Fireworks

I haven’t written a lot lately.  I love writing, but at the moment there are a few things happening in my life that I don’t really want to write about.  Frankly most of it is just so negative that I would send you into a depro if I wrote about it.  And to lose the last few committed readers that still dare to venture onto this blog, would be a fatal blow to my waning popularity.

In short, a friend of mine bamboozled me out of a lot of money, and I am in the process of demanding justice.  This process is quite intimidating and complex, not to mention costly, and may in fact not have the required end result, which should be justice. 

I’ve always been one of those suckers who continue to believe in the idea of fairness and justice.  And I still do.  A little bit.

Although I know a few good decent people in the legal industry, I have to say that in general, lawyers are a bunch of blood-sucking thieves, and even when you do have a good case that should go your way, the costs of getting this through court basically reduces your ability to act in any way.

Most of the lawyers I contacted at first, just wanted to go the easy way and create a paper-war.  They want to sit in the office being a pen-pusher, in stead of actually taking the matter to court.  And they literally charge you in 6 minutes timeslots.  When you go over into the 7th minute, you’re out of pocket for another 30 or 40 bucks, depending on the amount of personal debt this lawyer has to cover in order to sustain his expensive lifestyle.  They’re worse than engineering consultants. 

And why not?  These are the folks who end up being judges, members of parliament and other kinds of high-rollers, and they draw up our laws – why wouldn’t they create a system where they are the beneficiaries of other people’s bad luck?

Even though I was totally able to draft and send off my own “final letter of demand” to the debtor, most of the lawyers I contacted insisted that I write a letter of demand on their letterhead, which would apparently have a much better effect than my personally written one, which I simply got off the internet. 

For this great service a company like Ah*rns Lawyers (Full Name withheld to protect the innocent) would charge you $440.00.  What a farce.  Even after I repeatedly stated that I had already sent off a letter of demand, and that I now wanted to proceed with real legal action, M*rc#s Ah*rns still insisted that I first send off another letter on their letterhead.   According to him:

“…I recommend a letter of demand from our firm. It will threaten the claiming of costs and interest and carries a lot more weight than your letter as it shows you are serious as you have engaged solicitors.”

There’s nothing in there that wasn’t in my original letter.  Except a huge cost to print a piece of paper with their colourful letterhead on it.

This, of course, was after Mr Ah*rns took more than a week to respond to my first request for assistance. 

I finally got hold off a legal company who seems to have a lot more integrity.  They responded to all my emails in a speedy fashion - they even arranged the first meeting for free.  I was free to discuss my whole case with a lawyer, and could then decide what to do based on their advice.  If you live in Perth, I would highly recommend Havilah Legal if you ever need to talk to a respectable lawyer.  Check out their website.

Anyway, this still doesn’t mean that I’ve received any of the money this scumbag has stolen from me, but at least it’s a start.  One day when the whole matter has been done and dusted, I will tell you the exact details of what happened.  For the moment, I’ll leave names and details out of this to protect the guilty.

Anyway, last weekend we attended the annual Fireworks at Hillarys, and I took a few nice photos of the events.  Fireworks seem to be part of my life for the moment:

Acer 5315 shutting down?

This is not one of my normal blog posts.  This is one of those that you hopefully would come across when you search for the following fault:

“Acer 5315 laptop shuts down out of the blue”, or

“Acer 5315 laptop overheats, causing the system to shut down”.

If you have these problems, then is the post that will give you the easy solution.

I investigated this problem and found that the system shuts down due to the CPU overheating.  The computer protects the CPU from frying itself.  The question, however is why does this happen?  The fan is running, everything else seems to be fine.  I tried a lot of different things, but couldn’t really figure it out.

I tried the Acer support centre, who took three days to tell me that this is a “software problem”.  Here’s their solution:

Thank you for contacting Acer’s online helpdesk, and for providing me with these details.

The problem you describe can sometimes be caused by an underlying software issue, and so I should like to suggest you run through a system recovery.
I have provided some simple and easy to follow instructions that will help you perform a system recovery, though please note that all personal data will be deleted, and your system restored to its factory default.
I suggest you first backup your personal files to CD/DVD, an external HDD or a USB storage device if possible, and also recommend that you keep regular backups of your personal files.
Here are the instructions as mentioned:
1. Firstly, please ensure that all USB storage devices are removed before proceeding with a system recovery
2. Restart your Acer product; please then begin tapping both the ALT & F10 keys together repeatedly from the moment you see the Acer boot screen
3. Please continue tapping both the ALT & F10 keys together until you are presented with the Acer recovery console
4. Select ‘Restore to Factory Default’ from the recovery options and enter your recovery password; the default password is six zeros – 000000, though you may have changed this at some time
5. Please press enter to continue, and then follow the on-screen instructions
6. The system recovery will be complete within 30-45 minutes, at which point I trust your system will return to its normal operation.
Thank you for your enquiry and I look forward to your response.
Have a great day.”

