Lox - Archived Entries for 2007 / 3

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Getting Ready: [31 March]

And so that's it, another one down to the marital path.

This time is Francesco which leaves the original group of friends (me, Francesco, Matteo, Stefano and Simone) down to three not being happily followed by a wife or a lifetime partner of sorts.

One more reminder of the fact that time is passing by, that priorities are different from what they were used to be, that while fifteen years ago we were fighting mighty dragons and strict professors we are now switching our focus against those pesky germs that infest our homes and unintelligible bosses at work.

It's like birthdays for me.

On one side I like them, they are an occasion to have a party and stay together with the people you care for, on the other side I hate them, because they bring me back on earth reminding me of that I am yet one year farther from the day I was born.

Oh, and I do hate being at the center of the attention! :D

Anyways, it's not my turn (yet) so I'll have to do my best to enjoy the "bestmanship" that I was bestowed with, the third in the space of a couple of years, which also makes me the most experienced best man in the circle of my friends!

Laters for pictures and the usual detailed account of how it went!
[1 comment]
Adsl Woes: [30th March]

Another "fil rouge" of the past months here at my new place has been the mighty Adsl connection that I made with Tiscali.

Although I cannot complain about their service center too much, there have been quite a lot of problems with the contract that I made originally, mostly due to the fact that the actual wired network in Italy is dated 1800 and is crap.

Probably doesn't even run on copper!!

As a result the 8 Megs connection that I have paid for four months basically didn't work, as the modem would connect at 8 megs only for a limited period, to then reset at a slower speed.

After two months of phone calls the people at Tiscali decided to call the dreadful Telecom Italia (the ex-state run company who still owns the network, a tragedy that could only happen in a third world country like Italy), who then called me saying that basically:

TI (Telecom Italia):"Well the problem is the network you see, but of course you don't want us to come and replace the wires..."
Lox:"Exscuse me, you're telling me that the problem is yours but you are not going to do anything about it?!"
TI:"Wellllll, can't you just go at 4 megs? I mean does it makes so much difference to you?"
Lox:"Not at all but since I am paying for 8.... Unless you tell Tiscaly that technically the network is not capable of going 8 megs and then I can ask to change the contract"
TI:"Sorry can't do that.."
Lox:"Errr... Why?"
TI:"'cause they will force us to repair the cables then"
Lox:"So you are telling me that what I am paying for is not reachable, but you will not tell them this because otherwise you have to WORK!?!"

The phone call went on and eventually they did some magic, put the line at 8 megs and it crashed after 2 hours going around 3 megs for the following week.

The ordeal is not finished, because at this moment Tiscali sends me a mail, saying that they put a new call center that "oh hei!" is not free anymore, but you have to pay good money for it!! 0,52cents x minute!!!

THE FUCKERS

First call gets me to having to run some "speed tests"... Although I tell the guy that the problem is FOUR months old and that they have all the data, he simply closes it there. Speed Tests.
It is clear that it's a technique to get you pay more, as you must call again.

After the speed tests I call again, they must do some checking, I call five times because they keep telling me to speak to another person and so on.
Eventually they realize that this line is SHITE and tell me that I was right and downgrade it all at 4 megs, stable, reliable...

Great, now it's time to change the contract...

I call and the lady this time tells me that THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE between at 8 meg connection and a 4 meg one!!! Dunno if I have to laugh or cry, argue a little and hang up.

Basically it seems that the contract that they made with me was so convenient that changing to a newer contract might work out more expensive...

I hate them, I hate them, I hate them... I just wish that whomever thought of call centers and stuff like this has a sudden strike of diarrhoea that forces him or her to call the "medical call center for terminal arse diseases" and then they ask him/her to run a "speed test" on the flow of shit and call in a week.

And I have been nice!
[6 comments]
The story so far....: [26th March 2007]

Well in the past two months several thing did happen to me, most of them quite "uncomfortable" to use an euphemism, and all of them contributed to the fact that I was not writing the pages anymore.

