating circumstance was Colless' alleged 'genuine remorse'. I beg your pardon? Is there an infallible test now that determines whether the remorse expressed by someone for a crime is genuine?

Sickos who commit crimes like this shouldn't be allowed to get a huge discount just for saying "I are very very sorry" when they're caught. As it is, the new sentence works out to just over a year for each of his attacks, compared with a little over two years for each attack under the previous sentence. I don't believe in bulk discounts for rapists or anyone else who perpetrates an act of violence on another person. Too bad our judges don't feel the same.

Oh and another of these so-called mitigating circumstances shouldn't go without mention either: the totally baseless assumption that the rapes committed by Colless are somehow less serious because he didn't use his penis- exactly what evidence do the judges have to prove that this ought to be counted as a 'mitigating circumstance'? They just pulled it out of their arses:

A rape accomplished digitally may generally be seen as somewhat less grave than a rape accomplished by penile penetration. See R v Wark [2008] QCA 172. That is because it may be less invasive, would not carry a risk of pregnancy, and would ordinarily carry substantially reduced risk of infection.

What utter bullshit. Rape is not illegal because it carries a risk of pregnancy and infection. It's illegal because it is a violation of a person's right not to have sexual contact of any kind against their will and because it is extremely traumatic to be the victim of such a violation. Deliberately trying to inflict an infection on someone is a separate crime altogether, but if 'risk of' infection were the main thing wrong with rape then we'd see a lot more people in jail for deliberately sneezing, coughing or spitting on someone. Rape is something entirely different, something those numbskulls on the bench seem to be completely oblivious to.

34 weeks and counting

 

34 weeks and 3 days... I'm finding it hard to picture making it to 40 weeks... is it even possible to get any bigger? 

Oh and of all the places to get stretch marks... none on my stomach, but I have stretch marks on my BUM (a little patch on each cheek) and also (charming, I know) on my pubic area (I'd probably have no idea except I was waxed recently). Thankfully both to be covered by a bikini, but WTF... which bits of me are actually stretching?! No, I'm grateful, really. Nothing to complain about... it is a worry to discover that I am prone to them, though, because I don't know how much more stretching my poor stomach can take! My mum didn't get any while she was pregnant, so I wasn't too worried before, but then again she wore home from hospital the same jeans she'd worn pre-pregnancy... Me? I don't have a snowflake's chance in hell of fitting into any of my jeans for a while...

LOL: Whitney's Aussie concert- SMH vs. Courier Mail

Too bloody hilarious. Here's the main story, on Whitney Houston's first Australian concert of her come-back tour from the Sydney Morning Herald website this morning...

And here's what Tonya Turner of the Courier Mail had to say about the same concert (copied and pasted verbatim in case the CM or Tonya suddenly develops an appropriate sense of embarrassment and tries to edit the article):

Whitney Houston still the greatest love of all

BEFORE there was Britney, there was Whitney. The vocal powerhouse began her first Australian tour in 22 years at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre last night to a packed house.

Although Spears may have stolen Houston's title of "best-selling debut album by a female artist", Houston blew her out of the water with her high-voltage stage show and singing prowess.

Houston, 46, opened the concert with the up-beat song, For the Lovers from her latest album, I Look To You, released in September.

Wearing a black mini-dress, knee-high boots and a trench coat, Houston cut a lean and toned figure as she strutted across the stage.

Relaxed and talkative with the crowd, the performer was in high spirits as she sang a number of songs from her new release.

She soon changed into a white suit to sing some of her biggest hits including Saving All My Love For You, The Greatest Love of All and I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

Her seven-piece band was pumping and although touring Korea and Japan has taken a toll on the strength of her vocals, Houston delivered a knock-out show.

And when she sang the epic note in I Will Always Love You, it was spot on, and the entire audience rose to their feet applauding and screaming.

Oh RLY?

Here's what the SMH review said about the same part of the same song:

But the final act, a string of groove-laden dance numbers and ballads, faltered at the finale when she croaked her way through I Will Always Love You, pausing to get a drink and towel off just as she was about to hit the song's epic high note, which she turned into a soft coo.

