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TG’s WEBlog (Known as a BLOG or Blogging)

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January Blogs: Actions Speak Louder than Words, Wordy Bullshit, Branding, Links Today, TV Heaven, Enemies Bring Gifts, Debate on Dave Weinberger’s New Book, Change Now, Rant, What I did on my Holidays, Fame and Immortality (Me and Bill Gates),e-business failures, Parallels with my Father, Micropayments-The Future of the Internet, My First Day at School, Football Memories and a Chance in Life, Rivers Link People, Links, Design and Creativity, The Other Faces, 7UP, What is Voice?-Vision and Action, Writing in Progress, Latest Virus Alerts, When is a Weblog a Weblog, Hello 2002, Happy New Year, 2002 New Year’s Resolutions.

February Blogs: Spike Milligan Dies, Camp It Up!, Cluetrain Savaged (and the Nevilles), Goods Luck Elliot!, Monkey Brains, Busy and Thanks, MindMaps and Walter Winterbottom, Radio 8 Blog and Micropayments, Morning Pages, Women!, Jackson Browne Lyrics – Lives in the Balance, Let the Consumer and Employee Revolution Begin, Life and Death, Corporate Rant, Wilful Georgia!, Celebrity Blogs, United Internet, Friends Reunited at Work, Immunisation?, Good Business Leadership, No Logo, Definitely No Logo, Missing in Action, Paolo Di Canio.

March Blogs: Words Fail Me, Losing My Religion, Bush Fire?, Fucking Telstra, Redflagsweekly, The Best Companies to Work For?, Good to Be Back, Write On – Cling Sheets, Georgia, Redundancy, Am I a Loser?, Google Image Searches, Sporting DNA, Corporate DNA, My World has Changed, Internet Laugh, No Logo, Political Compass, Fark, Sex Sells, Tourette Syndrome Barbie, Trailer Park (Trash?), Gauss Rifle, Bruce Sterling, Deep Links and Google Scientology, Jimmy Hill I love you because…,

April Blogs : Doctors-My Arse, My Website Stats, FriendsReunited and Demography of Networks, Other People, Today, Missing Days, Nothing Today, Aussie Humour, Come on England, Ethics, Quality of Life, United Reject, I’m Tired, Israel, Vaccines, Computer Addiction, Self Adjusting Networks, Website Redesign, My Website is Back, Apologies for Telstra, Andrew Sullivan, Zipf’s Law, Fucking Telstra yet again, Still a Snowboard Addict, and Logos, Redflagsweekly Again and The Queen Mum’s Funeral, Game Addiction, Gravity and Science, Maglev and Political Power, Fark Links, Lost Keys and High Hopes, Scientific Research Stinks, Big Companies, Dangers of DHMO.

May Blogs: Georgia not sleeping, Georgia not well, Sydney, QANTAS, Dave Portnoy – Friendsreunited, PC Cleanup, Cooking Food is Killing Us, Printers and Designers, Telstra Update, Stupid White Men, Fixit and Hoaxes, Website Nightmare, Blogging Time, ICL and British Invention, Wedding Photos, Stressful Day, Good to be Back, Crawling Daughter, Blue Peter, Anti-Gravity, Mothers Day, Sven’s England Team, Man Yoo Mourning, Nothing and Tom Peters!, Telstra yet Again and Broadband, Crawling!, Perth, Barbara Castle and Sliding Doors, Enzymes.

June Blogs: Brazil, Tim Henman’s Serve, David O’Leary sacking, Wheels come off WorldCom, Brazil beat Turkey, A Deeply Frustrating Day, Sick, England Keep Falling Over, Oh No, England 1 Brazil 2, America and Anthrax, Korea!, More USA and Football, Brazil here we come!, 3-0 to The Inger-land, England v Denmark, Dell, C’mon Inger-land, And just to prove what crap Americans write, Isolation of the USA, Limitations of the Internet, England, More Canberra Rex, Defer to your experts on the frontline, IBM PC Visionary, Canberra Rex Hotel, Canberra, More Dyslexia, Dyslexia.

