telephone frustrations

We've all had bad experiences with call centres, and I'm certainly no fan, but there is a book of telephone etiquette for the everyday phone owner / telephone receptionist just waiting to be written...

Voicemail: "I can't come to the phone right now, please leave a message after the..."

It's your mobile phone - it's in your pocket / backpack or somewhere very close to you.

Try: "I'm not answering this call right now..."

Voicemail: "My phone is switched off at the moment, so please leave a message"

It rang 10 times before it diverted... it IS switched on.

Try: "I often ignore my phone, please leave a message, I MAY get back to you."

Answerer: "Can I put you on hold for a moment? "

Me: "Actually it's urgen... [chiming 'hold' music cuts in].

Preferred option: "I'm putting you on hold, I'm not sure when I'll be back if ever" or "Please hold, I'll be exactly 13 seconds" and be exactly 13 seconds.

Voicemail: "Please leave a message, then press hash, spin around in a circle, press 2 followed by 4 followed by 3, press hash again, repeat your message and..."

Try: "Don't even bother, just hang up now."

Oh, and while singing voice messages can be a lot of fun, especially when you have multiple household members taking part, it doesn't always sound so fun when your doctor is phoning to leave a message about those test results. [yes yes, first hand experience for these]

Of course, if the person on the other end is the guy in the photo above, one tends to not notice all of the above. Lucky buggers.

With one exception: taking a call while you're in with your doctor (ie me) and continuing a personal & banal conversation (in fact anything that's not life & death) is very uncool regardless of how ruggedly handsome you are.

Anyone else with telephone peeves?

Extreme training

With just over 10 weeks to go until Noosa Triathlon I'm stepping up my training. I have a lot of improvement needed in my run times and a little extra speed in the cycling too, with my swimming yet to return to its normal standard (so I'm working on that too). So far I've been getting faster - esp in the running, and my calves are paying for it. But it's nice to see some stepwise improvement. I would like to make those steps a little bigger though... so I'm increasing everything. Surprisingly I've also gained some weight despite getting leaner - I guess those legs need more muscle for all that extra activity.

The weather is strangely warm here at the moment too - daytimes are like mid-spring which makes training easier and it feels like everything is locking into place. Now if I can just manage to run sub 4minute km's...

Election Boredom

Today is (Federal) election day and I can't wait for it to be over. There has been more coverage on the mechanisms of the campaign than on the policies themselves. I feel like we're being educated on spin. The chosen topics for debate have been BORING, nauseating even and often irrelevant. Gay marriage / relationship recognition has been publicly approved, but both major political parties are ignoring that and won't support it. We are electing the whole government but it seems like there are just 2 presidential candidates. I'm just really scared we will get Tony Abbott as our new PM, who has declared himself the lovechild of prior PM John Howard & MP Bronwyn Bishop... ouch. He claims to be gay friendly - but is as likely to support anything that promotes equality for the gay & lesbian community as he is to skip a photo opportunity.

Anyway - all Aussie readers of superchilled - please vote responsibly.

My First Aussiebums

I'm converted! Its been years in the making but finally this week I ordered online and purchased my first ever item from Aussiebum. There has been a hint of summer in the air and a scent of decaying speedoes in the bathroom so onto the site I went, selected a pair I'd seen in the flesh (or on the flesh...) earlier in the year and a few clicks later, a day or two for mailing and today it arrived. Awesome packaging, very well made and a perfect fit!! So I'm very happy. I just need to test them out in the water now, and then wear them in races to win in style!

So to celebrate the scent of summer and to move away from the politics that has been featuring here lately here are a few more Aussiebum samples. Oh, and the ones I bought are somewhere in this post; but I'm not telling which...

Greens: the ad they should have

41 seconds

From the TV show Gruen Nation (nee Gruen Transfer) where they had an ad agency come up with an ad for and anti the greens... this is the pro one - and I love it. Unfortunately the ABC won't release it to the Greens to be used in their campaign. So here it is on the web.

Australian Democrats : I wish they got more airplay.

Democrats release GLBTI action plan: click for details.

At least someone is looking at our community as an equal part of Australia, not a minority to be kept at bay. And in this Federal election despite majority community support for gay & lesbian rights, none of the 2 major parties is interested in true equality.

I'm not quite sure why the Australian Democrats fell out of view, but they're still there, and should be a greater part of the Australian political climate than they are right now (in my opinion). The have always been strong supporters of the gay & lesbian community and remain so as detailed in today's press release. They have a stack of great policies (which are a little more sensible than the Greens', who are also similarly gay friendly, obviously) and are SO much better than the main and so conservative political parties who are putting me at once to sleep and in a state of heightened anxiety. As a gay man having Tony Abbott as a leader is really scary. I like that he exercises regularly including doing ocean swims - but that's about it.

I think we all need to vote for people like the Democrats & the Greens who treat the gay & lesbian community equally with the rest of the community, and at the same time write to our local members and aspirants to tell them that we need better representation. And not just token representation.

Links

Democrat GLBTI policy

Greens LGBTI policy

Labor GLBTI policy: nil

Liberal GLBTI policy: nil

1. on the grass 2. In the gym...

1.

Where the bloody hell has all the time gone?

I had visions of loads of posts - a renaissance of kinds, which has obviously stuttered somewhat. I've been cycling, swimming and running, as per the plan, and then things like work, parenthood and logistical variances eat into all the other time in the day. And when the weather is as stunning as it was today - there's no way I'm staying inside. So I too was lying on the grass contemplating the beauty of it all today. At least for a while.

2.

Some readers have asked about the yoga video posted below, and there certainly is a little more intense man-to-man physical contact in there than one might normally expect in a traditional yoga class... which leads me to the question... Has anyone had more of a workout in an exercise class / training session than you initially expected?