A hahaha

Someone did a search for "chin puff"!

 

Not to mention a couple of Rikki Morris Nobody Else searches too. 

 

Also, my page is the first one to come up if you search for "Hywel soliloquy ".  I don't know what that means.

Safe and Sound

I'm back in Göreme after 5 fantastic days travelling east and southeast of here.  Once I have organised my thoughts and made proper notes of where we went I will write a proper story about it.  But suffice to say we didn't run into any trouble near the Syrian border, or from Kurdish rebels in the east.  Hooray, or "Oh be!", as they would say in Turkey.

 

I have also booked a ticket out of Turkey (as my visa is running out soon), but I don't want to divulge too much information in case I jinx myself like I always do.

What happens when you tell some Photoshop nerds to do something about New Zealand

I'm going away tomorrow and I'm too excited to write anything decent.  So here are some links to entries from a Photoshop contest a friend pointed me to.  These are the best in my opinion, but there are some other good ones in there.

 

Canada

 

The Way Forward

 

Stiller

 

Hope the Kiwis enjoy, and nobody else is too confused.  Although there were a couple in there that I just didn't understand.  Help?

I'm on my way ...

I've been sort of busy the last few days, and the rest of the time I've either been away or not had access to the computer.  That explains most of the silence you may have heard from me.  I've also not been in such a great mood, as you may be able to tell from recent posts.

 

On the upside though, I finally heard back from Yahoo!, my email was (assumedly) finally read by someone who wasn't a total amoeba (sorry amoebas), and I got my password reset.  It only took me 4 years to get it arranged, but nevermind.  I'm sure once I have time to look through my old address book I will find a few people I'd like to get in touch with again. 

 

Also, I have just yesterday and today arranged to tag along with some people east to Nemrut Daği (Mt Nemrut).  I have been thinking about going for a while, but as it's not the best idea to travel as a single female east of here, it's worked out perfectly.  Also, it'll be a well-needed break from all the things that are bothering me about being here.  Perhaps it will help clear things up for me about what I should be doing from here on in, being with other travellers always helps with that!

On a lighter note ...

Sorry the posts have been sometimes a little serious, vapid or irate lately. That's just the way life goes. But I am promising some thoughtful, insightful, possibly uplifting writing in the near(ish) future.

In the meantime, I have been reading Overheard in New York. It is a weblog recounting snippets of conversations heard on the streets of NYC. I love this concept, it has always appealed to me. There are usually witty comebacks from the editors. It does not much for the intellectual reputation of the average American. Best of all, the posts are short and easy to read!

They provide such gems as this. Enough said!

The robots are malfunctioning, just thought I'd let you know

Well after the big rant the other day, I didn't hear back from Yahoo!.

I did hear back from Liv though, who kindly provided the whole address for the P O Box we had in San Francisco.

I sent the updated information on to the Yahoo! helpdesk.

They replied with an even more generic, more useless form email.

I replied with a quietly seething, slightly scathing summary and plea for someone to actually read my email.

I have been replied to by three Customer Service representatives so far. The first actually addressed my issue and asked for specific information. Since then they have been getting progressively more robotic.

I think the Yahoo! androids are devolving. Or evolving, depending on how you look at it.

[I am angry about this. I have sent them 6 emails so far. I think this is too many.]

Would you believe that your last drink of water could have once been used by a dinosaur?

Lately I've noticed that every time I empty someone's leftover bottled water down the drain I say to myself "Back to the water cycle!"

 

Yes, I am a geek. 

 

But I am also reassuring myself that I'm doing at least a tiny something to combat the lack of recycling, health and safety and concern for others and the environment that seems to be going on here.

Pride comes before a fall, more's the pity

I met one of the Fez (tour company) guides the other day, who inquired about the green curry that is on our beautifully rendered chalkboard.  She is an Aussie girl who, like many, miss a variety of food, including Thai cuisine.

 

I told her that if she got some numbers for me a little earlier on the next day, there would be no problem with supplying her group with green curry goodness.

 

She came in as promised, and though I had just woken up (to meet some lovely Kiwis who were hunting down expats in town), I arranged for 10 or so curries to be made up.

 

That afternoon was whiled away in the company of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and a giant bowl of falafel mixture.  I had managed to lose a whole tray the day before - they fell lemminglike off the bench, landing in a pile of aromatic smush.  I think they wanted to return to their chickpea form (Julie will know about this).  The majority of the batch turned out well though, with no further drama.

 

Things with the curry went perfectly, I had just enough rice and just enough curry to feed the extra couple of people that joined the party, as well as the hungry staff in the kitchen.  We managed to organise an informal arrangement with the tour guide, and she's going to make sure fellow guides and drivers tell their tour groups.  Excellent.

