I played my fourth game of golf this year over the weekend. I would like to say it was easy, that I hit every shot like Tiger Woods and chipped around the greens like Seve Ballesteros. It was one of those days when I almost felt like golf was conspiring against me to make me quit. There were a number of factors contributing to my experience:

1. Public Holidays = Golf

It was a public holiday. My partner and I assumed everyone would be at the Dawn Service, then the ANZAC Day marches and barbeques and two-up.

WRONG!!

Everyone and their dog was playing golf. Not literally, because dogs aren't allowed on the course.


2. Slow Play


















The people in front of us were S-L-O-W. Unfortunately, the people in front of them were even slower. Which made for quite an interesting bottleneck.

I don't know about you but when the people in front are slow it really irritates me. If they are genuinely trying to hit the ball I don't mind so much but these particular individuals chatted, paused, changed clubs, walked back to their bags, paused and generally fluffed around. GRRRRR!!


3. Bad Etiquette


































The people behind us (a group of 4) hit up on us constantly. My partner and I are fast players, always keeping up with the group in front. Walking after my first shot, I looked up to see a ball whizzing less than a metre from me. I turned back to look at the offenders. My reward was to get another ball whizzing even closer. "Fore" would have been nice.

Later, on the next tee one of the guys yelled out. "Sorry about that before." and I said "no worries."

I was, however thinking if you were actually sorry you would have yelled 'fore' so I didn't get hit.

They continued to pummel people with balls and crowd around the tee while other groups were playing. When I went to tee off the bastards were talking and laughing in my backswing. I was 10 etiquette rules away from swinging the other way and hitting the ball into the centre of their ill-mannered gaggle.


4. Stress

When I get faced with these situations I get uptight and find it hard to relax properly. I think I handled it pretty well but it was only on the 8th tee I realised how beautiful the course is and how I haven't been noticing it at all.


5. Reality Check

It was only when I got to the nineteenth hole that I realised I had got my first bogey. Ever. I remember it happening at the time, congrats from my partner, but we had to hurry off the green and whiz along to the next one.

I also realised that I had hit my longest ever drive on the third hole, leaving just a short chip to the green.

And then I realised the 8th tee had been the staging point for my most spectacular 5-iron shot ever. And my longest.

It's amazing how golf can creep up on you like that. You think you played a certain way (I thought I had played terribly) but the further away you get from the round, the more you realise how well you actually did. I went away thinking I had lost the plot and my partner thought I had played the best game of my life. I just couldn't see it at the time. Which is funny because he thought he had played terribly as well but got a score similar to his average round.

This is an important lesson. Don't ever walk off the course in disgust (I saw two people do this during our round). Don't throw clubs or deliberately mess up because you don't care anymore. Just play the hole and go on to the next one. It is very difficult to judge your own performance while you are in the midst of a round. Trust you are doing okay and just keep going. Luckily, that's what we did on this day and that's why I have my first bogey on my scorecard. :-)


BOGEY: One over par for the hole. The word orginates from a mythical golfer, Colonel Bogey, who was said to play every hole in the standard stroke score.

It was originally used to describe the target score which a good amateur should achieve, in the same way "par" became associated with professionals.

The two terms were interchangeable at one stage, until "par" became the standard term.

- source BBC Sport

technorati tags: golf etiquette colonel bogey

I must begin by detailing this wonderful purchase on Ebay. A Samsung SGH-C300.























$16 for a phone that cost $100 new. Not bad at all. I have only been watching items for what seems like 2 years but I finally got one. Now, the phone was locked to Telstra so I decided that the price of unlocking (around$30) added to the price of the phone did not make the cost prohibitive.

So, it was simple. I go to the Telstra shop at a local shopping centre. The wait was excruciating and for anyone who has dealt with Telstra over the phone, you will know what I am talking about. So I waited, and waited.

Suddenly a strange man appeared. He was gnarled with yellow teeth and a strange hangnail growth of some sort. I am not joking. He looked quite a bit like this guy:

















Although similar in looks to Lo-Pan from "Big Trouble In Little China" the similarity ended here. He was not all-seeing, powerful, flame throwing or supernaturally gifted in any way.

In fact, he couldn't even unlock my phone.

"Can I help you?"
He seemed to appear from nowhere and was suddenly standing to my left.

"Oh, yes. I want to get this phone unlocked. It's locked to Telstra and I have another type of SIM card." I showed him the phone.

"How long have you had it?"

"Uh, just got it."

"FIFTY DOLLARS."

"Excuse me? I thought it was around thirty dollars."

"FIFTY DOLLARS." The room seemed to shake with the force of his words.

"But...this isn't a new phone. It's quite old. Look." I showed him the phone again, scratches all over the face of the screen indicated a very used phone.

"It might be new."

"How?" I was growing tired of him.

"I can't tell if it's new. You can't tell if a phone is new by looking at it."

"Well I can." I'd had it now. What did he think I had, a custom scratching machine for scratching new phones so I could save twenty bucks?

"Hmmmm." He looked at me suspiciously.