What's more, if you won't take the SMH's word for it, let's hear from the angry fans who commented on the CM's article (these are so good I couldn't just choose a handful!):

 

  

  

  

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

 

  

  

  

 

Ohhhh too funny. Hands up who thinks Tonya Turner phoned this one in? This is a new low in journalism even for the Courier Mail.

GoCard rant.

More like 'no service'. Arseholes.

Something I was meaning to have a good long whinge about but didn't have the time before I went on maternity leave was the Queensland government's fare hikes for public transport. Essentially they slugged commuters a massive 20% increase if they were utilising GoCards and a 40% increase for those determined to stick with the paper ticket system. It was designed to shoehorn people on to GoCards so they can abolish paper tickets.

I had resisted opting for a GoCard up until the fare hikes, as getting one would not only not save me money, I hated the idea of having to queue to swipe off when getting off the bus as well as queuing to get on (no, really!), and was also pretty sure I'd forget to swipe off and continually get slugged the fine for not doing so. With a paper ticket you can get off any bus or train with the one ticket all day and not have to give a second thought to anything other than where you're heading.

Additionally, I saw the card readers frequently didn't work, leaving GoCard users either waiting for the machine to come back online, waiting in even longer queues to swipe at the lone functioning machine, or getting waved onto the bus by the bus driver with a curt 'machine's not working, just come on'. And presumably then getting slugged the fine by Translink for not swiping on and off properly...

When the fare hikes came in, it was obviously going to be more expensive because of the financial rape the government had conspired to perpetrate on paper ticket users. So, not wanting to blow out my weekly travel budget due to a stubborn refusal to ditch my preferred option of paper tickets, I looked online to see where I could buy a concession GoCard in Moorooka. Apparently you could buy one (er, I mean, fork out the $5 'deposit' for one) online, but given that it was only a few days before I went back to work and knowing Australia Post's record of losing/delaying/misplacing important stuff, I decided against that option, as it would undoubtedly lead to my having to get screwed pay for numerous paper tickets before Australia Post finally decided to deliver.

Except, there was only one single place in Moorooka that sold GoCards at all- the newsagent. What's more, it sold only Adult go cards, not Concession GoCards. In fact, there was pretty much nowhere that sold concession cards. Which meant I'd have to fork out for a paper ticket to work and buy a concession card at Roma St Train Station in the City on my way home.

Strike One. Fancy forcing people onto a card system knowing full well that you haven't ensured that cards are available from the outlets where they should be available. Moorooka has a train station (albeit poorly placed for commuters), but it didn't sell GoCards. In fact, news soon got out that 110 of 144 railway stations in south east Queensland didn't sell GoCards. In addition, neither did most of the major busway stations, nor any of the CityCats. The Bligh government hurriedly said that GoCards would be available at all manned rail stations by March. Funny how the mugging fare increase had been planned and advertised for such a long time, yet they hadn't bothered to address the fact that GoCards were barely available...

So I forked out for a GoCard on my way home from work. I joined the queue at the ticket office at Roma Street and said to the guy manning the counter "I'd like to buy a GoCard please". He laughed at me. "Be honest, you don't really want to buy one, do you?". So bloody true. He was lucky though. The man at the head of the queue next to me was conducting his own version of the Spanish Inquisition into all things GoCard, while the other ticket officer just had to stand there and politely answer all the man's questions while the line behind him grew and grew... I'm sure the extra burden on staff brought about by the actions of an inconsiderate, mercenary government ought to count as Strike Two.

Travelling to and from work with my new GoCard was, as anticipated, a pain in the arse. In general it was a little bit quicker getting on the bus, and a whole lot slower getting off. The journeys were slowed even further by the number of people who weren't regular commuters (little old ladies made up large numbers of those caught in the government's trap) fronting up to the bus driver without enough change to meet the now exhorbitant fare for a paper ticket to the City. Seriously, the amount charged was enough to make me catch my breath. It's not that long ago that the current price for one 2-zone adult return ticket to the City would have paid for just about an entire working week's worth of student 2-zone tickets. Not only that, I would have to clutch my wallet in my hand the entire journey just to make sure I didn't forget to swipe off as I exited the bus. On one occasion I caught the bus, followed by the train so I could make a stop along the train journey and get back and head home on the same route. Instead of simply showing a paper ticket to 1) the bus driver and 2) the ticket inspection people at Roma St station (you almost never need to show your ticket at smaller stations), I had to 1) swipe on the bus; 2) swipe off the bus; 3) swipe on at the train station; 4) swipe off at my stop; 5) swipe back on when I returned to the same stop; 6) swipe off at my final stop. I had put my wallet in my bag (as you do) and forgot step 6, so I got slugged the fine.

