Relatively Ignorant Blog

I bought some bicycle pedals from an overseas dealer (via eBay).

One of them broke recently, less than six months old. Under normal circumstances, it would be a simple warranty replacement case (LOOK Kéo pedals have a two-year warranty, according to the box). But I bought them via eBay, at a reasonable (but not huge) discount. I should still be able to claim the manufacturer’s warranty directly from LOOK directly and I will try, but it might be a bit tricky.

I rang the Australian distributor of LOOK products about getting spare parts. After telling the man that I bought the pedals overseas he said, “Isn’t it a bit cheeky asking for parts from us?” His premise is that they are willing to assist someone who bought products through their distribution channel, but not otherwise. I told him I was happy to pay for the replacement part but that made no difference to his attitude.

I understand their position, but it is bad business. The onus is not on the distributor but on LOOK to replace defective parts.

Wake up guys! We are in a global marketplace.

Comments(1)

Over at Digg, they wondered if this musical prank had ever been done before.

Not quite as classy, but my dad told of his uni days where one of the academics complained about a student eating a banana in his lecture. Next lecture he gave, a group of students turned up as a small brass band playing (you guessed it): Yes, We Have No Bananas.

That was at the University of Melbourne about 60 years ago.

Comments(1)

Many Australians found out about the death of Steve Irwin today around 2pm local time, about three hours after he died. Word spread quickly around my office after one person found out via a phone call.

Like very many Australians (also in offices, I guess) I jumped on the Net to find out more. After reading a quick report on ABC News Online I looked further. I was amazed that for over half an hour all of these Australian online news services were overloaded:

• ABC News Online (ABC)
• NEWS.com.au (News Ltd)
• ninemsn (Consolidated Press)
• smh.com.au (Fairfax)

ABC News Online quickly put up an apology page, followed 20 minutes or so later with a Steve Irwin news page. It had a message stating that their servers were overloaded and that other features of ABC Online would be restored soon. The other services simply didn’t return pages.

It’s quite concerning that when this story broke, not one of the major Australian online news channels could cope with the load. What would happen if some really serious news broke during the day? Something like an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel?

Or wouldn’t as many Australians clamour to find out more as quickly?

Comments(0)

The newest instalment of Australian Idol has just started. Louise and the boys watch it and have a laugh at the no-hopers and jokers (and the judges too). I can’t bear to watch, mainly because of the no-hopers, but also because of the ‘good’ ones.

What I see and hear, apart from a very high proportion of mediocre singing ability, is an apalling lack of originality. I just see all these people trying to be someone else. Someone who sings with soul. Someone who sounds American. Anyone but themselves.

Comments(2)

Sometimes you get surprised by good service. We were last week when we discovered our fridge was warming up (the ice cream was more cream than ice).

Louise rang Fisher & Paykel on Monday and a serviceman came on Tuesday. He told us that the fridge was losing gas and that it need to go back to the service centre to have the leak fixed. Oh dear.

Then the good news. This fridge is still within its five-year warranty period (by three months) and will be fixed by F&P without charge to us. Also, they will lend us a fridge while ours is being fixed. On Wednesday a replacement (same model) was wheeled in and ours taken away to be fixed.

Wow. That is good service.

Comments(0)

I am singing in the chorus of Romeo and Juliet with Opera Queensland in its final rehearsals before a short season starting this Saturday.

One thing about working in the Queensland Performing Arts Centre is that you sometimes see famous people who are also performing there. Tonight as I was leaving our rehearsal I saw two people doing the same: a QPAC staff member and a shortish woman dressed in black with blond hair. I didn’t pay much attention as they walked through the door to Stage Door reception just before me.

Then she greeted a small number of people with a very recognisable American accent: “Hi, I’m Nancy.”

D’oh!

Comments(0)

It used to be that primary selection criteria for on-air jobs in broadcasting were beauty of voice and quality of vocal production. That has not been so for quite some time and it’s getting worse.

There are some beautiful voices on air in Australia. John Laws is probably the most famous (and whatever you think of his opinions, the voice is magnificent). But there are some really bad ones that I have heard, especially on TV.

These TV ‘personalities’ are probably chosen on their looks, such as Sandra Sully. Her voice is quite devoid of beauty, although its huskiness might be considered sexy by some people. But her technique is horrible: she seems to be trying to speak at a low pitch to sound more serious (she is a newsreader) and her intonation is a poorly modulated monotone. Johanna Griggs’s intonation is just as unmusical.

Some people sound like they are damaging their voices. Every time I watch Spicks and Specks I wince at the sound of Myf Warhurst lacerating her larynx whenever she speaks. At least she doesn’t get asked to sing! Monica Trapaga sounds similar, and she did sing a lot on Playschool (and you could hear her start to lose her voice, not surprisingly).

Some voices are just plain ugly. Rob Palmer, who works on Better Homes and Gardens TV show, makes a hideous, rasping noise when he speaks (perhaps in imitation of some of his carpentry tools).

Doesn’t anyone else hear how bad these people sound?

Comments(2)

For all you Star Wars fans, Backstroke of the West chronicles hilarious mis-translations of dialogue from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Who says pirated movies don’t contribute to our culture?

Comments(0)

This riff on the current world political climate as seen from the Bourne shell made me laugh out loud.

Comments(0)

A while ago I railed about an irritating fashion in user service scripting. It included:

All this reminds me of a bloke I new a while ago who was running a business. He said once that he had difficulty training his staff to say, “this is Chris” on the phone instead of “Chris speaking.” He had been to a seminar or course on customer service and believed that use of the this is script clearly demonstrated to his customers that his company was more up-to-date.

I finally found out why yesterday the this is script is favoured: when you answer the phone, the person at the other end is more likely to recall the last word you said than the penultimate one. So, if I answer with “Michael speaking” the other person is less likely to get my name than if I say “this is Michael.”

I guess this makes sense but I am concerned by an implied assumption about the attention span of people who use the phone.

Comments(0)