Another day, another walk in the park

I went for a walk in the park Friday lunchtime. What an awesome day: the birds were twittering, the sun was shining and there were no damned children occupying the swings! Behold my sunglassed head and Motorola HT820-endowed ears.

After the waste of time that Trademe proved to be, I doubt I'll use Trademe again for anything of any real value. However, in the end, I got a Motorola Razr V3x from a reputable stockist. Nice phone indeed. I've needed a cellphone for two weeks and not only has it filled that bill, but it has fulfilled my desire for a dijitol camera and mp3 player all in one. Having said that, the camera is definitely a hobbyist camera, and isn't good enough for real touristy pictures that I will want to take next year.

Another neat thing about this phone was the free Motorola HT820 bluetooth headphones that came with it. They took a while to get used to, and I managed to dial 111 using them which was a bit of a silly thing to do. But I wouldn't live without them now! They're my saviour for the boring transition between work and home, and they accompany me on my walks in the park.

There are a few annoyances though:

1. When cycling, they catch the wind, causing a rather annoying and headache-inducing whistle.
2. They cut out if I turn my head too fast. It seems performance is enhanced if I put my phone in my back pocket. Weird. Is the aerial in the headband?
   
3. It can be a bit temperamental: sometimes on start-up the music output is poor - sounds like it has been band-limited. It can be fixed by twiddling buttons randomly or resetting the headphones.

Coupled with this headset is the media player on board the Razr. It's OK, but there are a couple of usability issues. Mainly annoyances rather than anything flawed...

1. Settings. It won't save my settings (last-played playlist, shuffle ON, repeat ON). I keep having to go back to the same point each time I start it again.
2. When displaying a playlist, "Add to playlist" tries to add the currently selected song. I'd quite like to be able to add extra songs to a playlist when viewing that playlist.

I do like this phone quite a lot, it's certainly a step up from the old 3300 series Nokias I have owned over the last three years! Groovy.

That reminds me. There is another sucky thing about this phone. I have no friends who I can video call because they don't own video phones! It's not that I feel especially technologically astute, rather that my friends are more financially frugal than I am (read cheapskate).

Screw this tree-hugging hippie crap

Awesome. Headache, maths assignment to do, and I no longer own a cellular phone.

A hole in New Zealand's TradeMe

Ever made a purchase on an online auction site, then felt that gutting dread when you check the seller's profiles the day after you have deposited money in their bank account to see that the auction site has stopped them from trading?

Well, it turns out that I (most probably) have traded with people pulling a scam to avoid paying customs duties and GST. Whether I receive the goods is now in the hands of the Gods and the lovely, lovely people at Customs. (Did I mention that the people at Customs are perhaps more wonderful than anything?)

Why?
If I had known, I wouldn't have traded with these people. So why did I trade with these people in the first place?

1. 100% positive feedback. All the purchases had said it was a fast trade and all items had arrived.
2. They were offering a good price (probably too good, in retrospect).
3. There were no [obvious] signs that they weren't trading from New Zealand.

Why I thought they were NZ-based
Pointers that they were from New Zealand:

• Address Verified: they had attested to TradeMe that they were operating as a New Zealand business, from a New Zealand location.
• E-mail address: Using an e-mail address ending in ".co.nz".
• Bank account: When I purchased the item, I was directed to deposit the money in a Bank of New Zealand account.

In retrospect, I could have saved myself this anguish. If I had done a couple of simple checks, I would have found out that they were not in fact operating from New Zealand.

Checking out the bad guys
Simply, the first e-mail from them after the auction would have alerted me to their location overseas.

1. In my e-mail client, I chose to view All Headers. That displays the originating IP of the e-mail address. Copy the IP address.
2. Go to a site that performs whois type functionality (I used http://www.dnsstuff.com/) and paste that IP address into the appropriate box. Click OK, Go, or whatever they want you to click and check out the information on the IP address.
   

Doing this informed me that the e-mail came from Hong Kong. Bugger. All TradeMe users should get into this habit to help decrease this type of scam going on. I know I'll be doing it from now on before paying out ANY money.

The next step
So where to from here? I can only wait. Hopefully it is purely a duties scam: then I'll be getting a snotty letter from Customs in a few days asking me to fork out for duties. I can cope with that. I will be arguing the toss: I traded with these people in good faith and assumed they were New Zealand-based, and shipping from New Zealand. I'm not the bad guy!

If it eventuates that this is a bit more than that, then I've lost my money. To quote Rick from The Young Ones.... this is a bottomer. I guess I won't be buying my flash toy phone, I'll probably have to deal with a cheap-arse Nokia 1100 or something.

The Day of Leaks

I said "leaks" , not "leeks". It wouldn't be the done thing to attract Welsh people to this blog. Wouldn't want to bore them silly after all.

Today was a day of leaks. Here, in New Zealand, it is mid-winter. It started off with my head not leaking. This was not all that good because I have a headcold and consequently felt like my ears were going to invert like a pregnant woman's belly button. Fortunately, they remained within the boundaries of my lobes.

