The Vent and Rant Thread

[desertblues]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

I spent last night, and all of today up until 15 minutes ago, frantically searching for (and tearing my house apart in the process) a DVD that NEVER EXISTED. I've cried, yelled, beat myself up, and fought with Chris over not being able to find something that was never here in the first place.



I was trying to find a nonexistent restore disc for my ASUS T91MT, preparing to sell it. Thanks to Wodin in reply to my distress call (elsewhere in the Llounge), I finally thought to call ASUS support. I got an english-speaking human who, after taking my device's serial number, assured me that it didn't COME with a recovery disc, only a restore partition. After I beat my head against the nearest wall and cry some more, I now have to start cleaning up what I trashed, looking for something that wasn't here.

I'll give you some big hugs and kisses from overseas. Be kind to yourself.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by desertblues

and that bottle must be finished. Reminds me of the time a girlfriend and me (19 years both) crossed the Sankt Gotthard in Switzerland with a nice bottle of wodka, which the customs took away from us.
So much for trying to fool these guys.

There was a time, some years ago, in which I had to go to Paris for work, about once every two weeks. I could take a plane at Malpensa (which is not far from where I live) and fly AirFrance or Alitalia, but the schedule was such that it was not comfortable for day commute. Either I had to stop work too early or be back home too late.
I found out that I could fly SwissAir from Agno (Lugano) which is even closer than Malpensa, and in spite of a stopover in Bern I could make it in time in the morning, do my business and still be home for dinner. So that's what I did. In Paris, on my way back, I bought a 1 liter bottle at the duty free shop.

The guy of the Agno customs wanted me to pay duty. I said no, I just drive to Italy without stopping here one minute more than I need. He said that he could not care less of what I did outside the customs and that I had to pay duty anyway. So I looked him up, with his uniform and regulatory alpine look, and told him. Look, I am spending money in your airports, I am spending money with your air company, why do you want me to fly on another route, and spend my money with them, Are you working against your country interests? Are you Swiss? A good Swiss, or what? Don't you want me as a customer in this airport? And my look was more and more disgusted at his unswisseritude.

It did not take more than a moment under my blue eyed stare for him to understand the enormity of his mistake so that he told me to go.

[Roger Parkinson]

Originally Posted by beppe

There was a time, some years ago, in which I had to go to Paris for work, about once every two weeks. I could take a plane at Malpensa (which is not far from where I live) and fly AirFrance or Alitalia, but the schedule was such that it was not comfortable for day commute. Either I had to stop work too early or be back home too late.
I found out that I could fly SwissAir from Agno (Lugano) which is even closer than Malpensa, and in spite of a stopover in Bern I could make it in time in the morning, do my business and still be home for dinner. So that's what I did. In Paris, on my way back, I bought a 1 liter bottle at the duty free shop.

The guy of the Agno customs wanted me to pay duty. I said no, I just drive to Italy without stopping here one minute more than I need. He said that he could not care less of what I did outside the customs and that I had to pay duty anyway. So I looked him up, with his uniform and regulatory alpine look, and told him. Look, I am spending money in your airports, I am spending money with your air company, why do you want me to fly on another route, and spend my money with them, Are you working against your country interests? Are you Swiss? A good Swiss, or what? Don't you want me as a customer in this airport? And my look was more and more disgusted at his unswisseritude.

It did not take more than a moment under my blue eyed stare for him to understand the enormity of his mistake so that he told me to go.

Oh, well done. My usual understanding of customs is that you can never win, might as well just do what they say, but that's an excellent contra story.

It's not quite a customs story but we had a long trip to France years ago in which we were driving through the Loire Valley stopping at various caves and buying bottles of wine. The idea was to enjoy them in the area they were made (ie the whole terroir thing) so we were looking for picnic spots etc. But we found we had more wine than picnics and found we were leaving the area the wine was from. I called this 'wine lag' like jet lag but more pleasant 'cos the solution was, obviously, stop the car and drink everything.

[SneakySnake]

Does anyone see what I see?

What the hell is going on with Ozzie publishing?

<snip>

[MrPLD]

awww.. what... a 600K ms-doc file... cawm orrrn... PDF plz?

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by MrPLD

awww.. what... a 600K ms-doc file... cawm orrrn... PDF plz?

d'oh! Wrong choice sorry.

