.: Cath’s Blog:.

Steph, Name this TV show…Jo, don’t help her!

I LOVED THIS SHOW

I went online last night to check my Bank of America balance last night just to check everything was OK and saw a charge on my account which I looked unusual. So, this morning I called Bank of America and was told that the $25 coming out of my account each month was from AOL. I thought at first that the retarded Indian woman who I spoke to in April possibly didn’t cancel my account properly, but then I was told that the reference on the account was a NY 1800 number…an American account.

I therefore called this 1800 number and had to go through a series of frustrating automated questions…

• What is your Account Number? I DON’T KNOW!
• What is your screen name? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW MY SCREEN NAME!!
• What type of service do you currently have? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…….I DON’T KNOW!!!

I was then connected through to a customer service agent who was American (thank the lord) who identified it was from a trial disk I used on vacation last year when I was on my road trip in the states. I told the woman I just used the trial and had cancelled it and she adamantly insisted that there was no record of me cancelling the account.

I told her I wanted to cancel this account and speak to someone about getting a refund and was quickly transferred to….Bangalore…I was horrified. A guy called Simon (yeah, like that is his real name…please) answered the phone with the thickest Indian accent ever speaking so slowly to make sure that every word he said was pronounced correctly and went through all the BLAH BLAH security questions again. I told him I was calling from overseas, so this better be quick…but no, he took his time and was completely uncooperative. I told him the account had been cancelled before and that I wanted to cancel and get a refund and his answer was, for your inconvenience we can reduce your AOL bill to $14.95 per month from now on.

The conversation went something like this…

• Me: Your joking right…I wouldn’t use AOL even if it was the one and only Internet Service Provider in the world. The trouble that your company has given me over the last year has been beyond belief and I will be making sure I write on every available forum and board what a bunch on incompetent wankers work for AOL and was a shit product it is.
• Simon: It’s not our fault you didn’t cancel the account properly.
• Me: Yeah, well now I have no proof…I have no name or anything now, it was ages ago. I suppose now I have to worry that you won’t even close the account properly all month.
• Simon: Your account is closed effective today.
• Me: And I don’t want any more charges…no charge next month…do you hear.
• Simon: There will be no more charges.
• Me: So what do I do about being refunded for all the months I didn’t use the service.
• Simon: Write this down…do you have a pen?
• Me: Yes.
• Simon: AOL BILLING OPERATIONS, PO BOX…
• Me: Your fucking joking right?
• Simon: Miss, please can you refrain from using profanity.
• Me: You expect me to write a letter for my claim?
• Simon: If you are disputing a charge, yes!
• Me: I am in Australia…it will take well over a week for my letter to get to America…what the hell has happened to AOL. Are you trying to tell me that there is not a telephone number I can call or heaven forbid an email address?
• Simon: This is the only way you can dispute a charge.
• Me: You lot are really Satan’s workers, aren’t you! Just close my fucking account NOW!
• Simon: Your account is closed.
• Me: I want a cancellation number or a reference number…I am not getting screwed again by you guy’s.
• Simon: Please hold the line.
• Me: Whatever!
• Recorded Voice: BLAH BLAH BLAH…We work for Satan and recommend for your own sanity you sign up with someone other than AOL. Your cancellation number is 598849763.

After nearly 20 minutes from the start of my call, I finally got my cancellation number. Take my advice, if you value your time or money, DO NOT sign up with AOL. They take advantage of people, make huge amounts of screw ups with people’s account and then refuse to let you cancel your account. In other words, they are just EVIL.

I had an interview lined up today with a temping agency at 11am…I was a little nervous. I am going out of my mind not working and am at a point where I might have to go and do restaurant work…which is something I am dreading…but I need to earn some money.

The agency was on Bridge Rd in Richmond, so I left early and drove up there. When I got to the agency I was given a spelling test (how bizarre…and you know, it was quite confusing), then a typing test and then a Word 2002 test.

After the tests I had an interview and was told there was lots of work for me and all she would have to wait on is my references…hopefully that won’t take too long.

I spent the evening calling more temping agencies and got a couple more interviews…I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I had a lie in this morning, which was very nice and got myself ready to go to the Chadstone Mall. I was going to get a couple of shirts for work (once I get a job) and my interview tomorrow.

For the first time ever I managed to get a parking space which wasn’t miles away from the front door. The mall is very similar to the Garden State Plaza in NJ and has pretty much everything there. It didn’t take me long to find a couple of dress shirts and once I had made my purchases I decided to leave before I spent more money.

Instead of turning right out of the mall I decided to turn left and take a drive down Dandenong Road. I didn’t realize that it took me directly onto the Burwood Hwy and when I got there I again took a right onto the Hwy and drove towards Ferntree Gully and then towards the Dandenong Ranges.