Got it?

OK, now this sounds like a typical IT helpdesk solution – if all else fails, re-boot, wipe out everything and re-install it – what a stupid suggestion!  How will that solve an obvious hardware issue?

I tried to read up on the web, and found people with the most amazing solutions.  Stuff like this:

1) Install the script that controls the fan
Download the script in the attachment in the post: http://www.mail-archive.com/acpi-bug.../msg14582.html
I have also attached it below.
2) Unpack the script
tar xvfz acer_fancontrol.tar.gz
3) IMPORTANT Modify the script to match your hardware (It is set up for a 2GB 5720Z as it is).
gedit acer_fancontrol
Pick the memory size which matches your memory size
4) Try it out
sudo ./acer_fancontrol
If you used the slightly modified script attached to this post, you should see that it prints some messages out like "Ignition Off", "Clutch down" or something. These correspond to the fan speeds, and you should be able to hear the fan working for anything above "Ignition Off".
5) If it works you can install the script
sudo cp acer_fancontrol /usr/bin
sudo cp mempat /usr/bin
6) Make it run automatically
sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
Insert "acer_fancontrol" before the final "exit 0"

And all sorts of other crazy stunts like tinkering with your BIOS and installing other operating systems.

go into terminal (or whatever you use) and type:
su root <-- it didnt seem to work with the sudo stuff, it kept saying your not root blah blah blah and thats the only way it didnt complain about it
cd /proc/acpi/thermal_zone <-- This will get you into the right folder.
gedit cooling_mode <-- make sure that its this file your editing.
and then add this into it when it opens up in a text editor:
cooling mode: active
save the file, then restart the computer.

(…What the hell?)

This is all nonsense.  The problem is not with the operating system, not about whether it’s 32 bit or 64 bit, Vista or XP - nothing to do with that.  It’s a HARDWARE problem, you stupid geeks!  Hardware is the manly stuff that actually make things work, like wheels and gearboxes.  Not everything can be fixed by updating software!

I saw one bloke’s response where he mentioned something about opening the internal fan and removing the dust bunnies.  I thought that I’d been there and done that, having already blown out the notebook with a compressor.  But then I read on, and realised that you have to open up the fan, and you’ll see what he means.

All the other wise geeks ignored this bloke’s comments and kept on with the nerdy-talk – BIOS patches, ISO file editors and who-knows-what.

But no one really had a proven solution.  Most of these geeks screwed up their computers beyond repair, causing even more problems.  Some talked about putting the notebook in the fridge to cool off, some messed with their CPU voltages.

One bloke even took his machine back to Walmart and got a full refund!

I took the advice from the smart guy on the forum, and opened the fan.  Now looky here, here’s the answer!  At first I thought I was looking at some sort of gasket between the fan and the heat sink block, but when I totally removed the fan I saw that this was in fact a dust bunny that blocked off any air supply to/from the fan:

Note that even if you try to blow the notebook out with a compressor, you won’t get rid of this little sucker without unscrewing the fan cover and removing the fan. 

So, this isn’t a virus, it’s not your BIOS patch, it’s not the Acer ePower management software, it’s just a plain old dust problem.  You can’t even blame Vista for this one.

Suddenly this old laptop is running sweet, full speed 100% CPU usage at a cool 50 degrees Celsius, in stead of the normal 80-85 when no program was running.  Awesome.

Cost to repair: $0.00

Value of this knowledge: Priceless.

Oh, and yes – don’t try the Acer helpline – a waste of time.

Apostles and Notorious Public prophets of doom

I recently managed to sell my share of a property that I owned in South Africa. I actually made a loss, because I got back the same amount that I paid for the piece of land 4 years ago, but I was just glad to get rid of this dead investment and move on to greener pastures.

My brother-in-law was kind enough to buy out my share, and he transferred the money to my SA bank account. After numerous struggles and hefty fees I finally managed to deposit the funds into my local Commonwealth Bank account – just in time to pay a deposit on a property deal in Melbourne. Don’t ask - but yes, Melbourne - even though I live in Perth... (it’s complicated.)

Anyway, a few days later his lawyers contacted me. We just need to finalise some of the documents, as my brother-in-law paid the funds even though the documentation hadn’t been finalized yet – which was a very kind deed from his side.