July Blogs: Laptop Troubles, Sense of Direction, Rio, Miracles of the Mind, Sick and Tired, Lack of Fame – Janis Ian, Fame, I want to live forever! Rod Steiger, Brisbane, Born in the USA.

August Blogs: Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Wil Wheaton inspires me to Think Big, Medina Apartments – Don’t Go There, Thank You QANTAS (Eventually), Strike, Gold Coast Dreamin, Adversity, Queensland Taxi Driver, Chilean Taxi Driver, Beckham’s Wiener, Founding Friends Reunited and Mark Purdey is a genius, I’m Back.

Saturday 31^st August 2002

Small Pieces Loosely Joined

Just had a look at Tom Peters’ interview with David Weinberger talking about his book Small Pieces Loosely Joined.

It’s a good reminder that the Internet is about imperfection. It allows you to be imperfect.

I’m a recovering perfectionist, taking each day at a time!

That’s the way to crack being a perfectionist, just do small things rather than looking at the grand plan.

Friday 30^th August 2002

Wil Wheaton Inspires me to Think Big

Just read Wil Wheaton’s latest on why no more trekkie conventions and more infomercials, August 28 and 27^th.

He seems to write with such an authentic voice and tell it the way it is.

No Bullshit.

He’s inspiring. Every time I dip into his website I always find a gem.

He’s given me a boost for today, to think about my own comfort zone and where I want to go next.

Dunno!

I had a very interesting talk last night with the States, about buying a company with the aid of financial backers.

How do you value a company’s worth?

Dunno! Never bought a company.

My guess is, just like shares I know as much as anybody else does but it’s all immeasurable commodities worth whatever the market will pay.

How much should you pay for a $20m turnover organisation that makes no money?

How much should you pay for a low turnover company that has potential?

I guess I’ll have to do the numbers on my magic spreadsheet.

I don’t like this, what is a company worth type of thing.

I’d prefer to build something from the start and grow it gradually, let others worry about what I’m worth when they want to buy my company.

Maybe I should think big.
Hello Tony, we’ve got lots of money for you, what would you do with $1m.

Hello Tony, we’ve got lots of money for you, what would you do with $10m?

Hello Tony, we’ve got lots of money for you, what would you do with $100m?

Hello Tony, we’ve got lots of money for you, what would you do with $1billion?

My first answer, is a damn sight more than some of these jackasses in business.

It’s an interesting thought. Not what would I buy personally with that money, but what would I build with it.

What kind of company or organisation would I like to see where the money is a donation, or what commercial venture with a return on the investment?

Hey, I’m off to write a Mindmap with all this in.

No harm in having a $1m, $10m, $100m, and $1billion, business plan in my top drawer!!

Come to think of it, that’s what venture capital is about.

Either you become a venture capitalist picking and backing people’s ideas, or you use venture capital to build you own idea.

Thursday 29^th August 2002

Don’t go to The Medina Apartments Australia

And just as one supplier (QANTAS) delights with their nice touch yesterday to make up for their general heavy handedness, so another supplier comes straight in at Number 1!

The Medina Apartments Australia, are apartments in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and now Adelaide.

Do not stay there. That’s my current recommendation.

The Short Version Story. We booked 2 apartments with 2 discount cards.

They discount only one apartment when I come to pay.

They say we should have produced both cards when we booked in.

We say we booked over the phone declaring both cards, and they didn’t ask us for the cards when we checked in.

They say they only have record of one card so it must be our fault!!

I say to hell with them, I’m not staying at any Medina apartment again, and I’ll make sure as many people as possible don’t stay at any of them.

I’m going after the Brisbane manager who was inflexible and rude this morning.

The Long Version Story

As apartments they make an affordable (when they give you the discounted rate) change from a hotel, if you’re travelling with family.

Instead of a hotel room with a sleeping baby, for the same price we can have a 2 bedroom apartment.