My cortisol levels were rising and he seemed to be enjoying it. What he didn't seem to realise was that I was two seconds and bad judgement away from grabbing his neck and throttling him over the desk.

"This phone ok? If not, I unlock it and it doesn't work, you just wasted your money." He cackled at me.

He spent what seemed like hours trying to find the serial number. He absent-mindedly removed the battery and laid his elbow over it.

"Uh, shouldn't you be turning the phone off before pulling the battery out?"

"You have sim card?"

I handed it to him.

He then proceeded to dangle his sleeve and buttons over my sim card and went back to resting his elbow on my battery.

He spent another five minutes looking up a code. I was mortified to find out it was the same code I had seen on the internet this morning. For free. But no, I wanted to be a responsible citizen and do everything properly.

F*&#K!!!!!!!!!!

So, he finally punches in the code he spent five to ten minutes finding in an official Telstra mobile phone shop. This is the same code I spent two point five seconds finding on the internet.

Oh god, I just want to get out of here.

Then he spent another five minutes (that seemed like twenty) scratching his head and tapping the keyboard with the rather disturbing long nail of his. He still wouldn't look at me.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Come over here." He bundled me over to a desk with a computer screen and a phone. He called a number and while he was calling said I'd have to talk to them.

"Can't someone here do it? I mean, unlock my phone. That's what you do isn't it?"

He mumbled something about the code not working and handed me the phone, leaving me in the middle of a noisy shop with an electronic voice for company.

"If you are ready to continue say, 'continue'".

"continue."

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Would you mind repeating it?"

Why do computer simulated voices try to sound human? They're not fooling anybody! Even if it said to me "nahwarries mate got a bloody good code ere for ya ang on I'm just gunna get a beer" I still wouldn't believe it.

So I repeat 'continue' and it stops dead. Nothing.

"Hello? Um, 'continue'. Uh, 'repeat'"

Still nothing.

"Shit."

"Hello!"

I called out to the Lo-Pan guy who was off 'helping another customer', his feet on a desk.

"HELLO!"

By now, most of the people in the shop were looking at me. One of Lo-Pan's coworkers got his attention and motioned to me.

"It stopped working." I told him.

He pressed a couple of buttons and now I was back to an earlier menu.

"Here is the code. After you enter the code, wait for further instructions."

I tried it. I was not really astounded to find out it didn't work.

"Did this code work? Say yes or no."

"NO!!!" I yelled into the mouthpiece, causing more people to look in my direction. By now had I access to cigarettes I would have lit one up in the shop, smoking laws be damned.

"Please hold while we put you through to an operator."

Oh now I get to talk to a person. Lucky lucky me.

"Hoiy, what soims to be the problem?" This are not typos, this is her diction.

I took a deep breath.

"I came to this Telstra shop to get my phone unlocked and now the guy hasn't unlocked it and put me on this phone and the code didn't work."

"Orh, right. What's your oymeee?"

"My what?"

"Your OYMEEE!"

"I heard you, I just don't understand what you're talking about."

"When you open your phone there's an oymeee."

I opened the phone, searching around. "Is it some kind of number?"

"Yeah, an oymeee."

Oh for f@%$@k's sake. I spotted something. "Hang on. You mean this? An I-M-E-I number!"

I felt like I had cracked the DaVinci code.

"Yeah, oymeee." she sighed like I was an idiot.

I read it out.

"Okay, hold on...(silence)... I can't get you the code for three to four working days. Can I get your number and someone will call you back."

"Can't you find out now? I'm in the Telstra shop. I have already paid and the guy hasn't done anything. I don't want to leave a shop after paying for something I haven't received. Do you understand this logic?"

"Yeah..."

"So if I leave now and I get a call in a few days and then THAT code doesn't work, what happens then?"

"Um, you get a refund."

"I get a refund"

"Yeah..." she said tentatively.

I gave her the number, left the store and went to buy hardware supplies, possibly for later use when I return to the Telstra shop.

technorati tags: telstra phone mobile sim unlock

For a lot of people prepaid phone cards can be a lifeline while travelling. Therichcom.com is a prepaid phone finder site. It will compare deals and look up various phone cards using a search by country function. In design, it seems a little tightly packed but when you get the hang of the format, it is so full of great deals and simple to use. It is so much cheaper and easier to use phone cards than to use the conventional international phone methods. Sometimes you can save hundreds or possibly even thousands, depending on how long you are away and how much you like to talk on the phone! You can find cards for each destination, from France to Indonesia, Egypt to Venezuela. While researching your own prepaid phone cards, make sure you work out where it is you want to call - a lot of the cards are very specific and you need to get the right country, not just continent. You also need to work out where you will be calling from. For example, you may be in Texas, wanting to call relatives in Venezuela. You must have a card that calls Venezuela from the US, or specifically, Texas. Once you get this right, the rest will seem much easier. Some have connection fees, some don't. Make sure you find these details out and compare to find the best deal for your specific needs. You could be saving money straight away. You could find yourself with more spending money on your holiday, or you could find your phone bill at home a lot more manageable. Either way, it's a great way to save money.