FFS, six steps where a simple two used to suffice and the state government had the hide to claim that the GoCard makes everything faster and more convenient and that the large number of GoCards issued in the new year meant people are 'voting with their GoCard' in support of the system (not voting with their wallets to avoid having them molested!). I bloody well wanted to strangle state transport minister Rachel Nolan when I read that quote. The disingenuous, lying fuckers knew only too well why people were streaming to obtain GoCards, and it had nothing to do with how marvellous the system was.

Meanwhile, I'd really like to see an investigation of the extra revenue that Translink picks up in fines from people who forget to swipe off, or who get slugged as if they forgot when a machine fails to work. I really would. Sure I read recently that for commuters on the longest journeys it's actually cheaper to not swipe off and pay the fine, but I couldn't help but being glad that someone has found a way to rort Translink the same way it's rorting so many GoCard users.

Lord knows there are enough reasons to despise the Bligh government, but the GoCard is just a little reminder that more than half a million users get every day, twice a day, to punish those motherfuckers at the polls the next time we get the chance.

Grrrr.

Strange cat behaviour episode

It goes without saying that Feifei and Xiaoxiao, wary of even their 'grandparents' and our friends who have met them many times before, are utterly terrified of tradies. So much so that when Gam hired a ute a couple of weeks ago to pick up the lounge from our old place (the Salvos and Lifeline both agreed to pick it up and then didn't show!!), they fled in terror when he pulled into the driveway.

Xiaoxiao is not as much of a natural-born coward as Feifei, who has been spending every day for the past week cowering behind the piano in 'the baby's room' for as long as tradies are in and out renovating our bathroom. Xiaoxiao sometimes prefers to come out and spend her time with me in the study or, when permitted, watching the tradies while hiding under the coffee table.

I think I've mentioned before that Feifei and Xiaoxiao pretty much get on like a house on fire. Xiaoxiao absolutely adores Feifei, loves him to bits to the point where I think he finds her attentions and playfulness a bit irritating. Nevertheless, when he thinks no-one is looking he can often be spotted grooming her affectionately, and late at night they have an absolute ball chasing each other around the house and playing.

Yesterday, however, something very strange happened.

Feifei took advantage of the bathroom window being left open by our builder to escape outside. Gam and I had no idea. I was napping in the bedroom when Gam came in and noticed the bush turkeys and topknot pigeons near the bedroom window. We were talking about these when Gam spied Feifei outside. Immediately I lumbered out of bed (you wouldn't believe how hard and painful this is these days! Hip problems. Will whinge later...) and pulled on some clothes, figuring I'd better hurry as Feifei would take off in preference to being hauled inside. Gam was muttering darkly about leaving the little bastard to his fate, while I protested that I needed to rescue my baby as he had no idea what he was doing... we were then interrupted by a desperate wail from Feifei. He wanted to come in!

I hobbled to open the back door, and Feifei eagerly pushed his way inside. That's when I noticed he was panting rapidly. Bit strange. The last time we saw him panting was when he was a kitten- we'd play with him, getting him to chase things, and he never knew when to give up. This time was a bit different. His breathing was very shallow and his tongue was really hanging out. Despite this, he showed no signs of distress, seemed alert and greeted us as if nothing was wrong (and as if he had no idea how completely ridiculous he looked with his tongue hanging out!). I googled his symptoms, and the only thing that really came up was heat stroke. It was hot outside, but not that hot. Still, this seemed the most likely explanation.

I took Feifei to his bowl to see if he was thirsty, but instead he started eating biscuits. He couldn't have been too dehydrated if he was doing that, I figured. What came next was very weird indeed.

