This a photo from the town’s CBD, courtesy TVNZ
chch quake 04 sept 2010
…and this is my room
my room after the quake
… I am actually feeling one of the many aftershocks as I write, five hours after the main quake. Saving power and communication usage now, so no more bla-bla. The State of Emergency has just been declared.
A few months back I posted this on mockoblog.com. I thought it would be funny. Now, with the controlled recession around for such a long time, I find it not. Then, I had lots of comments and I deleted them as being superficial. Now, sorry, I have a different feeling about the issue. Please take two minutes of your valuable time and read bellow. You will come to your own conclusions, no doubt.
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One of the silliest things I can think of is shopping. And I absolutely love it!
I fully accept that shopping is therapy for depression, obesity, measles, catalepsy and many other conditions I claim not to have. People go shopping even when their account is in red, they get deeper in debt, yet they fell better. If a new pair of slippers could make you fell reborn, a new car will take you straight to Nirvana (I experienced it eight times).
The daily act of shopping is a bit like having sex, maybe with a softer ending, but safer, generally speaking. Sometimes it can involve a little redundancy (daily dairy shopping across the road) but this is like being in a strong matrimonial relationship: loads of fidelity and no surprises. Yet some other times shopping is a heavenly experience: go to Paris or Melbourne, Milan or Tokyo, get a cab and ask the driver to stop as soon as you see a shop with the letter ‘N’ third on its name or just walk on a busy commercial street and pick the seventh shop on the left. Go in and I bet you’ll find something to buy. Now, this is like having a one night stand and waking up with no hangover and the love of your life bringing you breakfast in bed. The only significant difference is that with shopping you can experience this far more often than in real life.
Shopping is power: I can buy; therefore I must have money, which means I’ve got the power.
Shopping is kindness: I can buy something for you; therefore I show you how much I care and how important you really are for me. (And shopping for YOU means even more power: I’m so powerful that I can even afford to buy it for you, not for ME.)
In a way or another, for many years I sold stuff or I advertised for other people’s stuff so they could sell it better. I know the look in the eyes of a person who wants to buy as well as the expression on the face of somebody who can not afford buying. Shopping is a drug. It is more addictive than nicotine, it is compulsive and unforgiving. Its high is very short lived when compared to how much you spent for achieving it and, what’s worse, shopping is not only legal, but encouraged. In fact shopping is the vital force of our society and one of the few differences between our species and the others.
Having had a lot to do with shopping and selling, I thought I may write a book on how NOT to buy stuff. I’d put really cool little secrets in there, like how not to make eye contact with the salesman and how not to… Forget it! I’m hoping a smart publisher will read this blog and offer me a contract for the printed, podcasted, DVD recorded and the online versions of How Not to Buy. Sorry, this is why I won’t disclose any tricks in here. (Not just yet.) I hope you’ve enjoyed the introduction though.
THIS IS A BIT RISKY FOR ME, AS THEY BROUGHT MY SITE DOWN TWICE ALREADY
Fact: this site went down for a fe w days and I spent hours trying to explain to my host that it was their fault. I had three chat sessions. Bellow you can read the latest one.
(this conversation has been slightly edited for non- privacy reasons, just to make it readable, yet no facts were altered)
All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 1 Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
You are now chatting with ‘Mark Brandon’
Mark Brandon: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?
alex plescan: while u get the chance to join my chat, i just need to tell you that i might have to pay some money to justhost
alex plescan: mark, could u pls check my account?
alex plescan: mockoblog.com
alex plescan: r u there still??? it’s late in my country, midnight
Mark Brandon: YEs
Mark Brandon: Please allow me some time to check
alex plescan: thank you
alex plescan: pls allow me some time to bring my cjup of coffee here
alex plescan: cup
alex plescan: 45 seconds
alex plescan: thanx
Mark Brandon: Yes sure
Mark Brandon: You are most Welcome !!