Over the last few months of business, we’ve stayed at The Medina Apartments when I travel with the family.

Cheap! You get what you pay.

Taking Annie and Georgia with me, and these last 2 weeks, Barbara (my mother-in-law), we contacted the Brisbane apartments.

I should have seen the warning signs then.

Annie asked if they have 3 bedroom apartments. No.

We asked again. Yes, but not at a full discount rate.

Annie then came up with the idea of having a 2 bedroom apartment for us using our discount card, and Barbara having her own apartment using her own discount card.

Problem solved. We stayed there for the last 8 days.

I paid the bill this morning. Barbara’s room seemed a bit steep, but being the compliant sort, I paid.

I asked Annie what rate she agreed with them. She wasn’t sure.

We ordered a taxi, and whilst waiting for the taxi, I asked if we’d been given the discount rate on the second apartment.

No, we didn’t produce a discount card when we signed in.

But we have both discount cards and you didn’t ask us for either discount card.

Sorry but we’re not shifting, you have to pay full rate, you didn’t follow our rules, and we have no record of you booking the second apartment with the second card.

By this time, Annie and Barbara are having a go at the manager.

I intervene and say, forget it girls, he’s not listening.

He claims he is listening.

Well manager, there’s a difference between hearing and listening.

I know when to pick my fights, and I realise that we’re only arguing over the difference which at most is $400.

Fine I say, I’m not putting any of my business Medina’s way, and over the last few months, I’ve spent $4,000 dollars with them and there would have been another $1000 just for Sydney in September, as well as probable Brisbane business in October, the girls wanting to go for a weekend to Brisbane and more business until the end of the year.

Plus if I can get a few more people to not use the Medina apartments, and let’s face it word spreads very fast, I reckon that will have cost them at least $10,000 in revenue.

But here’s the rub. The Brisbane manager doesn’t give a shit. That’s the problem big business faces. Their managers and frontline employees really don’t give a shit if the good name of the rest of the company is hurt. What does it matter to Mr Brisbane if I don’t book with Sydney and never go back to Brisbane Medina? He’s got his $400 this week and he’s looking good. Just for the sake of discount card not produced. When we call up some of these places, they’d rather loose the business than negotiate. I don’t get it. They have fixed costs, and every bit of income must help, and it’s not as though we were asking for miracles.

If I’d known we were paying what we paid, I could have put Barbara up in the Marriott Hotel, better place, less expensive, and they have real coat-hangers. In other words they trust their clients (or they charge so much they can afford a few coat-hangers to go missing). Think about it though. We trust you enough to put in high quality clothes hangers which we trust you won’t steal!! What the manager at Brisbane Medina seemed to imply was that we must have sent off for the card whilst we were staying there. He didn’t say it, but the logic of their rules implies it.

So tomorrow, I’m contacting Medina Head Office, I want to talk to Mr Brisbane’s boss. I want to send an email to him, and better still copy in all the other Medina apartments I’ve stayed at where I’m refusing to do business with because of Brisbane. Let them all know that Mr Brisbane is costing them business and reputation because he’s holding out for $400.

The final trick up my sleeve is I hear mention of someone knowing who owns Medina and the holding company. I’d love to treat this as a networking exercise to get to that guy.

I’m going to have $400 worth of fun at the expense of Brisbane Medina, but I don’t want to use up more than $400 of my time, so I know when to let it go and not let it carry on or eat me up.

Revenge will be sweet but not sweat!

Wednesday 28^th August 2002

Thank You QANTAS (Eventually)

Phoned QANTAS up today to get my flight changed.

There’s a strike on Friday and we’re flying on Friday.

The strike wasn’t confirmed when I phoned up and my fear was that all hell would break loose and we wouldn’t be able to phone up.

We’re travelling with Georgia and I could just picture the chaos of being delayed on Friday before the strike or having to stay overnight until Saturday.

They wouldn’t play ball when I suggested bringing the flight forward a day or two because we have e-tickets non-transferable etc etc.