Feifei walked into the hallway and came nose to nose with Xiaoxiao. Xiaoxiao shrank back, flattened her ears, screwed up her face and hissed at Feifei. She then crouched down and started growling and snarling. Neither of them have ever behaved that way towards the other previously, and the only time Xiaoxiao has done anything like that was when our neighbour's cat came to the door one and tried to start a fight with them (Xiaoxiao was more terrified at the time than anything). Feifei appeared rather bemused and wounded by this. He was still panting, and lay down to relax.

Anyway, this strange behaviour from Xiaoxiao went on for a couple of hours. Any time Feifei would come near her, she would snarl and hiss and start growling. Gam took a great amount of perverted pleasure in picking up Feifei and dumping him in front of Xiaoxiao so she would hiss and spit at him. Even when Feifei passed Xiaoxiao in the hallway she would growl at him. By the late afternoon, Feifei was no longer panting and Xiaoxiao's behaviour had diminished to giving Feifei dirty looks and hurrying in the opposite direction whenever he came near her. By nightfall they were good mates again.


And I still have no idea what the hell was going on...

Housework, aka cursing those shonky bastards who came before...

 

It seems our house is a bit older than the title showed (early 60's). There was a whole heap of old newspaper (Courier Mail and Brisbane's Telegraph) under the concrete of the bathroom floor. Gam is making collages out of it on canvas to hang on our walls. Makes for very entertaining reading!

I'm sitting on the lounge with my feet up while Gam fixes our poorly maintained front screen door. None of the poor maintenance we encounter at our new house surprises us any more. The previous two sets of owners (at least) were undoubtedly utter charlatans. They were related, too, according to the real estate agent who sold us the place.

So far we (i.e. Gam- I'm pretty much useless these days, and I was never a great handyman to begin with) have:

* Ripped out the (poorly installed) fireplace

* Ripped out the stupidly undersized air-conditioner 

*Re-installed said air-con in study (the morons were using the thing to try and cool the whole place, needless to say it was useless)- this has been a lifesaver on really hot days, especially now that I feel the heat. Thank you Gam!

* Prised off the tiled splashback in the kitchen (which was glued on with liquid nails and so shoddy most of the tiles came off without the aid of tools). We both did this one... I'm not completely useless!

* Replaced all the incandescent lightbulbs with energy-saving bulbs (we hadn't used the old incandescent bulbs in years, but the morons who previously owned the place hadn't used anything but. I didn't even think you could buy them any more?!)

* Painted the walls of the living area in pretty colours of no-VOC Rock-Cote paint... annoyingly, the store we bought it from closed down literally a week later, leaving us with no idea where to get more.

 

Gazing at the hideousness of the suspended ceiling... and the way those bastards mangled that nice cornice in order to (badly) install the chimney.

You can see the broken tile that simply crumbled when Gam went to change the lightbulb in the fitting. Maybe that's why the previous owners never changed them... for fear of the fitting fall out of those godawful rotten tiles.

The ceiling above our 'TV area' before tile removal.

Same ceiling after tile removal. What the 'before' and 'after' pics don't show is just how much better the lighting is off the old ceiling (even though it's painted dusky pink and the paint is cracked and horrible) compared with those ceiling tiles. They sucked up all the light.

Gam cleaning. This impressed me most of all. He not only removed the entire suspended ceiling in the space of a weekend, he cleaned up too, despite undoubtedly being completely buggered. I was too tired to clean, but being pregnant is a much poorer excuse than being physically exhausted from a weekend of hard manual labour! Husband of the century! :-D

* Taken out the horrid, ugly suspended ceiling... shame we did it after painting! We had figured on leaving it a few years but Gam got antsy one day after changing a lightbulb and having the tile the light fitting was attached to break and come dangling down) and took it down in the space of a weekend (he cleaned up afterwards, too!), leaving the lovely but horribly abused old corniced horsehair plaster ceiling exposed. Needless to say, the suspended ceiling was another shonky DIY job involving a previous owner with a serious nail-gun fetish, leaving us with wall to fix instead of just ceiling.

 Did I mention that the removal of the hideous suspended ceiling revealed some random electrical wiring. Random live electrical wiring?