I spent the morning at work sucking on decongestant tablets and injecting menthol vapor-emitting tubules up my nostrils. Combined with refactoring my code for a calibration module, it wasn't the most productive morning ever. Fortunately, I spend Thursday afternoons at university.

Today is the first time in a week that I have been able to ride my bicycle. I had to get the back wheel repaired after I somehow simultaneously blew out my back tyre and a spoke. This is my main form of exercise at the moment, so I've been hanging out to get back on it and pump those leggies. This morning was great, though cold, and after lunch I blasted my way to uni in about ten minutes.

I had a pleasant afternoon, I sat in the dazzling sunlight (one of those beautiful, crisp Canterbury winter days) and ate a steak sandwich and chips. After a leisurely stroll, I ended up at the book store and found two books I had to have: A collection of Philip Larkin's poetry (I'm not gay, but I've fallen in love with him!) and the latest Haruki Murakami book - a collection of short stories - I'm relishing digging my literary teeth into those. That's where the fun started to taper off, and the leaks began...

Leak #1: Reality
2:00 pm. I guess this headcold was getting to me a bit more than I thought. Sitting in my Wavelets & Data Compression lecture, I felt consciousness slipping away and my eyelids would have killed a dozen rancors. Somehow, I survived falling asleep - which is fortunate given that there are only three students in my class (that sort of thing is more noticeable then, apparently...).

Leak #2: Bodily Fluids I; aka Damn those diuretics
3:00 pm. After that was a bigger test - two hours of data mining lecture. Fortunately, I managed to get a flat white and a bottle of Coke Zero in the ten minutes between lectures. Perhaps it was a caffeine deficiency? Whatever it was, propping myself up artificially has its drawbacks. The main one is that a two hour lecture + coke = having to leave halfway through to micturate. I won't go into details.

Leak #3: Pressurised atmospheric containment device (PACD), part 1.
5:00 pm. I was looking forward to getting home and savouring some delectable dish. Alas, my bicycle had sustained a component failure: a flat rear tyre. Tired, not feeling all that healthy and somewhat hungry, this did not please me. However, no matter: I had my spare tube, bike pump and plastic thingees to get me back on the road. Within five minutes, I had changed tubes and headed out to Kilmarnock Street on the way home.

Leak #4: PACD, part deux.
5:05 pm. Bad news. Approaching my old school (Altiora Peto!) I felt my bicycle wobble. Bugger. Yet another puncture? It was my back wheel again. It was at this moment that I realised my great folly: my "spare" tube was in fact a tube that I had changed after another leak eighteen months ago. I guess I should be thankful I didn't sustain a leak on one of my 50 km rides. Unfortunately, I don't carry more than one spare tube: time to bring in reinforcements.

Ring ring... ring ring... but no pick up. Damn it. Try again: this time ring the cellphone... no answer. Fantastic! Oh well, in the absence of anyone at home, I now get to walk my bicycle home.

Leak #5: Nokia's battery technology.
5:20 pm. Now, in the middle of Hagley Park, I tried ringing home again to initiate a retrieval operation. Alas no answer. Ring ring.. ring ring... silence. What? Ah. The battery has failed. By now I was a little pissed off.

Leak #6: Splish splash.
Unfortunately for the phone, I happened to be walking past Victoria Lake. I've been umming and ahhing about buying a new phone for ages... now I have a real incentive. After removing my SIM card and stashing it in my wallet (will it survive?), I put my bike down by the lakeside, cranked up my throwing arm, and gave my cellular phone a burial at sea. That's the last time that buggy firmware and battery will annoy me!!

Leak #7: More moisture
5:45 pm. Somewhat melancholy, I walked past Le Bon Bolli. Perhaps my favourite place to get desserts from. Still without dinner, I decided that it would be perfectly acceptable to have my dessert prior to dinner. (Three hours later, it has ended up being my dinner.) Once inside those comforting walls, I ordered a slice of the chocolate mousse cake and another flat white (I do like my coffee). Eagerly anticipating these comforts, I whipped out my poetry book to try and look sort-of classy. Next time I'll untuck my jeans from my sock. Then my cake arrived. I'm not sure how long ago it was made, but chocolate mousse wouldn't have suggested the disappointing levels of staleness. Oh well. I consumed, paid the bill and continued my walk home.

Leak #8: Bodily fluids II
On the final stretch toward home, my heel decided to stretch my leakage theme that bit further. It would seem these shoes were not made for walking and rather for blistering. I walked the last mile with one shoe. Hardly a trial, but I'm still trying to defrost my toes!

Ah well, at least tomorrow can't be too much worse than this afternoon. No more leaks. I'm going out to buy some Gladwrap just to make sure, damn it.

Frist post!!~111

It's difficult to be proud of making the first post on my own blog. As one might have already ascertained, I'm not exactly racing anyone else.

I'm sure this will earn the ridicule of my friends, family, and other people who stumble upon this rather silly thing, but I guess it's a really good way of avoiding doing my homework. Twenty six and homework... ugh!

Well this is the end of my first post. I shall be making another one shortly about today, the day of leaks. There's a title right there!