Tag: interesting happening

There’s something buzzing in my ear

I’ve been listening to music on my computer at work. My old headphones started doing this really annoying loud-soft-loud left-right-left thing so I decided it was time to get new ones.

I’m not an audiophile. Expensive Bang & Olufsen or Sennheiser would be wasted on me (give them to Daniel or his mum instead). So I wandered into JB Hi-fi one lunch time and bought myself a pair of earphones that cost less than lunch. No point buying anything decent just for listening to compressed music on a computer, eh.

They were completely dissatisfactory. As soon as I plugged them into the computer, my brain was assaulted by loud buzzing. I hadn’t even turned up the volume.

A friend listened to my tale of woe and convinced me to take the earphones back to the store. I was reluctant; it seemed unfair to expect the store to accept the earphones once I had ripped them out of their packaging and put them in my ears. But, as they say, I had nothing to lose.

So I went back yesterday. I was very clever. I timed my visit to be the day following the Melbourne Cup holiday and arrived when the store opened at 10 AM. I figured the shop assistants would be well rested and in good moods.

They were very amiable. They gave me credit for the failed earphones and I used it to upgrade to something that is just expensive enough for me to know that they’ll work. They’ve got to be all right; they come with a one year warranty (which isn’t valid in Australia).

I like these earphones. They’re comfortable. Interestingly, there are three sizes of earpieces. I’m using the small ones. The packaging warns, “Ensure that earpieces are firmly attached to earphones otherwise they may be left in ears.”

I now have only two problems.

Firstly, the earphones are white. Someone once told me that there are people out there who buy white earphones just to pretend they have iPods.

Finally, although lessened, there is still buzzing in my ears when I listen to music on the computer. It has become apparent that computers are not audio devices. I am starting to think I’ll have to buy an iPod or similar before long.

I’m wai…ting in the rain, just wai…ting in the rain

I called the taxi company when I finished my site work at Altona North.

“The next available taxi will pick you up in front of the property,” said Donna.

Twenty-five minutes later, I fumbled with my phone while holding an umbrella and called the taxi company again.

“I’ll get onto it,” Dierdre assured me. “I’ll keep an eye on your booking. The taxi should be there in 20 to 25 minutes. Give us a call if it’s not there.”

I waited 23 minutes. The wind had blown my umbrella inside out a few times already. I couldn’t wait the two minutes. I called again.

“Joan, is it?” Ahmad asked. “According to the queue, the driver has already picked someone up, I’m sorry. There’s another taxi in the northern suburbs. Do you mind holding? I can find out how far away he is… … … He’s 9 km away. If no one comes in 10 minutes, please call us back straight away.”

The taxi arrived after five minutes, three phone calls and an hour of misery.

Will dance for food

After celebrating Jon’s birthday at a Chinese restaurant in Fitzroy, we ventured out in search of more entertainment. Our gang of thirteen linked arms and descended upon Brunswick Street. Brunswick Street on a a busy Saturday night is full of buskers, people bar hopping, café lounging, and cruising around in hotted up cars.

“Trampoline is nearby! Let’s get ice-cream!”

As we approached the ice-cream store, Carlo started jumping up and down excitedly. “It’s the Nutbush!” he cried. “They’re playing the Nutbush!”

Sure enough, the opening bars of Tina Turner‘s 1970s classic was filtering through the store speakers and onto the thronging footpath. It truly was as if the God of Night Time Hilarity was smiling upon us.

Carlo leapt onto one of the wooden platform stools at the front of the store. “Five! Six! Five, six, seven, eight! Right foot, right! Left! Left! Back! Back…”

Being the shameless dancesport people that we are, there was no question of joining in. Immediately, we were doing the Nutbush in front of Trampoline. The sight of a large group of people dancing on Brunswick Street obviously was not a common one because soon a crowd had gathered to gape. We were joined by a Trampoline staff member and one of the more inspired audience members.

Rounds and rounds of the Nutbush went by. People across the street were taking photos. Cars slowed down to watch the commotion. What fun! What silliness!

But all good things must come to an end and when the song faded, we cheered and high-fived each other.

Just when we thought it was all over, another store assistant bounced out of Trampoline holding two huge cups of ice-cream with a dozen wooden paddle sticks stuck into them like echidna spines.

“Thanks guys! That was fantastic!” she enthused and handed us our ice-cream reward.

“Wow! Thank you!” Elated, we dug into our unexpectedly free dessert. Mmm…Raspberry, mango, cookies and cream, and chocolate…

Joan the Programmer

I’m entertaining friends in the rumpus room when I hear mum’s call.

“Joan!”

“What, mum?”

Dad rushes down the stairs, holding the phone before him. “It’s Jason,” he says grimly. “He says it’s an emergency.”

I put the phone to my ear.

“Joan!” comes Jason’s frantic voice. “You need to do some emergency programming!”

“Huh?!”

“There’s a problem in Western Australia. Go up to my room and turn on my laptop.”

Confused, I run upstairs.

“What’s going on, Jason?”

“Is the laptop on? You need to open up muvision. It’s a black and yellow icon. Now find the file called ‘main.c’. Go up to the top and scroll down until you reach the function called ‘main’.”

“Function?” I reach back into my hazy past and recall ‘Engineering Programming’ (ie. Java for Dummies).

“Find the ‘while’ loop… It’ll have the word ‘while’ in it.”

“Jason, I have a bunch of computer scientists, mathematicians and electrical engineers downstairs. Do you want to talk to them?”

“No, Joan. You can do it.” He believes in me.

“There’s a line with 2000 or 20000 in it. Do you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Read it to me, every character.”

I hear the intense concentration of silence as I read each letter, square bracket and space. After my litany, he instructs me to make changes.

“Now compile it, Joan.”

“Compile,” I murmur. I look for the ‘compile’ button.

“It’s in the top left. It looks like a pile of paper.”

I click it cautiously. Suddenly, a stream of sentences fills the window at the bottom of the screen. Thankfully, there are none of these “bugs” of which Jason tells me. Jason then leads me through finding the file on the hard disk, renaming it, then compressing it.

As I do this, I think of my guests downstairs, who are probably wondering where their host has disappeared to.

“Now put it on a USB disk and email it from the main computer.”

I fumble with my USB disk (which I normally use to transfer Microsoft Word files), then finally email it to Western Australia.

“Thanks, Joan. I hope that works. Bye.” The dial tone tells me it is over.