 

Our bathroom last Monday afternoon...I would like to emphasise just how much of an improvement this is on what was there before, despite there being no running water, no shower, no vanity... I think I subconsciously avoided being in the bathroom previously because I hated it so much.

In addition we have paid various tradies to:

* Replace the plumbing for the entire house (previous plumbing was galvanised and so corroded the pipes were almost entirely blocked).

* Install some decent kitchen lighting (a single fluoro bulb in the high-ceilinged kitchen meant that whichever bench we used for chopping etc had a shadow cast by whoever was working right over the work-surface, making it not just inconvenient but unsafe.

 

The kitchen pre-splashback, with the guys from Australia Glass about to start installing the splashback.

 

New splashback + new oven = kitchen bliss. The only drawback is we can now both cook at the same time and make twice as much mess!

* Properly install a lovely orange glass splashback where those tiles used to be in our kitchen. 

* Install insulation- the place was an oven, now it's just a sauna. That cost us $800 over the government rebate because we had to have the roof lifted (and scaffolding etc. installed) in order to install the insulation. Amazing the number of shonky companies who won't even contemplate taking on such a job... getting this done made life a lot more bearable.

* Remove the poorly installed chimney and have the roof sheeting in that area replaced. That's right, it seems the chimney was another shonky DIY job. The hole in the roof around the chimney was not sealed, meaning it's a miracle there wasn't a high degree of localised water damage in the ceiling.

* Plumb the laundry. That's right, there was no plumbing for the washing machine waste or for the dishwasher. And by the looks of things the new tap fitted to the cold water pipe was only installed after the previous one exploded.

* Treat the place for termites. The stupid motherf***ers who lived here had termites in the retaining wall just a metre from the house and in the wooden gate and gateposts that some moron had installed right up against the house. In fact, the latter was almost completely eaten away in parts. Obvious termite damage. Yet they never saw fit to treat for termites. Thank god the building and pest inspection and the mandatory pre-treatment inspection gave the house the all clear, but really it's a miracle that the place isn't riddled with termites. We had Termidor treatment and due to the design of the house it cost nearly $5000- double what we had budgeted- but it's better than having a termite-damaged house.

* Install a new oven. The old 1960s/1970s gas-only job looked like a death trap, and what's more looked like the previous set of owners never used it. No wonder they never cooked, with only a single small kitchen sink and no dishwasher... One thing we've chosen to live without, mainly due to space constraints, is a microwave. We've scarcely missed it.

* Install a new bathroom. This got underway last Monday and is going very well as far as renovations go, but damn I wish it was done already. I've probably been over this before, but not only was the previous one made of asbestos, the owners prior to the previous ones had decided that the best way to get rid of the tiny old shower in the roughly 4.5sqm space was to fence it in behind cupboard doors. Not turn the space into a proper cupboard, which might have redeemed the decision somewhat, just remove a precious square metre of space from the puny amount of space available. Bastards. Also, the old enamel and cast-iron bath had such a slopey bottom that no matter which way you stood under the shower it would bend your feet, which hurt. It was hard to turn around. And was dangerous when it was soapy. I nearly fell over a couple of times getting in and out, too. Plus it had a shower curtain. I hate shower-baths with shower curtains. Its only redeeming feature was its use as a bath, which is an unbelieveably good thing when you're heavy and pregnant- that weightless, floaty feeling. Which only makes it all the more horrible to come back to reality when the water drains away and you're reminded of how weighty and uncomfortable you are!

Anyway, the asbestos walls were professionally removed (and boy am I glad Gam didn't try a DIY on that one- our builder had proper qualified guys in to do it and they were worth every cent), the bathroom stripped of all fittings, the floor tiles removed, the concrete floor ripped up, new walls installed, the plumbing rough-in completed (double shower, vanity and another toilet... unfortunately no room for a bath...)... we're just waiting on waterproofing, tiling and fittings to turn it into a real bathroom. We can't really afford this, but we couldn't really live with it as it was, either... there's no doubt it's worth the money, it's just a financial stretch for us at the moment.


