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May 30, 2008
Frustrated and angry NRMA customer
This is going to be relevant to Aussies only but i feel the need to steam off somewhere after this mornings experience. :)
For those of us outside of Australia, NRMA is like the ADAC of Germany; Agnes and myself used to call them the "angels of the road". And it's really true, when one of the NRMA guys comes over to help you with your car that broke down for whatever reason they are of great help.
But when you have to deal with their customer service hotline they can be absolutely horrible. After our Daewoo broke down last week, we have had to tow it to three (!) different places in the hopes of getting it repaired. It's been driving us insane to have one car only where we really need two, living on the northern beaches and all. We don't need any help from the NRMA to push us yet closer to the edge of insanity. :)
And here they are, telling us we have to pay for any tows subsequent to the initial one. That's AUD 99 per tow, only to get it to the next garage and have them take a look at it. This is based on the NRMA's policy of allowing only "one tow per problem". Hello?! Hello?! That's exactly *our* problem! That we are still in the same mess, even after a week of different people trying to fix things up on the Daewoo. We'd need a little help here please to calm us down, ok? How about changing the policy to "one tow every 2 weeks" or something like that? Also; why not make some exceptions and leave it to the discretion of the customer-service personell?
Now let's see how high we can push this post in Google search-results for NRMA. :)
PS: At least the car now seems to be at a place where they will know how to de-activate its security system which was wrongly activated (outch).
Posted by bjoern at 08:08 AM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2008
15 minutes jump back to Earth, wow
I hope that he will record his whole trip for all the rest of us to watch and be in awe at someone who is willing to jump back to Earth from 40 kilometers high.
Here the article from the IHT and a small excerpt:
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"Frenchman poised for 'Great Leap,' a 40-kilometer-high adventure
He has spent two decades, and nearly $20 million, in a quest to fly up 40 kilometers to the upper reaches of the atmosphere using a helium balloon, just so he can jump back to Earth again. Now Michel Fournier says he's ready at last to make his "Great Leap."
Depending on weather conditions, Fournier, a 64-year-old retired French Army officer, will attempt what he has dubbed Le Grand Saut (The Great Leap) on Sunday [...]
At that altitude he will see the blackness of space on the horizon and the curvature of Earth below, and experience weightlessness. Then he plans to step out of his capsule wearing only a pressurized suit and a parachute, and plunge to Earth in a mere 15 minutes."
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It appears that i am not the only one to be wow'ed by this when you look at how many other people link to this article.
Posted by bjoern at 02:41 AM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2008
Streaming music throughout the house
The seamlessness of Apple technology does not stop to astound me. For our house-warming party i thought it'd be nice to have music throughout the house. But with two levels, cabling wasn't really an option.
Since then, we have made great use of the Airport Express wireless router which has a plug that you can use for iPods or any computer speakers. Once powered up, it connected automatically to our wireless router. Speakers plugged in, iTunes fired up and boom the music was flowing. All in all, unwrapping the Airport Express and the speakers, connecting them and getting it set-up took probably no more than a mere fifteen minutes.
Now onto our new iMac. :)
Posted by bjoern at 05:44 AM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2008
America Kicks Ass
If you are offended by foul language, don't press the Play button. Take out the "offensive" words and you'll see the light. Someone needs some help.
Posted by bjoern at 01:56 AM | Comments (2)