I went this way a couple of weeks ago when I went to William Ricketts Sanctuary and I thought it was very pretty. I ended up at the Puffing Billy Steam Train…I will have to try and do it in the summer, when it’s warmer.

For those of you who do not read Pink Is The New Blog shame on you. I have been reading this blog for a long time and have to say TR3NT does a wonderful job bitching about celebrities around the world. I did however spit nearly the entire contents of my drink all over Goldies table this evening while reading what he wrote about Kim Stewart…so I thought I’d first of all plug his site to you all and then show you what a comic genius TR3NT is.

Jo, I know you read it, you have good taste like me after all.

ALERT! ALERT! WARNING! WARNING! YOU MAY WANT TO AVERT YOUR EYES … try and keep your lunch down, it’s Kim Stewart, y’all:

I don’t even know what to say … but what the fuck comes to mind. She looks like the illegitimate love child of a Conehead and figure skater Tonya Harding:

She is an utter mess!

by AMANDA PLATELL, Daily Mail 18/08/05 - News section

There is no denying it, Australia really is the greatest country on earth - provided you can stay awake long enough to enjoy it. Yes, this is sacrilege from someone born and bred in Australia.

It’s even more heinous to suggest that Oz is not the most exciting place in the world than willing England to win the Ashes.

In fact, there is only one thing worse in Australia than a bludger (someone who doesn’t buy their round of drinks) and that’s a knocker, and I fear that’s exactly what I am about to become.

But as the Australian government embarks upon another ‘Ten-Pound Poms’ campaign to try to lure thousands of you to the Promised Land, after 20 years in this country, I owe it to you all to tell the truth. Australia is paradise - but not as you know it.

Anyone thinking they can find a lifestyle similar to Britain but with more sunshine, fewer people, shorter working hours and an all-round better quality of life is in for a rude awakening.

Believe me, you can’t even begin to imagine the things that will drive you mad, but here are a few examples.

Aussies eat dinner (but call it tea) at 5pm while watching the sports channel on a giant plasma TV. The men wear boardies (long swimming shorts made of shell suit fabric) and go commando at every given opportunity.

Breaking news on the TV is a car crash on the local highway and the evening news often concludes with a list of the cheapest petrol prices in your local area.

In the suburbs, cars are driven well below the 30km/hr speed limit, not because of congestion, but by choice.

Life in the slow-lane

Your local council will give you a special ruler to measure the exact distance that your colour- coordinated garbage bins must be placed from the kerb (get it wrong and the bin men won’t pick them up).

Everyone calls you ‘mate’ because it’s easier than remembering your name and if you’re a woman, you just tend to get ignored.

This is just some of what the Australian government is not telling the British doctors, nurses, hairdressers, dental hygienists, plumbers and plastic surgeons, accountants and panel beaters they are inviting to start a new life Down Under.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Australia and I adore Australians. But the biggest thing they truly share with the Brits is a common language - just.

Let’s take a look at what we think we have in common. Australia’s national game is Aussie Rules Football, the sporting equivalent of drunken English fans meeting their German rivals after a humiliating World Cup defeat abroad.

The players favour badly highlighted mullet hairstyles, wear skin-tight Village People T-shirts and stretch, crotchenhancing shorts out of Saturday Night Fever.

It is a game with much body contact. In fact, it makes rugby look like a girl’s game. And that, by the way, is still the biggest insult in Australia.

So if you’re considering the move, forget about the endless diet of soccer you enjoy here, although I’m told the Sydney Hellenic under-21s are the ones to watch these days.

Australians do have a great sense of humour, they love laughing at themselves (a very attractive quality) and at others (that means you). Lilylivered Poms are a constant source of amusement.

But whereas the Aussies love British humour, everything from Monty Python to Dad’s Army to the more recent Little Britain, comedy does not really translate the other way.

Comic genius Dame Edna Everage and films such as Strictly Ballroom and Muriel’s Wedding are rare gems in what is a much coarser comedy firmament.

Be warned about life in the suburbs

Most Poms I know just don’t get Aussie humour. Kath And Kim, the sitcom recently aired on BBC2, is a case in point. And I would recommend anyone considering emigrating to watch the entire series. Life in the Australian suburbs really is like that! You have been warned.

But don’t despair, many of the top British programmes are being shown out there now: The Bill (circa 1997), Coronation Street, all the big showcase BBC /ITV dramas, and sadly all the American ones, too. They even have their own Big Brother and The X-Factor.

As for culture well, in an attempt at fairness, I will discuss it in its broadest terms.

Instead of Shakespeare the Aussies have sunshine. In place of Beethoven, there are beaches. You get my drift?

When considering the cultural aspects of the country, it would be wise to wonder why some of the great Aussie intellects of our time (and no, that is not an oxymoron) - Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes to name but a few - have chosen to base themselves in the UK and America.