Thing we still have to do are:

* Fencing. You can see from the photos we've previously put up that the fences are in a horrible state of disrepair, to put it nicely. We've had a couple of quotes and it will cost us (plus more for each of the side neighbours) in the vicinity of $2800-3500, including a couple of gates at the side of the house to prevent kid and animal escape issues. We've only briefly discussed fences with the neighbours, but at least one of them seems amenable.

* Repair the horsehair ceiling in the living room. Sure, even in its current state it's a hell of a lot nicer than what was there before. But it's gotta be done.

* Replace the ancient electricity switchboard and mains... yet another thing the previous owners really should have done. The current one will not support any more major appliances, including air-conditioning.

* Air-conditioning. Sure it's not a necessity, but it's close to it, given how hot the house still gets. Problem is, the need for a new switchboard/mains increases the amount of money required for air-conditioning from around $2000 to something closer to $5000. Much harder to scrape up that kind of money now that we've taken the plunge on the bathroom.

* Sanding and polishing the floor, and replacing a cracked floorboard or two. Really the floor is not in such bad nick, but it is worse than when we got a quote on the above! Tradies in and out all the time, furniture moving etc. Just as well we left it until we figured out what kind of abuse the floor was going to suffer first. This is probably years off now, the quote was only about $1300 (including low/no-VOC polish), but seems purely cosmetic in comparison to all the other stuff we've had to do and still have to get done.

* Widening the garage door. This is way off in the future, and will probably entail raising the whole house, i.e. we would only do it as part of a major renovation... Our little GTI is the largest car that could fit through that door, both width-wise and height-wise, and even that is a tight squeeze, requiring some skill on Gam's part. Makes me wonder what kind of car the original owners must have owned...

Origin Energy top themselves for stupidity

Oh my goodness. You'd think it would be quite simple.

Gam and I had an account for electricity and an account for gas with Origin at our old place.

The electricity account was paid in fortnightly installments on their 'EasiPay' system.

On January 22nd, roughly 2 months after moving out, I cancelled our old accounts- see the fun I had with that here.

The soonest date they would give me to disconnect was February 1, i.e. 01/02/2010. Once that was all sorted out, I was told Origin would send account closure notices, final bills etc to our new address. Which I gave them at the time and which they already had because we signed up with Origin when we moved into the new place (if only we had known...).

As of Friday February 5th, we had received no such thing.

Yesterday, the manager at our old unit complex told us we had some mail. Today we drove there to get it.

In the mail left at our old address were two items from Origin. A gas bill, for which the reading date was 28/01/2010, and an electricity bill with an issue date of 28/01/2010 saying:

Overdue Notice

As payment of the account issued on 27 Nov 2009 may have been overlooked, we have extended the payment due date on this occasion to 05 Feb 2010.

If you are having difficulty paying your electricity account, please contact us on 13 24 61 (etc. etc.)

W.T.F.

I'll remind you, I cancelled this account on January 22nd. There was no overdue bill from November, because we were paying by EasiPay. If there was an amount owing once the account was closed on the date I was given (01/02/2010) then that should have appeared on the notice that Origin said it would send to our new address, not as an overdue bill. A notice that we have not yet received. If there had been an overdue bill from November you can bet your arse they would have sent out that overdue notice a lot sooner than January.

The gas account doesn't appear as an overdue or as a final notice, just a regular bill (with a 'next reading' date and everything). This despite my being told by an Origin customer service rep.

Will organise for [the account] to be finalised as of 28th Jan and forward the final bill to [new address].

.

So the reading was on the right date but the bill was sent out to the wrong address and as a regular bill... What am I to make of this? It looks like I'll need to get in touch and make sure that everything was cancelled as promised, at the very least, lest they keep sending overdue notices and whatnot to our old address (and god knows, maybe then send debt collectors after us or put us on some kind of credit blacklist... so far there doesn't seem to be an end point to their incompetence).

Origin. Never again.

Australia Post does it again

UPDATE: Apparently my assumption that Australia Post are responsible for this travesty was entirely correct. When items go through Customs it is Australia Post that open and repackage them. So fuck you, Australia Post!

===================================

I already owe Australia Post a serve from a couple of months back, but this... this I couldn't hold off on.