It wouldn’t cost them anything to change them in these exceptional circumstances, but would they play ball? Would they heck!

All credit to them though. As soon as the strike was confirmed they contacted me and changed the flight noting that I’d phoned them earlier.

Nice touch QANTAS. Just as I was hating you even more, you’re coming back to neutral just with that one gesture.

Tuesday 27^th August 2002

Strike

Just heard there’s a planned air traffic control strike on Friday.

Bloody Hell, I fly back to Melbourne on Friday.

I’m sick of this strike bound country.

Actually, I love Australia but I can’t believe there are so many strikes here.

It’s like going back over 20 years to the UK.

I never thought I’d appreciate anything about the UK relative to Australia.

And it seems to me that so many of the union activists here are Scottish.

Were they all exported from the UK 20 years ago?!!!!

Monday 26^th August 2002

Milne Bay

Today was the 60^th anniversary of the Japanese landing at Milne Bay, where the Japanese were defeated for the first time by the Allied (Australian) army.

I say this because I was talking to veteran of the fight, who was there that day, and I met him yesterday.

Fascinating to hear about it.

Sunday 25^th August 2002

Gold Coast Dreamin

Drove down to the Gold Coast, Queensland today.

Problem was it was pissing down with rain all day.

13^th floor apartment of Southport residence on the Gold Coast, 270° panoramic view from the apartment, of Southport and the sea.

Absolutely stunning.

One of my dreams has been a sea view with a 180°+ view.

Today I saw my dream.

Saturday 24^th August 2002

Adversity

Saturday morning, Brisbane apartment, Georgia’s 11 months old today, collecting a hire car to drive around Queensland.

Life is good.

Thinking about adversity. Making your story about overcoming adversity.

What has my adversity been?

Being dyslexic. My Dad dying when I was 16 and my Mum and me finding him.

Struggling through the education system but somehow managing to get through every stage of it.

Leaving ICL and moving to London and setting up.

Being made redundant at Unisys.

Break-up of a long standing relationship, and leaving with nothing, to start all over again.

Break-up of my first marriage after 1 year, and leaving with nothing, to start all over again (a common pattern here).

Finding out about my ex-wife’s affair, and years prior to that my girlfriend’s affair (a common pattern here).

Moving to Australia and leaving everything behind, to start all over again, setting up in business from scratch.

Actually not had that much adversity. Never thought as my struggles at school as being down to dyslexia, but it sure is a relief to know where the struggle comes from and to do things which aren’t so much a struggle, things I’m better suited to, things to learn in my style.

My Dad. It didn’t seem to be adversity, my Dad dying when I was 16. Maybe it’s a great story of how I overcame the adversity but it’s never felt that way. I’ve always been at peace with my Dad, I miss him and wish he’d been here for more of my life, which I could talk to him and ask him about more of his life. My healthy outlook on life has come from my Dad’s death, each day is precious and I treat everyone as if it’s the last time I’ll see them. I try to be at peace with everyone including those I hate or dislike. In other words, I’m consistent with people. If I don’t like them when alive, I feel the same way if they died, if I didn’t and had regrets, I’d make up with them whilst they’re living. It seems hypocritical to be nice about people when they’ve died if you slag them off when living, or people who meet at funerals and make up with each other because someone else had died.

The break-up of long standing relationships and losing everything had been the biggest adversity for me. The devastating heartbreak, the loss, the unfaithfulness.

Twice, I’ve sat in my car with all my worldly possessions in plastic bin bags, having lost everything and having to start all over again.

What I’ve learnt from these situations is to say to myself two things.

Firstly, what am I going to change to make life better, what am I going to do more of, and in order to do more of something, what am I going to do less of.

Secondly, when things are bad, I ask myself what I most want and say to myself, I won’t achieve it today or tomorrow or next week or next month.

I give myself several years.

I remember very clearly Friday 31^st July 1998, sitting in my car, outside my home, with my possessions in the car, leaving my wife (not my choice!), and saying to myself,

“Tony, it won’t happen today, or tomorrow, or next week or next month or year, but in 5 years time I will have met the right person, be happily married with kids.”

