Despite Darren Barefoot’s barely credible name, the fact that he’s Canadian and his repeated attacks on podcasting over the years, I kind of like the guy. He was even on G’Day World once, a long long time ago. But his new project, “First Life“, is terrific and *very funny. Good work, eh?
Funniest damned thing I’ve seen all day.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSiqQpg7Uc]
I actually had a nightmare last night that I was still working at Microsoft. Woke up about 4am and took a few minutes to remember I left 30 months
ago. Was still in such shock I couldn’t get back to sleep…. weird. In the dream, someone in HR had compiled a document about dealing with difficult employees which was pretty much an indirect attack on me. Even mentioned what to do when someone comes to work wearing Elvis sunnies.
I bet that document actually does exist in Microsoft HR somewhere.
Some of you may know that for a long while I co-hosted a weekly podcast here on The Podcast Network with Australian cleric Father Bob Maguire. Recently Poland-based News Corp blogger (figure *that* one out) Evan Maloney wrote a post suggesting that Father Bob would make a much better leader of the Catholic Church in Australia than the current top dog George Pell who, as Evan points out, has a track record of excluding women, gays, lesbians and tagging Islam. It’s worth reading the 90-odd comments on the post to get a whiff of the stink you can cause in this country if you *dare* criticize a powerbroker of the Catholic Church (even if in doing so you are extolling the virtues of another Catholic cleric).
On the show tonight….
The word of the day is “Ringtonitis”: When that personalized ringtone you added to your mobile phone just doesn’t seem funny or clever anymore and you are completely sick of it. eg “Making the Galaga theme my ringtone was funny for about a week but now it’s giving me ringtonitis.”
I talk a little bit about this highs and lows of my day – being in the Green Guide, losing a host, and getting unceremoniously thrown out of someone’s office – and then move onto The National Conference for Media Reform and play a clip from Bill Moyers opening speech.
Then I talk about Joseph Campbell, one of the 20th centuries greatest Mythology experts and Reginald Finely’s new site Freethinker Finder – a dating site for rational, logical people.
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
For folks in Melbourne or Sydney, check out the Green Guide in The Age or SMH respectively. There’s a fairly large interview with me about halfway in.
Hugo Sharp posted a link to this in the comments but I thought it deserved to be up here. Very clever stuff. Great performances. Am I the only person who thinks Mr Deity is based loosely on George Lucas?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzf8q9QHfhI]
On the show tonight….
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed.
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
I just love the way so-called “customer support” folks in telephone companies still think “It isn’t possible” is a legitimate excuse for bad customer service.
I rang 3 today to try to get them to merge the two data plans I have with my two devices (my mobile phone and my laptop card). I had a flat rate plan on the laptop card for 200mb a month and yet they were charging me $3/mb for data on my phone. I just wanted them to say “Hey, these are both Cameron Reilly using date on our network, it should all just be wrapped up under his data plan.”
But oh no. Too hard. Can’t do it. Not possible. I spent 30 minutes on the phone to two separate support people (who were, I suspect, in Bangladesh) telling me “it isn’t possible”.
“Why not?” was my monotonous reply.
To which they would answer “You can have data plans on one, the other or both. You can’t have one data plan which covers both devices.”
“Why not?”
“It isn’t possible.”
“Why not?”
“You can have data plans on one, the other or both. You can’t have one data plan which covers both devices.”
And repeat.
So finally I decided to sign up for a flat rate data plan on my mobile account, cancel my laptop card and, if I need to use it, pull the SIM card out of my mobile and stick it in the laptop. A pain in the ass but better than paying for two separate plans.
But the point is “not possible” should NOT be in the vocabulary of any customer support person. I actually argues with the guy at one stage, saying “well it’s 2007 my friend, I know a little about pooters and the innernet, I’m pretty sure it is POSSIBLE, but what you’re saying is Three just can’t be bothered to do it. Am I right?”
He agreed.
This wouldn’t have happened if Shane Williamson was still running 3. He may be a Christian but he p0wns customer support. 🙂
Speaking of Michael J Fox… I just uploaded a new episode of The Movie Show where I review the 1985 classic “Back To The Future”.
Brian Shearer, Marty Blevins and Andy Slaughter have been running a great podcast about comics over on their Gravyboy site for a year and I’m very excited to have them joining TPN! I’ve been wanting a comics podcasts since day one of TPN and so I was really excited when Scott Sherman brought these guys to my attention!
If you enjoy comics, actually, even if you don’t, check out their show. You might find out what you’ve been missing out on all these years!