 

After a really busy night, I was paid my earnings for the day, which happened to be more than I've ever made in a day here (thanks, boss!).  Unfortunately I didn't have any pockets (20 Lira to guess where I put my money/keys?!), and, tragically, I dropped the money somewhere whilst cleaning up the restaurant.  I couldn't find it anywhere, and nobody will own up to pocketing it (I don't think anyone did, but I can't be 100% sure). 

 

Sigh.

 

 

Biggest fall from grace

I was going to include this in the last post but it mutated into a huge complaint and I decided it needed it's own rant ...

 

The winner is: Yahoo! UKIE Customer Care (and partially US customer services)

 

Yahoo! UKIE Customer Care have been absolutely useless in helping me with my crusade to access my old account which I lost in 2002 (during the  suspected hacking/stealing of my online identity crisis). 

 

I sent a physical letter to US customer services from London, since back then there was no email address available to query password loss.  With no response from them, I slowly forgot about it and began using a new Yahoo! ID, though it wasn't really me for a long time.  Recently I logged into Yahoo! for something else (I rarely do this anymore as I have all my email centrally located in GoogleLand).  I remembered my old ID and I thought I'd try customer services again (couldn't hurt). 

 

They wrote back to tell me I needed to give them the information that the password verification page asked for.  Obviously I didn't have that information or I would have used the password verification page (well I can't say every person in the world would do this, but ...). 

 

So I attached the original 2002 letter and wrote a new email explaining everything again and to ask for their understanding. 

 

They wrote back to tell me that without the information that the password verification page asked for, they couldn't give me anything, for security reasons. 

 

WHY is it even an option to email them about this then?  Why don't they say, can't do it, too bad? 

 

So I gave them every single country and postcode I lived at before I lost my account (ten different locations!).  I asked them to provide me my security question and I would give them the answer (they ask for you to give them both - who remembers what security question they provide to every online thing they sign up for?!). 

 

They replied again today with a form letter that told me:

Hello,

Thanks for writing to Yahoo! UKIE Customer Care.

Your account has been closed due to inactivity. Dormant accounts are
de-activated at the end of four months. A dormant account is one which
has not been logged in to over a four-month period, regardless of
whether or not email has been received in the account during that time.
You can re-enable your account by returning to the Yahoo! Mail Sign In
page and logging in with your ID and password at:

http://uk.mail.yahoo.com

Once you log in, please click on the "reactivate without account
protection." link at the bottom of the page.

Note:  Once an account has been de-activated, we cannot retrieve any of
the information that was formerly stored in it.

Yahoo! Premium Mail accounts do not require access to protect from
dormancy or possible de-activation. To learn more and subscribe to
Yahoo! Mail Plus, please visit:

http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/plus/

Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
[name removed]

Customer Care - Yahoo! UK & Ireland

I replied again, possibly a little more terse and a little less polite than before (although I refrained from writing "I don't have a bloody password, that was the frickin' problem in the first place, you useless *^#$%!") and then filled in a very unhappy feedback form that they'd sent me the other day.  I was going to leave it until the matter was resolved, but apparently it's not going to happen any time soon.

 

Why is it that even in the day and age where everything is answered by FAQs and computer intelligence, a well written email about a valid issue cannot be treated as individual and dealt with by a competent, actual person?  Even though I know that my question can't be answered by their help pages, I patiently go through them, just in case.  Can the monkeys on the other end not take the extra few minutes and actually read what the problem is?

 

On the plus side, at least it was a form letter response so I don't have spelling and grammar issues to complain about as well...

 

[Asides from this little issue, I have been extremely happy with the services provided by this global internet giant.  Even though I have switched over to Team Google, I still use some pages from Yahoo!.  I have many times in the past publicly lauded Yahoo!'s email service, especially as I have had a long-term extreme dislike for H**mail.  I even like their Outlook-esque new layout.  I think they just need to employ slightly less robotic people.  Ooh, maybe they are androids.  Or actual robots.  In which case, they're doing pretty well.  Good work, Yahoo!, way to keep ahead of the game!]

Favourites of the Day Part II

Name: Oktan (Turk) / Ledge (Aussie) - tie

Person: My mum (it's Mother's Day and I can't afford to call home, damn expensive Turkish telecommunications)

Old school song I was reminded of: Nobody Else by Rikki Morris (kiwi kids might remember this one)

Search string: "hasselhoff berlin wall jacket flashing freedom clip" / "gourmet mutton flaps" - tie (who are these people?)