And within 3 years I’m happily married to Annie with one gorgeous baby daughter.

Today, we’re taking Georgia to the zoo today for the first time. She’s 11 months old today. She’s learnt to clap yesterday, it’s so cute. She laughs and smiles all the time, she’s a joy and delight. We’re staying in Brisbane, I’m here on work and with my family, the weather is beautiful, the zoo was fun with Georgia waving and clapping at the animals.

On Friday 31^st July 1998 I could never imagine all this happening, even beyond my wildest dreams.

Friday 23^rd August 2002

Queensland Taxi Driver

Yesterday was the Chilean Taxi Driver, and today was the Queensland Taxi Driver.

“Novotel please”

“Where’s that, I’ve only been Taxi driving here for 2 weeks?”

“How come?”

“I gave up my sign writing business”

“How come you changed from a sign writing business to taxi driving?”

“Well I left my wife and town after 30 years of marriage.

My wife was having affairs (yes plural!!!) and it became too much and embarrassing in a small town where everyone knows your business, so I’ve left her, packed up and moved to Brisbane! My son has moved to Brisbane as well, for University. I now live on my yacht, and my son and I are planning to sail round the world in 2 years time when he finishes University”

You do meet some interesting taxi drivers here in Australia!

Thursday 22^nd August 2002

Chilean Taxi Driver

Got talking to the taxi driver driving me to the airport today.

I asked him where he was from. Chile.

We got talking football. Lots of football, which was fantastic with someone who knows South American football so well.

Then I asked him when he came to Australia. In 1976.

Blimey I thought that was very near the Allende and Pinochet era, but I didn’t say anything.

And then he told me the whole story.

He knew Pinochet.

The Pinochet regime had tortured him almost to death. He was days away from dying.

He was put in front of a firing squad, but a priest in the camp intervened.

Pinochet’s regime had murdered his brother, sister-in-law and nephew.

Half a million Chileans had died at the hands of Pinochet.

What was America’s involvement? We talked about that as well.

It was a long story on the way to the airport.

An amazing story.

Is he still bitter? You bet he is.

He hates the Americans.

He sees them as responsible for backing what went on in Chile in the 70s.

And all because they had a left wing government, which he claims most of the people wanted and loved.

They were tortured and murdered for loving Allende.

Amazing to hear a story of such sadness and passion and horror.

Wednesday 21^st August 2002

Beckham’s Wiener

Is this for real? I couldn’t find the actual link, just this alluding to it!!

Damn it, Football365 have taken the story off their website.

It was about David Beckham having a small penis!

Yes, you did read correctly!

A condom website reckons that by feeding in the size of nose, hands and feet you can work out wiener size.

Beckham has a small one according to Football 365 this morning, but the link has disappeared and I can’t find the original website, though I had a look and I couldn’t find the measurement tool, so maybe it was a publicity spoof.

I’ve found the site but no sign of Beckham!!

Tuesday 20^th August 2002

Australian Banking (Westpac) Stinks

And yet another great bad service organisation, Westpac Bank (Bank of Melbourne).

It’s simple really, I want a business account that let’s me access my money and pay for things using a charge card or credit card.

I don’t want or need credit, I have plenty of money in the bank and more to come, but I find it difficult to transact without some kind of card, preferably Visa or MasterCard so I can purchase things worldwide and charge it to my business account. That’s not much to ask is it?

I started my business bank with Macquarie bank because my accountant recommended it.

But they don’t have any card facilities except American Express who when I was put through to them hadn’t heard of Macquarie Bank. I gave up.

Moved to my personal bank, Bank of Melbourne and set up a business account.

Then received a VISA charge cards which lets me charge direct to my personal account.

Just one problem, I want to charge to my business account when I book things such as air flights.

I keep running out of money on my personal account and I have to transfer money across and account for it like an expenses claim.

