Cut Short - Telecom NZ Sucks Shit

I was all ready to dive back into my blog again. Here I had finally fulfilled my dream of moving to New Zealand and well...the fact that I was gainfully UNemployed made the availability and desire to write a real reality. After several calls to the company that provides both phone and internet to all of NZ, and after also being repeatedly warned that things moved "at a slower pace" in our neck of the hick woods, we finally had someone show up to bestow upon us the painfully lusted-for technologies.

Nope, sorry, fuck off.

That was the basic message we got. To make a very long story short, that details infrequent technician visits, frequent phone calls to Telecom, and one very nasty email from myself to the company, we were told we would have to wait THREE MONTHS ...wait ... MAYBE... before we would get our internet service. Guess they've now got some BIG project to lay new cables down and past storms have wasted any previously-available cables.

I cried. Literally, I cried. No phone, no internet, and at that time, no television at all. Perhaps my crack-like addiction to the internet (I could have done without the phone and TV for some time) could be nastily labeled as my capitalist pig "habit."

Well, you try living alone in a tiny little house, no job, no friends, and no current prospects (considering the town you're living in is, disbelievingly, SMALLER than the rural mud puddle you just left in Missouri! Oh yeah, and my cat's still in quarantine, so I don't even have her furry ass to keep my company.

I guess I no longer have any excuses for not writing that great historical fiction novel I've always wanted to write. Too bad historical fiction novels require mountains of research in public libraries and other such facilities that are no unavailable/non-existent for me.

*SOB*

Anyway, the only way I am ever to get on the internet now is the following:

1) Currently i am on a pay-by-minute cyber cafe in Christchurch, New Zealand. I am typing as fast as my little fingers can (which is fast, but not fast enough when you are continually hearing *ka-ching* in the background). Now, the only reason I can even be in this place is because my hubbie Beau and I are on vacation in the south island of NZ for a week and Christchurch is a lovely, BIG city which has this sort of thing.

or

2) A couple times a week beg Beau (while stuffing him full of green curry to entice him further) to sneak me into the computer lab of the school he works at, and at 9pm at night frantically read my 85 new emails and reply to about 5 all before going back home for the night.

This blows.

I've even written several blogs already since I arrived, but have no way of transferring them to the computer lab computers since i can't email them, they don't take computer disks or cd's, and Beau is still waiting for that little USB-attached-thingie-that-holds-like-40mb-of-files that the school promised to give him. When he finally gets that, then I can post again.

Fart.

I hate being away from the internet. I hate missing its convenience. I hate not being able to do things like:
- Look for a job!
- check the NY Times or BBC website
- check quick facts about anything, a la Wikipiedia
- look up stuff on NZ
- quickly get recipes or check recipes i already know for ingredients
- look up a phone number or address of a business or a friend back home
- reserve things like hotel rooms
- check prices of things
- order something online
- do research
- post to my blog
- READ MY EMAIL

It's amazing how many times in a day my mind will quickly say, "Oh, I'll go check real quick on the inter....awww." It really happens a lot. Often it's just to check facts or do something really quick, and it's just not available anymore.

I miss you, Internet!

You suck shit, Telecom!

to be continued.... *sigh*