[MrPLD]

Yeah, any wonder their sales have crashed. Cheaper (and probably faster!) to get it direct.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by SneakySnake

d'oh! Wrong choice sorry.

Yes, I can believe it, and I doubt it has anything to do with Oz publishing per se.

It's a computer book published by Que. Que is an imprint of Pearson Technology Group, which in turn is a division of Pearson, whose operations include the Financial Times, Pearson Education, and the Penguin Group.

Pearson has an Australian operation, but it's a fair bet this book is actually published and manufactured in the US, so a paper copy you buy in Oz is an import from halfway round the globe. Guess what that does to costs?

If you can order from a US supplier like Amazon and get it shipped overseas, you'll likely do better, though I don't see Amazon free shipping extending to Oz.
______
Dennis

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes, I can believe it, and I doubt it has anything to do with Oz publishing per se.

It's a computer book published by Que. Que is an imprint of Pearson Technology Group, which in turn is a division of Pearson, whose operations include the Financial Times, Pearson Education, and the Penguin Group.

Pearson has an Australian operation, but it's a fair bet this book is actually published and manufactured in the US, so a paper copy you buy in Oz is an import from halfway round the globe. Guess what that does to costs?

If you can order from a US supplier like Amazon and get it shipped overseas, you'll likely do better, though I don't see Amazon free shipping extending to Oz.
______
Dennis

No they don't give me free shipping. But last time I ordered a techie book like this it was only $10 and it arrived in 5 days. That still leaves over $30 up my sleeve!

[Roger Parkinson]

I think this may be another case of ARS (Antipodean Retailer Syndrome) A term I just made up and if I were just a little smarter I'd think of a word starting with E to complete the acronym. It seems in this part of the world a lot of retailers find it necessary to add really vast markups. It was probably always true but now that nearly everyone can check prices on the web it is obvious. I don't know how they justify it and I don't know how they stay in business (not all of them do, of course).

It isn't just books, DVDs and Electronics (though it is all of those). And it isn't just imports from far away. Case in point: we were in Melbourne a few years back and my wife bought some clothes. She saw the same outfit here a few months later for at least twice the price, maybe more, I forget. But she was buying retail in Melbourne and looking at retail here.

I'd be interested to hear their justification for the extra, I really would. But I note it is getting better slowly. DVDs used to be silly prices here in NZ, now we are okay buying from local outfits instead of Amazon.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

I spent last night, and all of today up until 15 minutes ago, frantically searching for (and tearing my house apart in the process) a DVD that NEVER EXISTED. I've cried, yelled, beat myself up, and fought with Chris over not being able to find something that was never here in the first place.



I was trying to find a nonexistent restore disc for my ASUS T91MT, preparing to sell it. Thanks to Wodin in reply to my distress call (elsewhere in the Llounge), I finally thought to call ASUS support. I got an english-speaking human who, after taking my device's serial number, assured me that it didn't COME with a recovery disc, only a restore partition. After I beat my head against the nearest wall and cry some more, I now have to start cleaning up what I trashed, looking for something that wasn't here.

Chocolate and hugs ....

[afterlife2]

This started yesterday. I was trying to record a cd it wouldn't work. When I went to look for the drives all were missing(Hard Drive and CD-Rom). Anyone ever have this problem? Is there something I can do to remedy it? It also takes a long time to boot up too. I ran the program Malwarebytes it didn't find anything.

[elcreative]

There are many things that can cause problems such as this... your best bet is your local PC/Windows guru (everyone should either have one or be one) to have a direct look at your machine or settle down for a long series of question & answer here as people establish exactly what your setup is, what was the last thing you did before problems, whether you've got something installed that shouldn't be etc. etc.

Originally Posted by afterlife2

This started yesterday. I was trying to record a cd it wouldn't work. When I went to look for the drives all were missing(Hard Drive and CD-Rom). Anyone ever have this problem? Is there something I can do to remedy it? It also takes a long time to boot up too. I ran the program Malwarebytes it didn't find anything.

[Freeshadow]

your local PC/Windows guru (everyone should either have one or be one)

Yeah karma for that - since PCs didn't become less complicated, jut because they got those colourish mouse-driven interfaces, people should either know an expert or be savvy themselves.

It's just like with cars.

[kindlekitten]

what the hell!!! did I just go through a time/space continuum?