So, I owe him a lot – I need to sign these documents and make sure he gets value for his money.

Easy enough. At first, they just wanted my ID documents, my marriage certificate and my bank account details. Everything was going smoothly.

Then came the shocker:

If you sell property in South Africa, and you are not in the country to sign the documents, the documentation needs to be “apostilled”. I’ve never really heard this term before, but believe me - it’s nothing enjoyable. It sounds like some kind of sickness and is in fact worse than one.

I received a list of instructions with documents that needed to be signed. I had to sign these documents in the presence of someone who is qualified to apostille the documents. This person must be

1. Head of a South-African diplomatic or consular mission; or

2. a person in the Administrative or professional division of the public service, serving at the South-African diplomatic, consulor or Trade Office

This sounds easy, doesn’t it?

I jumped onto Google and checked it out. Yep, Perth does have a “South African Honorary Consulate” – good news.

Luckily I rang them up before travelling all the way into the city. “Nope, we don’t do that”, said the lady. “You need to go the Department of Foreign Affairs (DAFT)”.

“Which one?”, I asked - “the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs?” This doesn’t make sense, but the answer was yes.

This morning I jumped onto the train in Leederville and got off at Perth station, on the way to the Exchange Plaza. The DFAT is on level 17. I saw a door with the words “Apostille” written somewhere on it, and was feeling quite happy at finding the right place.

The lady behind the window informed me that they can’t apostille something that I sign in front of them. I need to go to a “Notary Public”, and this person would be able to do it. Then I have to return to the DAFT and hand in the documentation, and it takes 24 hours for them to finalise. It costs $60 for every page, plus $20 for binding it. For my 5 pages this means that this is going to cost me a minimum of $320, plus the Notary public’s fees.

Great.

She gave me an outdated list with names of Public Notaries on it. I saw that some of the addresses were also in St. George’s Terrace, so off I went looking for these Notorious Publicans.

They’re notoriously unavailable.

Either Mr. X is in court, or Mr. Y simply does not do this anymore. Or, “you can call his secretary and make an appointment, but he’s very busy, you know…”

I was referred from the 25^th floor of one building to the 28^th floor of the building across the street – then to the 4^th floor of building Y, and on again to the 23^rd floor of building D. In the meanwhile, the lady at the DAFT informed me that they close at 1pm. So at 1:30pm it was a lost cause anyway.

I finally had to admit defeat, and I crawled into Gloria Jeans for a coffee and a sausage roll. When I finally got onto the train I felt I a bit of a failure after wasting three hours in the city without achieving anything.

Next time I’ll plan this better. Make appointments. Pay huge sums of money. Make more appointments. Pay some more. And then hopefully mail these completed documents back to South Africa at enormous cost.

Or I could ignore it all, do nothing and hope it all goes away while I let my brother-in-law stress it out on that side.

Trip to the Wild Mid West

I’ve recently done some travelling around the Midwest region of Western Australia.

We got onto the Great Northern highway early in the morning.  The only reason the call it “great”, is because of the massive distances that you travel – not the size of the “highway”.  It mostly consists of a normal 2-way bitumen road that looks similar to the Trans-Kalahari highway on the way to Swakopmund on the Namibian coast.

An interesting concept around these parts is what they call a “road train”.   It’s not a freight train that crosses the road; it’s a massive long truck that can pull up to three trailers, all trailing behind each other.

I saw heaps of kangaroos lying dead next to the road.  Over a distance of 60 km l actually counted more than 100 roadkills strewn around the place.  (The road trains don’t brake for anything…)

The first part of the route was through the Chittering valley.  Once we got closer to a place called Payne’s Find, the region was looking extremely familiar.  Payne’s Find is pretty much just like Kalkrand in Namibia – a petrol station with a garbage can next to it.

On the way there, probably about 50km before we reached PF, the area reminded me a lot of the road from Rehoboth to Windhoek, with the Auas mountains in the background.  I had to pinch myself a few times just to remind myself that I was not driving in Namibia.

I was expecting a kudu to jump over the road at any moment.  All I saw, however, were emu’s, dead skippies and feral goats all over the place.  It was a weird experience.

At Mount Magnet I saw two local indigenous people sitting at a table.  They got up later, and I watched as one of them walked over the road with one foot totally bare, and the other one clothed with just a dirty sock.  With this irregular footwear he was merrily walking across the dusty road.  Once again I had this weird feeling of familiarity – I’m not sure why…

There are quite a few of them folks around. There were two blokes standing around the public phones – they just never seemed to be able to get away from the phones.  Another bloke was crossing the road every now and again.  I have no idea what he was trying to achieve.  All of this was happening while we were waiting for our local contact to arrive.  I therefore had a lot of time to observe some of the things going on. 