At the time of writing I cannot say that there is a significant improvement to report, but at least something is moving.

Work has been the biggest practical problem of all.

Basically there are too many things that are not just right, starting from the money and ending up with the requests of my contractors.
If it wasn't for the past three weeks that I managed to spend completely away from any Japanese person, I probably would have quit on the spot as I was about to do at the beginning of March.

Still the situation needs some serious addressing and doing it through the mails is never the best of the options...
But then again I do not want to hop on a plane to go and discuss about these matters.

In short they came out with a lot more requests that were written on the original contract, saying that they told me about them but they could not write them down in order to avoid some taxes...

On the top of that all the payment system that they set up is backfiring massively as they linked more than 20% of my wage to a commission base salary... As a result in seven months I have not earned a single penny from the commission base, meaning that my wage (the one that I requested) is effectively cut by 20%!!

I foresee a quite hot April and (hope not) a very shaky birthday...

Oh yes.... I am about to turn 32 by the looks of it...

But that's another story!

In the meantime, I am pleased to report my FIFTH consecutive month without watching TV. It is not for a strange sort of protest or anything, it's just that I didn't get around to BUY ONE yet!!
But considering that I am not missing it at all, I think I can live without it, at least until I start sharing my flat with someone who needs it...

Oh well, I feel a lot better without it, to be honest I wasn't really watching it all that much before, but now.... :D
[7 comments]
Francesco Stag Do: [16th March 2007]

Yes, it has been quite a long time since I have updated my blog... Exactly two months and eleven days...

There are may reasons for me having been absent from your screens, maybe some of you did even miss me writing, maybe nobody realized it.

Since this is the first post after a period that I would not call entirely "easy", I will just pick the writing from where I left it a long time ago: a Stag Do night organization.

If you remember I didn't quite like the fact that my mate Francesco was so keen in turning down our proposals for a stag-do, as a matter of fact after the last piece that I wrote (the post before this one) he wrote me quite a nasty mail, which technically helped me remind that I would have done a better job at worrying about my life going pear shaped rather than trying to organize his party.

Though my life was quite hard already, eventually I managed to swallow the bitter chalice and decided to forgive the incident.
Then, albeit late, I mustered few of us to actually do this thing.
As a matter of fact, after one month it seemed that now Francesco wanted to have his stag do! (I suspect that it is because his to be wife had her hen's night).

ANYWAYS, the important thing is that we organized it.

To be honest there have been many proposals, but since Francesco kind of put a veto on every unknown female presence (read: whores/strip bars etcetcetc) we had to concentrate on different things.
In a way it's good that we didn't have a lot of time to organize it, because some of the proposals where simply TERRIBLE.

Someone wanted to throw him in the Arno river. This idea was cancelled as it is a bit cold now in Florence (not because the Arno is comparable to Chernobyl after the explosion in terms of pollution).

Someone proposed to have a GAY night (we were forbid WOMEN, but GAY strippers were technically allowed), then blackmail his ass forever.

Some other wanted to have a party in a wood, then with some trick we would have had to tie Francesco to a tree, then three hired people would have to arrive screaming and brandishing knives and black capes. We would have run away of course leaving Francesco there (tied)...

In the end we had a marvellous dinner at one of my favourite places, il Canapone, then we decided to go to Stefano's place to have more drinks and watch a movie that we all hate: "Druids".
This is a movie that I strongly suggest everyone to watch, because it sets the absolute lowest standard ever in terms of cinema films. After that even a movie like Phantom Menace looks good.

That's it really, we managed to stay together, like old times, no women, alcohol and tons of fun...

BEST WISHES FRANCESCO!
[7 comments]

Lox, Lorenzo... ME!!: A little introduction about the author and the blog itself. Plus contacts and CVs... You never know!
Pictures: A Selection of the best pictures that I have taken all over the world during the years, all nicely indexed by year and geographical area. Jolly good!
History of this Blog: A collection of all the articles that I have wrote so far, divided by month/year.