Mark Brandon: Thank you for your patience…
Mark Brandon: Please refer the billing inforamtin
Mark Brandon: Status Active
Mark Brandon: Billing Period Semi-Annually
Mark Brandon: Start Date: Jun/16/2009
Mark Brandon: Last Renewal Date: Jun/16/2010
Mark Brandon: Renewal Date: Dec/16/2010
alex plescan: back, reading
alex plescan: so, sorry for asking this silly question, have i actually been billed and have i paid the justhost account? i had my site taken offline a week ago, spent hours chatting with you, guys, expplained how to bill me, then my site went back on – […] this is my hobby-site
Mark Brandon: Thank you for your patience…
Mark Brandon: Regarding your issue you need contact our billing department at billing@justhost.com
Mark Brandon: So our billing team will provide you all details about your issue
Mark Brandon: this is technical chat sesstion
Mark Brandon: Unfortunaltely we do not have access to be able to correct this.
Mark Brandon: However if you put in a mail to billing@justhost.com , our admins will take care of this as soon as possible”.
alex plescan: god! i have no time to do this, i spent hours last week emailing billing@, renewals@, support@, all @justhost.com
alex plescan: ok, let’s talk technically
alex plescan: 1. i never received any ticket number for my recent requests for explanations – did you experience a major failure in your systems last week?
Mark Brandon: No
Mark Brandon: there is no problem with our server
Mark Brandon: Also, none of the other clients on this server are having this issue”
alex plescan: 2. why my secondary domain, for which i had requested removal about 3 months ago, is still active??? while my main one was obscured?
alex plescan: main domain is mockoblog.com, secondary is swapid.com
Mark Brandon: alex , this is billling issue
Mark Brandon: our billing team only help you in this regard
alex plescan: ok, mate, i am 12 hours away from london, england, uk, europe. i waste my nights chatting to you (not yourself, but justhost as a provider) and all i want is to make sure i pay and you get the money, so my site is online. does it make any sens to you before you send me to billing, where i had been before with no success?
Mark Brandon: We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you
Mark Brandon: But I suggest you to Regarding your issue you need contact our billing department at billing@justhost.com
alex plescan: nicely put
Mark Brandon: so our billing team will manage your issue
Mark Brandon: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Mark Brandon: Thank you for visiting Hosting Support. Should you have any queries or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Mark Brandon: Have a nice day!! Good Bye.
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
PLEASE read our post related to tbis kind of issue, it was posted almost one year ago – searxh for ‘the worst…”
A GOOD STORY THAT TAKES HALF-HOUR
Night 1
Faruno Abalgandon Vextraliensis had three legs. But this was quite normal for people his age on Planet Go-to-Bed.
We can make this story bigger or just a little bit bigger if you eat all your ginger bread teddy bears. There are no teddies and no ginger or not even bred on the Planet Go-to-Bed, but plenty of bears. People there eat bears for desert. Everybody eats everybody there because they are all so hungry and even Faruno could have had up to nine legs by the age of ten, should he had been well fed by his parents. Legs don’t grow easily, you know, not just from the top of your head, like octopus folk grow on Planet Erath. They only grow out of your ears on that lovely planet where not even cows exist.
Now we watch some cartoons before we go to bed and the story will grow overnight by itself. This is going to be a funny story.
Night 2
When we are done with this story, we are actually going to put it onto the Internet but we should put your name and my name there so people know who wrote the story. Maybe my friends Zayne and Kaito will be on the computer that night and they can read it. Can we just get to the story now?
Of course there are no cows on Planet Go-to-Bed because cows need cheese to make milk and milk to make grass from it. On Planet Go-to-Bed there’s plenty of grass already but the grass is only populated by sheep and by many weeds, too. Sheep are generally speaking, friendly on that remote planet but sometimes they sail far away in space ships they call ‘boats’. Faruno Abalgandon Vextraliensis wanted to be the captain of a Space-boat so he made it out of thin paper. All paper on Planet Go-to-Bed is thin, because it is made out of grass. There are no trees. On Planet Earth, most paper is made out of dead trees or trees killed by the humans. We won’t tell Faruno how we make things on Earth, because he won’t like to visit anymore.
Is that all the story? No. It is not. Maybe Faruno has some friends.