One of the defining moments was when I saw an indigenous lady come out of the BP shop, and as they left the shop she gave her poor kid a smack that made the snot fly.  I then heard someone in the vicinity saying something about “bloody coons”.  Obviously the inter-cultural love runs deep in these parts.

A local bloke told me that in one of the towns in this region, they still had the “black and white bars” until a few years ago.  This meant that “black fellas” and “white fellas” did not drink at the same bar.  Interesting. 

We finally ended up in Sandstone, and holed up in a place that my colleague cheerfully described as a “dog’s house”.

I met quite a few interesting locals at the bar.  All of them were wearing leather hats for some reason – even long after the sun had set.  One bloke looked like a mix between crocodile Dundee and the Terminator, with a little bit of country music thrown in.  I was just waiting for this bloke to present a banjo and start singing country songs, but fortunately this didn’t happen.

I even met a South African here.  Yep, out here in the sticks, I walked into a saffer.  You can’t go anywhere without running into one of them.

Around these parts people like to dress like cowboys. At the BP in Mt Magnet I saw a bloke who looked like a miniature version of Bob Katter.  These two blokes were driving in a Land Cruiser, and when they stopped the driver got out wearing a bright red shirt, black jeans, boots, and of course a massive leather hat.  When his hat-wearing buddy got out of the car, I suddenly noticed that she was a pregnant lady, although she looked a lot stronger than the skinny driver.  And her hat was bigger.

Well, back in the bar in Sandstone, I met this friendly fella who was wearing a footy shirt with the words “adventure tours” written on it.  I asked him about his adventures, and he explained that he took people on all sorts of adventure tours around Sandstone.  He’ll do anything you want to do – you can shoot roos, go camping, 4x4 driving, or just sit drunk around the fire – whatever your fancy.

I liked this idea about roo-shooting, and he explained that he provides the weapon and a little bit of training - and live targets, of course.  You can start out on tins cans, and once familiar with loading and cocking the gun you qualify to take out some live targets. 

I like this guy.  When I explained to him that I’ve done a wee bit of hunting myself, he responded enthusiastically by telling me that he recognised my horrible Souf Efrikuhn eksehnt, and that “you guys kill anything over there!”

I decided not to get a quote, cause I might have ended up shooting roos instead of getting the job done that my company sent me over here for.  But I’m still keeping it in the back of my mind.  Maybe a little team-building exercise?

I love these country towns.  They have an atmosphere that you just can’t get in the city.  And I enjoyed not having to stop at traffic lights or having to sit on a freeway for half an hour on the way to the office.  And I love seeing animals roam around, even if they’re just boring emu’s and skippies.  I also saw millions of sheep, feral goats and cattle.  Awesome.

The restaurant was another abnormal experience.  The chef, who also doubles as the waiter, is a classic.  He walks around in shorts and thongs, with an apron covering his stomach.  He nearly threw a fit when one of the ladies in the restaurant requested veggies.  He handles his guests in a very informal manner, and everyone inside the restaurant was talking to each other, even if they were not seated at the same table.  Great atmosphere.

I ordered some dead kangaroo, and he made a good job of it.  He mentioned that his roadkills are normally scraped off the road in the early morning, so that it’s still fresh.

The food was really good.  This place is great, although the rooms look a bit like a jail on wheels.  I had to share a bathroom with the couple next door to me. 

How will I sum this up?  It felt like a trip to Otjiwarongo , with a detour through Kalkrand and a quick stop at Mariental.  I had no idea where I was, but it sure felt like home…

Hooray for Blogger spam!

Lately I've had a lot of comments from my new chinese friends. It seems that I now have quite a fanclub overseas, with loving fans scrambling to leave links to their pathetic spam-filled websites. They leave these interesting Chinese characters and subtly try to also add a link to some obscure website, as if I would be too stupid to notice.

Or they try to leave an English-worded message with something like "The path to harmony is through love", or some other stupid Buddhist/communist-inspired quote.

Idiots.

I have "comments moderation" on, therefore none of these ever get posted. The fact that this is spam is so obvious that it immediately leads to me clicking on “delete”.

It just gets really irritating.

Until now. Blogger has finally added a “report spam” button, and finally there will be a way to report these chinese scumbags. I hope you little rats get thrown into a filthy overcrowded chinese prison and that you experience the full variation of chinese water torture in it's finest form!

