Stuck in the sticks

So this is kinda funny. Tonight I am at home, with all the free time in the world to write a blog post. Normally I churn one out in 5 minutes quickly on my lunch break (hence the many grammatical errors).

But tonight, having finally got myself connected to the Interweb at home, after many long years, I planned on writing a big newsy post with lots of photos of say, my Argentina trip, my new home, and of Amelie looking adorable. We are unable to upload photos at work so all the ones I have previously used have been off my phone (!) or nicked from my sister’s website, with all my incredibly artistic shots of us getting drunk in Sth America gathering cyber dust on my memory card.

But No. Because I am a cheapskate I have gone for dial-up service instead of broadband. $16.95 a month compared to about $80.00. However. My patience is being sorely tested. So far, I haven’t been able to do One Thing I have wanted to, that would justify my entire reasoning for buying a computer, a desk, and a house with an office.

So far I have been sitting here for 36 minutes. I am unable to post to my blog directly because it cannot display the log in box. So I am writing this in Works, hoping that I can email it to my work email, from my Gmail. The palaver! I am unable to send an email to my mother with ONE photo attached of my new house. I am also unable to upload my photos to Facebook. I probably WOULD be able to if I had unlimited hours, and went to bed and left it chugging away but yes, being a cheapskate, I only have 150 a month.

You Americans out there are probably snickering at the backwardsness of New Zealand technology and you’d be right to - we have one giant telecommunications company that charges the earth for peanuts, and lots of Chihuahua-like little ones that are desperate for your business, but are just Too Difficult to deal with. Do I want a home line with someone other than Telecom? Yes! Yes I do! Oh what’s that you say? I need to make sure I can get this certain signal from some random satellite situated behind what used to be Pluto but turned out to be a chunk of foam from the latest NASA blunder? I need to be home between 11:00 and 11:05 every day this week to try to catch the technician who will then install a few kilometres of wires that the cat will immediately try and chew through? My home phone has to be kept in my office? I can do what? But no-one else has that so what’s the point if I have no-one to call with it?

Meh.