jeremy.id.au

Which bank? It’s the bank I’ve been with since primary school, prep to be exact, if you don’t count the fact that I transferred my funds to a different branch in Grade 4. It’s the bank that has just started charging Netbank fees, claiming that it wouldn’t effect most of their customers but forgetting about the inflexibility that such lameness creates. It’s also the bank that once had me waiting on the phone for nearly an hour before I could speak to a human yet when I finally spoke to someone, he was juggling between other customers when the computer was taking time to load.

While the customer service may have improved a tiny bit since then as the banks realise their mistakes of the 90s, there’s also the fact that when I’m no longer a student there will be a $5 per a month account keeping charge and other fees. Not to mention that while I am a student I have to go into the branch and declare this fact, once a year, an inconvenience I’d rather do without. So I’ve ditched the bank after 15 years.

Having decided to go with a credit union, I walked into a branch and someone was available right away to open my account. No waiting, no queues. If I recall, waiting to see someone at my local bank branch was another thing that involved atrocious waiting times. I’m sure anyone contemplating opening an account with the bank would be turned away with a wait like that. The downside is that I have a lot further to travel if I want to get to a branch though I can deposit at any Westpac branch and withdraw from any ATM without fees, as well as with EFTPOS/Visa.

So bye bye to the Commonwealth Bank and bye bye to fees and charges. Though there probably aren’t many credit unions with so few fees as this, I won’t mention which one it is for now since you really need to know someone who can refer you (who has been a member for 12 months) or work in the right area.

Well today was the Grand Final. I don’t particurlarly follow football, in fact I don’t even particurlarly like it. I didn’t watch all but two seconds of it. However, I still have to say, how could they let foreigners win OUR Grand Final?

Forgot to mention that the BBC has been filming a children’s television series at my school in the past two days. If that tree fell in the right direction it would have destroyed their equipiment, which could have been interesting, although I’m sure they wouldn’t have been too happy. When I first heard the noise I thought it was their equipiment blowing around in the wind and I was glad that I wasn’t outside!

It is a bit bizare (but then again it’s for children)…. I saw a poster that said “Chocolate banned - £6,000 fine” and there’s a vending machine full of fruit and bottled water.

Today was, well uneventful. Although I got a free pen in the mail which had “AUS TUX” written on it, unfortunately it’s meant to be one word!

Well guess I had to install my own jogger sometime since the old one was down so much that I could never update it! My old jogger is still available for historic reasons (Edit: posts have been merged into this database).

Well the good people at Triple M did end up sending me two CDs so I am no longer jigged. While one of the CDs was taxiride who may not be my favourite band there was an MTV Best of Unplugged CD which was alright, although I never needed to be reminded of Kiss From a Rose by Seal again!

It’s been a busy week. Tuesday I had a double driving lesson, Wednesday I went to a Public Transport First meeting and Thursday I went to the RMIT comedy night with my brother Tim (as he is a student there), his girlfriend Effie and my sister Catherine. Two well known Melbourne comedians, Dave O’Neil and Darren Casey were there.

Finally on Friday I went and got my driver license! I passed the practically test pretty easily. The hazard perception test on the computer was a bitch of a thing but I passed 20% above the pass rate. It probably sounds ironic how I went to a PT First meeting one day then to get a driver license another! While I do prefer to use PT, the system we have isn’t perfect and there will always be minority trips that would be better off driving. I didn’t really desperately need a license but it’s one thing less to worry about the day I ever may need one. Only problem is that I’ve now gotta drive every so often to keep up the practise.

And finally today is my grandmother’s 92nd birthday. My cousin Nick took me down to Geelong along with his wife Naomi for lunch. We went out so that my uncle could buy her a computer and then we set it up so she needed a bit of teaching. We didn’t end up leaving until about 5pm.

Well what a week it has been, this jogger entry is huge!

Today was naturally unproductive as the temperature reached 35^oC. Looks like summer finally has settled in… and it’s gonna bite me too! At least today it cooled down pretty quickly!

Despite the heat and the unproductiveness I did get to the third level in tuxracer and the second level in space tripper (demo). And I did get freeradius setup to use mysql and almost got l2tpd running.

Well what did I say!!! Melbourne’s weather is such that it was cloudy and miserable this morning and turned out to be quite a pleasant sunny afternoon… maybe I should work for the Bureau of Meteorology!

Well it’s 1:07 AM so time for some sleep…..

I’ve updated this Jogger thing quite a bit today… I promise I won’t do it sooo much in future… it’s just a kinda thing where it’s new and cool!