Try your luck now, you creepy terrorists!

Erections, executions and other democratic phrases

If you’re not from Namibia, you’d probably wonder why I’m mixing these words together.  What do erections have in common with democracy, except for Bill Clinton?

In Namibia a common tendency for indigenous people is to mix up their “l”s with their “r”s.  So it is quite common to hear a news reporter referring to “national erections”, when actually meaning “national elections”.

Anyway, Down Under we had some interesting political developments recently.  A few weeks ago, our Prime Minister was unceremoniously politically assassinated by his own Labor Party.  Apparently he is travelling the world to look for a new job, preferably one where people like to listen to long boring spin talk.

Now a redhead with a horrible Aussie strine accent has taken over.  It was really not fun listening to Kevin Rudd lecturing to the masses, but this lady is a step in the wrong direction if you ask me.  I just can’t get myself to listen to her squeaky narratives.

The redhead has now called a national erection, and on 21 August all “Strayljuhns will be cahstin them votes”.

Experience “New millennium Western democracy” in it’s finest form:  two parties logging it out in the media - twittering, tweeting, blogging and facebooking, crapping and belching anywhere and everywhere.  Not even your own homepage is sacred anymore.  I’ve never seen anything like it. 

I’m used to electioneering Namibian style, where posters hang on telephone poles, and Kosie Pretorius stuffs people’s mailboxes with his party’s pamphlets.  The NBC TV channel would give each party a few minutes on air and they would compete to see who could offer the most pathetic-looking person to beg on their behalf.  Normally a previously disadvantaged deaf-mute albino female with only one leg and no teeth is a good spokes-person for your party, as it shows how much you value their contribution to society.  The more pathetic your representative is, the better party you are.  Apparently.

Of course the ruling party in Namibia always wins with a 75% majority, so why would you tweet, twitter and belch anyway?

But Down Under they do it with style.  Technology is used to reach the dumbfounded masses.  Everyone tweets, twitters and blogs like a madman.  Or woman.

The opposition is lead by a guy called Tony Abbot – a real straight-shooter who constantly needs to explain himself after he mouthed off some politically incorrect comments to the media, while wearing budgie smugglers.  His opponent is a godless unmarried childless redheaded welsh-born lady who just knifed her predecessor in the back while he was still PM.

You can just imagine what this contest looks like in the media.  The comments and counter-comments border on slander and outright insults on a daily basis.  Great stuff!

I love democracy.

The redhead stated a few weeks ago that she did not have any intention of taking over from old Kev.  She said the following, among other things:

May 18 "There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs (Western Bulldogs AFL team) than there is any chance of a change in the Labor Party."

May 18 "I know we’ll be welcoming Jessica [Watson] back to Sydney this weekend after her round the world epic feat. I tell you, I think there’s more chance of me going round the world sailing solo a dozen times than this chatter in the media becoming anything more than that."

If "Steven Spielberg rang me from Hollywood and asked me to star opposite Brad Pitt in a movie, would I do it? Well, I'd be a little bit tempted but you know what, I don't reckon Steven Spielberg is going to give me a call."

May 26 "If I exit politics able to look at the scoreboard and say this is what I did as minister for education, this is what I did as minister for workplace relations, that's enough for me. That's beyond the wildest expectations I had for myself when I started this journey."

June 10 "You may as well ask me am I anticipating a trip to Mars."

June 18 "Look, I know there's been all this breathless media speculation about leadership questions. There's not speculation in my mind."

She became PM on 24 June…

The Global Acting Competition

I’ve never been much of a soccer fan. 

Oops, I’m supposed to call it football.  Who cares?

The only time I ever watch soccer is when the world cup is on.  And once in four years may be just a wee bit too much to my liking.

Most of the games are televised at horrible hours, so I only try to watch the first game of the evening.  Or parts of it, anyway – until I fall asleep, or get so angry that I switch over to watch a live dart-throwing competition.  Whoopie…

Watching 90 minutes of poor acting is worse than watching  national news bulletins on Namibia’s NBC channel.  Really.

I try to get excited about this sport, but the openly blatant acting is just too much for me.  Two players will run into each other, and both will act like someone just hit them with a baseball bat, or they would act innocent and indignant at whatever the other actor might have tried to imply.

This is not a manly sport.  These sissies do a ballet dance all over the field, and throw tantrums like actors in a bad Mexican soap opera.

You never even see a little blood – what good is a sport if you can’t see blood flowing? 

Why is this considered to be the world’s most popular sport?  Is it because men all over the world have been so emasculated that they like watching fairies dance over a football field?