I thought I gave up expense claims when I left the corporate world!

I can’t get an Australian credit card because I don’t have enough Australian financial history yet.

So I’m left fighting the bank to get to my own money.

But here’s the rub.

After numerous meetings and hours of my time and their time, which drives my mad because they don’t listen, I agreed last week to their new business facility that gives me a Visa charge card. We agreed that I didn’t need a 2 year financial history (which I don’t have), but 1 years business bank statements, which I do have. I filled in the form as requested, went down to the bank and asked for the form to be checked. The guy at the front desk checked and declared that I needed 2 years of financial history otherwise he couldn’t guarantee the application would be processed.

How many times do I have to say it to these non-listening idiots,

“I DON”T HAVE A 2 YEAR BUSINESS OR PERSONAL HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA, BUT I HAVE LOTS OF MONEY IN MY BANK ACCOUNTS.”

“I DON”T WANT OR NEED ANY CREDIT FACILITIES (though it would be more convenient), I JUST WANT TO GET TO MY MONEY AND STAY OUT OF YOUR WAY”

“I DON’T CARE IF I NEVER SET FOOT IN YOUR BRANCH AGAIN.” I just want to internet bank, have a charge card/ credit card to pay for things in Australia and over the Internet.

Is that asking too much? You’ve just given me a Visa Charge Card for my personal account. If the money runs out the card doesn’t work.

Just do the same thing for my business account or offer me something you can walk my application through with.

I had a loud voiced discussion with the guy who seemed insulted that I thought someone I’d talked to last week was the assistant manager.

No he’s the assistant manager.

Fine Assistant Manager, earn your spurs. So he calls Westpac Business Banking, and they say I need a 2 year financial history.

I tell Assistant Manager that I was in the branch last week, and his own notes say I don’t need a 2 year history for a charge card, I need one year’s proof of transactions and 6 months bank statements.

He denies this without reading the notes.

Eventually he read the notes and finds I’m right but he won’t admit it.

He says something like, “I can submit the application but it might not get through without the 2 years history.”

Instead what he should say is,

“Tony, come into my office (instead of you shouting at the front desk), tell me what you want and I’ll see how we can help and walk it through.”

The alternative is, “Mr Goodson, it’s clear we don’t have what you want now let’s stop wasting each others time.”

I’d be happy with that. I’d say, gee this is a professional bank that qualifies its customers and has decided they can’t offer me what I want.

And the irony is I train their competitors, ANZ Bank to listen and work with customer like me!!

Go to ANZ Bank.

Now that’s another story with not much luck either, though the guys I’ve trained have been very helpful and pointed me in the right direction.

I just don’t get it. I have money, I want to use it and transact with it, I’m on the market for business loans and mortgages, and superannuation, and insurance, and I just want some kind of international charge card which can be set to only work with money in my account.

Is that so difficult?

Monday 19^th August 2002

Founding Friends Reunited, and Mark Purdey is a genius

Check out this link to a presentation given by Jason Porter founder of Friends Reunited.

You may need broadband to stream it.

Multi-Millionaire, 7 Million people registered, a high proportion of which pay a subscription.

A combination of a good idea, luck, good design, openness, and just getting on with it.

I wish I was a techie programmer. Damn.

My other hero for the moment is Mark Purdey, who has stood up against the British establishment to show that Mad Cow disease and BSE, the human variant CJD, is not caused by feeding sheep or cows to each other, but by environmental factors, largely caused by government and scientists, the very people who are trying to deny his findings.

Check it out. Intuitively I never believed the official cause of BSE and CJD, and so it seems to be being proven.

This Mark Purdey article summarises the whole thing.

Sunday 18^th August 2002

I’m Back

I just seemed to have stopped writing.

Been away and travelling a lot.

Been busy.

Been blocked.

Also had to update files for August writing.

I don’t feel any more inspired to write or have lots more to write, it’s just a matter of getting on with it, putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

Discipline Tony.

Found some good links over the last few days, if I can remember what they are!