Too much sax and violins

Howdy team,

More crappy network problems going on here. I'll try not to labour (yes, that's labour with a 'u') the point, but here's a brief rundown.

After last week's shenanigans, we again started to have telephone line weirdness on Friday. This time, the phone was okay, but the ADSL was falling out like best friends over that hot 'n flirty new girl at school. I rang our ADSL provider (Westnet) and they told me that most of their customers who are in our area, and hence are going through the Mullaloo telephone exchange, are currently disconnected. He said there was a message on his screen regarding the Mullaloo exchange, which said that Telstra had advised that it was doing some work in the exchange over the weekend. Hello...

So I rang Telstra again. God, I love Telstra. Have I made that clear so far? All I wanted was to find out from Telstra was how long could we expect the work to continue, and therefore maybe get some idea when our telephone line could expect to stop being prodded and yanked every which way.

Anyway, get this. The lady at Telstra says to me that if my problem involves ADSL through a third party, I have to raise a support issue with them, and that they have to raise a support issue with Telstra!!! What?

"But...", I spluttered, frustratingly, "the point of that step has already been accomplished! Westnet have already been notified by Telstra that there's work going on in the area. What would be the point in Westnet raising an issue with Telstra now? Can't you just tell me how long the work is expected to last? Like, today...or the whole weekend...or a month...?"

But no. For party A to find out a bit of information from party C, they may not talk directly. You may only communicate with party B, who may then find out the answer to your question from party C, and relay the information back to party A. Makes perfect logical sense.

Right, enough of that.

We saw Ben Folds the other night, playing with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra. Pretty good, although this one was at the Concert Hall, and we saw him last year with WASO in King's Park and I thought it was better there. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure for the purists, the Concert Hall is better for hearing the strings etc in the unamplified environment, but for me it was just not loud enough. Maybe I'm going a bit deaf from listening to my Ipod at screaming levels, but I preferred the outdoor environment where they amplified all of the orchestra. But it was a great show even so, and Mrs M stayed awake the whole night because she'd had a big sleep when she got home from school (work) in the afternoon. She is quite the tired young lady at present.

We had our 23-week check up the other day too - I forgot to mention it because it was so uneventful. Everything was fine, apart from the fact that somehow we'd managed to be a week out with our appointments (it was supposed to be at 22 weeks). And the whopping great big bill, too. All obstetricians seem to have a different charging structure, and with ours you pay not very much for most of your visits, and then for the 22-week appointment you pay four figures! But it's all worth it, and we got another peek at our little girl, wriggling about in there she was too. Our obstetrician is pregnant herself, a couple of months ahead of us, so she's just about ready to stop work and have her baby. But apparently she'll be right back to work, straight away. Pretty amazing, really. Very smart cookie, she must be. Talking like Yoda today I am.

Enough for now, this is. Later, talk we will. Etc etc.

cheers,
Macca