Who's the problem here...

Butters just went to the dentist yesterday and came home with very sore gums. While getting out the Peroxyl, my own visits to the dentist played out like an installment of the movie "Saw". What would always puzzle me is that after using the sharp instrument to jab into your pinky gums to "measure probing depths" the hygienist would invariably pronounce you at fault by saying,

"Oh, I see gum bleeding in there. You must have a lot of plaque buildup."

"No," I think to myself sarcastically, "it's because you're jabbing my gums with a sharp instrument they're bleeding." Now I say this to myself because, 1) my mouth is stuffed with dental cotton making talking impossible; 2) the hygienist still has the sharp sticker in her hand and my momma didn't raise no fools.

If you think this attitude that the patient being always in the wrong happens only at the dentist, you'd be mistaken.

On my last visit to the optometrist, I was put through the battery of so-called eye health tests before even seeing the doctor of optometry. Having the assistant have me do the chart reading test, the "round circle of bright lights glaring into your eyes" test, the "streaming bright vertical slits of light blindingly on your retinas" test and, worse, the glaucoma "puff of dessicating air into your wide open eyes" test. Finally being ushered, stumbling and half blind into the presence of the optometrist, the first thing the doctor observes to me is,

"I see your eyes are really red and irritated. You must have a problem with them."

This time, not being vaugely menaced by a sharp instrument, I could let this health professional know why my peepers were like that and just what I thought of the diagnosis. The faint response? "Oh, there is that."

(smugly) Let's just say the rest of the exam went by with no further fault finding.

- Farmer Ted

Would I lie to you...

Have you ever seen the US TV drama show "Lie to Me"? It's one of my favorites. In it a fictious team of consultants trained to detect deception in the tiniest discrepancies in the human face, body and voice solve crimes for everyone from the kid next door to the Department of Homeland Security. It's pretty ingenious really and one can't help testing yourself to see if you see what the actors are scripted to see. And of course, everyone who deos watch it thinks because of it they're an expert in detecting deception in others.

Including me.

I happened to see a news clip from Philadelphia news the other day. In it, the founder of the Community Academy Charter School, Mr Joseph Proietta, was commenting on the fact the feds had swooped down upon their offices and seized financial records. An honest-to-god Lie-to-me moment came in a bit of the interview on TV in the actions of Mr Proietta as he states, "...I'm confident [shaking his head] when everything is said and done that there is not going to be found anything [sic], any wrongdoing [nodding his head] ."

And from my extensive watching of "Lie to Me" season one? Ooooo! Somebody is in trouble...

- Farmer Ted

Observing the Aussies: What's in a name...

Did you know that in Australia they rarely use your middle initial on things?

It's not that people here don't have middle names or anything.

Hm. Maybe there's just not enough people in Australia that they figure they need 'em.

Yeah. That must be it.

- Farmer Ted

I care. Well, not really...

On a recent trip to the US, I happened to visit the local Kmart to try and get a few personal items to bring back with me to Australia.

Have you ever seen pictures in those news stories of the supermarkets in the then Soviet Union? You know where they show, like, two products on each shelf and long lines just to get them? Well that was what this Kmart was like. Dirty floors, poor lighting, shelves a mess with products tumbled about, missing or mislabeled items, and a checkout process that was took so long people actually gave up and left their carts where they stood in disgust.

How Kmart ever was in a position to buy Sears like it did is beyond me. But I digress.

When I got home, I was about to throw the Kmart receipt away when I noticed an entreaty at the bottom of it to go online and give them feedback of my experience. I don't know about you, but I tend to do these - both for good experiences and for bad ones - since it's the only way to make sure a store keeps doing something you like and stops doing something you don't.

So logging onto the site, I dutifully answered all the proffered questions, going into detail because especially if you rate something bad the stores wants you to explain why. After 15 minutes I got to the final exhortation to "Click to submit your survey and finish" that I dutifully, well, clicked. Only to be met with an otherwise blank page with these words written across it (in Times Roman bold, yet):

Survey Error
This survey has ended.
Results of this survey have probably been submitted.

"...have probably been submitted?" PROBABLY? WTF does that mean?
Yeah, you and I both know what it means: "I'm not listening anyway. Thanks for nothing, chump."

Well, "Once bitten," is all I have to say.

- Farmer Ted

Idiotic idioms...

Can you guess the well known (and overused) phrase depicted by the rebus below?

For some reason, it always struck me as a funny turn of phrase.

- Farmer Ted

The king is dead...

So the Rudd government here in Australia has finally ordered the breakup of Telstra: either split into a retail entity and an infrastructure entity, or face being barred from further access to possibly lucrative future wireless and adjacent markets.

For those of you on foreign shores, Telstra is the old AT&T/British Telecom of Australia; the telco that owns practically all the communications infrastructure in Australia due to that legacy position; from the phones in an Australian household, to the copper wires, to the switching equipment, to the transmission lines on down. And as a result, the broadband infrastructure as well as the largest wireless network. Once government owned, it was completely privatised as of 2006.

For my Australian readers, does any of this sound familiar:

• Controls all long-distance lines, thus limiting competitors’ growth simply by denying them connections to the national network
• Cuts rates in competitive markets keeping out other providers
• Charges high local rates or provides poor local service to other telephone service providers
• Implements a public-relations strategy to persuade both customers and the government that the telephone system was a “natural monopoly” – efficient, uniform, and reliable service in exchange for “rational” profits.

Do you think they're talking about Telstra? Nope, this is what they were saying about US telco giant AT&T before its historic breakup by the US Dept of Justice in 1982.And while how current Telstra shareholders do depend on how the shares are apportioned amongst the resultant companies, be ready for the old truism about "the parts being greater than the whole" to result if played correctly.

So stop whinging and relax: there's more choice and lower prices ahead, Australia.

- Farmer Ted