What Australia does have, though, is fabulous food - glorious steaks, succulent seafood and exotic ‘Pacific Rim’ cuisine that fuses the best of the West with Asian dishes. Then there is wine to suit every palate and at significantly lower prices than here.

What about the cities, I hear you cry, surely Sydney and Melbourne are exciting, cosmopolitan places with a vibrant metropolitan life? Yes, indeed, they are, but people don’t live in cities in Australia.

They live in Kath-And-Kimstyle suburbs, great sprawling expanses of houses interspersed with shopping arcades. And here, life is sleepy.

It is true that the new crop of Ten-Pound Poms, be they sheet-metal worker or a shrink (both on the wanted list), can expect to own a bungalow in any style they desire, from a Gone With The Wind Palladian mansion to Tuscan villa with two electronically operated garages, space for a boat, a swimming pool and an ‘outdoor room’ for alfresco living as standard.

But while you may end up with Tara, your neighbours will have chosen South Fork. Good taste is not what you journey to Oz for.

In Australia plumbers and politicians really do live side by side. It is not an entirely classless society, but it is a fairer one than Britain. You are judged by who and what you are, not by what you’ve been or where you’ve come from. Skilled workers are also far better paid and more respected.

Being a new country is part of what makes Australia great. But the only reason it is a new country is that it took so damned long to find.

Ah, the blessed isolation. But the down side is that Australians do not feel engaged in the wider world in the way Brits do.

In this small island, strategically placed between Europe and North America, we are at the heart of something. Aussies are a million heartbeats away from the rest of the Western world and its concerns.

That’s why commercial TV stations will lead the nightly news with ‘Crash on Bourke Highway, one dead’, while Baghdad may be burning.

So Australia can be dull, yet it does fulfil the promise of a better standard of living. Like Britain, it is an instinctively conservative country, but one where the Conservative government has been successful for four terms now.

It has, in a way that shames Britain, provided a modern model for immigration, encouraging legal migrants and dealing fairly but firmly with illegal ones.

It taxes people less, has a fine education system and the standard of healthcare across the board is far superior to Britain. It’s relatively safe with space to live and breathe.

You can drive your car anywhere without being made to feel like a villain, and park it most places without remortgaging the family home.

And the country - we don’t call it the countryside as there is no ’side’ to Australians - is not so much breathtaking as mind-blowing.

Just the sight of the blue sea, crashing breakers and miles of golden sand, or the fireball of a sunset, or the deep red dirt of the desert or the green canopy of the rainforest, crowned by an endless pale dome of sky, is enough to make anyone feel they can do anything.

I was a child in the Sixties when the first Ten-Pound Poms arrived in my hometown of Perth in Western Australia - now the number one emigration destination for Brits.

I had a school friend called Joy and another called Nick whose parents were Ten-Pound Poms. Joy’s parents are still there, but Nick’s lasted about five years.

Nick went back because his mum pined for home. Even now, after 48 years, Joy’s elderly parents lament that they will not die in their homeland. But they have never regretted for a moment the chance they took for a better life.

If you are feeling brave, are desperate for sun, sea and surf, and determined to start a new life, then Australia is probably for you. But let me say just one word: ‘Cricket.’

If there is anything the Aussies hate more than losing at cricket, it is them what whipped them.

So given the strength of the current England cricket team, a Pom’s life Down Under won’t be worth living for at least the next decade.

CHARMING!

I have come to the conclusion that as much as the Australians think the Royal Family are utterly useless (us Brits agree with them too on this matter), I think that the Australians would have serious problems if they decided they wanted to have nothing to do with Izzy, Phil and their Clan. What I mean is, lots of companies, establishments etc are called ‘Royal’ something. Just do a search in google.com.au…there are 1,760,000 results for royal.

I drove through Melbourne today and everywhere I looked I saw the word ‘Royal’. There was the RAC (Royal Automobile Club), Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron, Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, Royal Children’s Hospital, Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and if I don’t stop, I may go on forever…I mean, who is going to rename these places?

Anyway, it was just something I thought was interesting. Another thing I have realized is that the St. Kilda McDonald’s is the local hangout for lunatics, school kids and hookers…what a nice combo.

A record number of ‘A’ level passes is forecast.

“Neither have I and I’ve just got six ‘A’ levels.”

Man driving down road.
Woman driving up same road.
They pass each other.
Woman yells out window, “P I G !”
Man yells out window, ” B I T C H !”
Man rounds next curve,
crashes into a huge pig in middle of road.

Thought For The Day : If only men would listen

Thanks Kasey, this one was very funny

I am so happy the Logan twins won BB OZ…I would have liked to see Vess or Tim win too…but Greg was so nice. I have no comment on Disco Dancing Anthony winning BB UK…Steph & Jo watched him go into the house…how embarrassing!