Thursday 18 May 2006

internet fixed

Well, that sucked. This is what happened: our modem died, and since our broadband contract with telstra had run out, we thought we might as well look at what else is on offer. Dorian picked Dodo because for the same $70 per month the download speed is tripled. The transfer documentation said it could take up to ten days for the service to be switched over and we might have an outage of up to four hours. The outage, however, went for nine days -- nine days! -- it was like being buried in a mine or something! - and even though we complained as much as we could stand the company never did give us a satisfactory account of how they managed to cock things up so spectacularly. So yeah - avoid Dodo if you're changing ISPs.

That was boring but I feel my poor blog is owed some kind of explanation.

Today was a good day to get internet access back, because this morning at the airport I saw a man wearing a skirt getting out of a taxi outside the Qantas domestic terminal. It was not a kilt but it was definitely a skirt, very full and flouncy, and just below knee length. He also had on desert boots and a Top Gun style bomber jacket. Just before I saw him I noticed lots of people standing on the footpath staring at something, one's first thought at the airport is always some sort of terrorist, but it was only the skirtman, luckily.

As if that wasn't enough when I got to the gate it had half a dozen Australian Idol contestants hanging around it. I knew that's what they were because they were spectacularly annoying and because they were being chaperoned by a woman with a clipboard, lanyard, and Australian Idol t-shirt. They were all waiting for one last plane to arrive from Devonport before they all went off somewhere in a minibus. There were five boys who were all dressed in variations of the screenprinted tshirt / designer jeans / sports jacket outfit the hosts favour, and two practicing awful dance steps, clicking fingers, singing snatches of bad songs in ways that seemed meant to suggest to everyone within earshot that they just couldn't stop feeling the music! And there was one young woman: I noticed her well before any of the others, because she was wearing red rubber abbatoir worker boots with black opaque over-the-knee socks, then came an expanse of bare thigh, then one of those tops that is like a cut-down Greek statue's tunic, so long it completely covered her frayed denim shorts and looked instead like an indecently short dress, with a black suit jacket over the top. The whole outfit was finished off with a completely inappropriate black leather satchel with shoulder strap that somebody's mother bought from Victoria Market sixteen years ago and which made me feel intense sympathy and pity for the poor girl. I have to confess I still can't quite decide about the boots.

11 comments:

Tim said...

Ah good, you're back. We went on strike for a week in support of your internet deprivation. (Also because we were busy and had no ideas. Still good you're back though.)

I once saw a man in a skirt on the train. He was also wearing a Hawthorn jumper. It clashed with the skirt.

Tim said...

Don't you hate it when you leave a comment on a blog, then switch your computer off, and just as the screen is fading to black you think, hang on, that didn't come out right, so you turn the computer back on, fire up the modem, load up the blog in question and...

Look, we weren't on strike in support of your internet deprivation, we were...

Oh, never mine.

As you were.

ThirdCat said...

Welcome back.

Tell us more about what it's like without access to teh interwebs. Quite productive I should imagine.

Ampersand Duck said...

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya
(Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Back here where we need ya
(Here where we need ya)


Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

ThirdCat said...

something better than bazlotto - I got that Da Vinci code photo. Lucy Tartan, your photos are fantabbo-tastic.

Anonymous said...

Yoof fashion puzzles me. I'm sure it wasn't so long ago I was a fashionable yoof -- actually, no, I never was -- but the last three years or so have been particularly wretched.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, thank god you're back!

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

ALL fashion puzzles me, Kate. Those girls walking around with naked bellies in May are all going to have to have hip replacements where the cold got in by the time they're 45. Laura, good to have you back, and here is a thought to ponder: the word 'outage' isn't almost identical to the word 'outrage' for nothing.

lucy tartan said...

It's not really their fault, the bare-bellied girls - the pants the shops offer them are all cut absurdly low and all for the same curve distribution. Thanks for welcoming me back. While the internet was broken I made some winter clothes and read a bit more than I would normally perhaps, but the main difference to my routine was watching a bit of tv in the evenings, which I normally would never do except when The Bill is on. So I can't really say no internet makes me more productive.

FXH said...

I worry about those girls in muffn shirts and hipsters that expose so much back and kidney. I can't help staring at them and wondering if they feel cold. I then catch them looking at me and giving me that "fuck off sleazy old sex perve" look. But hell no - sex is the last thing on my mind. It's a fatherly or avuncular concern for human kind. I get especially fixated and stare when I see a young girl all wrapped up in sheepskin knee high boots, thick leather or sheep skin lined jacket, thick cord pants and perhaps a beanie plus the compulsory new knot type scarf, but topped off, or middled off really, with a 3 inch show of bare belly and kidneys. It makes me feel cold looking at them. I can't help pondering the mind set.

"jeez its freezing today, I'll put on shitloads of warm woolies, boots,hat, neck warmer oh and now to carefully expose my belly"

lucy tartan said...

Ah well. I really am torn on the question of how much blame individual belly-exposers ought to be subjected to. It's quite true that I & plenty other people manage to live life without flashing the midregion, but on the other hand, all the pants in the shops for young girls are cut stupidly low and the tops tend to be tight and / or short. It's hard for them to not dress the same way as their friends. I blame the patriarchy, really.