We've been waiting on the arrival of a parcel containing a baby capsule, car seat and pram since it left Germany on the 11th of January. Initially we thought the parcel was being sent via DHL, because we were given tracking numbers to follow on the German DHL website. After enquiring, the site we bought from informed us that once in Australia we could expect the parcel to be delivered by Australia Post. Given our previous experience with Australia Post we experienced the obligatory shiver of dread... On the 24th of January, checking on the parcel tracking, we noted that customs had taken the parcel. On Wednesday the 3rd of Feb we received a notice from customs asking us to classify the parcel and cough up some money or they would start charging us for the privilege of holding the parcel as of the 5th of February. Okay... So we got that process underway, and in the mean time they decided to send the car seat out to us (why the car seat, I don't know).

Having received nothing from Australia Post, we checked the tracking website again. According to the website, Australia Post had attempted an unsuccessful delivery yesterday. That was news to us, because not only had I been home all day, there was no attempted delivery notice left in our mailbox!

So this morning Gam headed off to the post office with a printout of the parcel tracking and asked if he could pick up our parcel... Here's what we got:

 

Yeaaahhh....

Now, I know this thing has been through customs and Deutsch Post, and Australia Post are the last in a chain of custody... but because their courier couldn't be arsed to attempt delivery or even leave an attempted delivery notice in our mailbox, instead lying about it, I think they deserve the blame. Maybe they were too embarrassed to deliver a parcel in such a terrible state? The contents looked like they'd been scuffed up too:

 

But luckily the damage did not appear to extend to the car seat inside, an outcome clearly due more to good luck than proper handling...

Whatever happens, we're going to send the photo to the site we bought from and ask that for the sake of their other Australian customers they never, ever use Australia Post again!

Thumbs down, despite the schadenfreude value of the Larrikin case...

Mini mercenaries Larrikin Music have won their copyright claim against Men At Work for the use of the riff from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree in the song Down Under. The company, which bought the copyright to the 1934 song in 1990, more than 10 years after the Men At Work song was released, bought the rights for a paltry sum. As much as I like to see big music companies getting a taste of their own medicine (which they most certainly are in this case), I think it's pathetic that a company should stand to profit from something that was never part of a body of work owned by them in the first place. And Down Under is by no means a rip-off version of Kookaburra, it is a unique work. This particular decision is a real shame.

ETA: Jeremy at An Onymous Lefty has a good post on this issue.

Sweet common sense: iiNet prevails over scummy entertainment companies

As clear-cut and bloody obvious it should have been from the beginning, the undue influence wielded in our systems of justice and politics in Australia by entertainment industry leviathans made the decision handed down today in the case against small ISP iiNet no sure thing. Those scumbags went after small fry in the hope of setting a precedent that could be used against every ISP and internet user in Australia. iiNet made a habit of forwarding the entertainment companies' notices of infringement to the police, and the companies didn't try and sue the police. Instead they went after the smallest possible target that could provide the largest possible outcome. And lost.

Sucked in to them, and may common sense in this area of the law continue to prevail. I'll profess my surprise that the justice system in Australia hasn't yet been bought by the huge companies who brought this case, and hopefully we won't see that happen at all.

Dispelling the 'Baby brain' myth- removing a good excuse for pregnant womens' mental incompetence

Dear Gam Jr,

I offer my sincere apologies for blaming stupid memory lapses on you when I knew it probably wasn't true...

Only a couple of days ago I got up and went to the kitchen to make coffee, only to put a handful of coffee beans in the kettle instead of the coffee grinder. Ahem.

It might sound like a clear cut case of 'baby brain' the catch-all excuse for the failings of the pregnant woman, but given that I've done stuff that dumb many times before (many of them pre-pregnancy and most of the time pre-coffee...) I suspected all along that the phenomenon was in fact a myth.... And when I say 'many times' I mean to the extent where when Gam's wedding ring went missing on one occasion we resorted to looking for it in the bin (another frequent site of my numerous memory-crimes) in case I'd accidentally 'tidied' it.

Unfortunately it probably is... So I have to stop using Gam Jr as an excuse, even a temporary one... Damn.