The Removalist

Anyone out there use wireless Internet? Mrs A. and I are thinking that as we have good mobile phone deals a land line is a waste of money. But that obviously stops the ADSL connection. I have heard horror stories of people finding your signal and sitting outside your house downloading all sorts of illegal stuff which then gets pinned on you, but I have no idea if that is actually true. I would assume that the security that comes with the package would be adequate to prevent this?

I took Wednesday off to move. And then Thursday. The weekend will be unpacking and collapsing, before more unpacking. When I was younger and better looking I would generally hire a truck and get some mates over to move my three milk crates and fridge, but now we have so much crap I decided to hire a removalist for the big stuff and just do the easy stuff myself. I rang removalists until I found one that spoke passable English and didn't sound as if he was making a drug deal. I assumed that all removalists are consummate professionals with large trucks, burly employees and the customers' antique furniture foremost in their thoughts. Moving from a first floor apartment with no lift to a house that stands slightly less than three thousand feet above street level should have been a piece of cake for them.

Then he turned up.

Pulling a shopping trolley on a bicycle.

That had flat tyres.

Ok, so that's a little bit of poetic licence, but the truck was as small and old as he was.

I spin you no poetic licence when I say that one of the first things he asked was our star signs.

I goggled.

I don't remember his remark to Mrs A. about her Taurean traits. I was too surprised. When I answered Gemini, he pointed out the whole twins/split personality thing and asked which personality I was today.

I tried to answer whilst mentally working out the best place to dump his body, and whether to do it before or after we had used his Tonka truck.

He merrily gave me the shits with everything he said and did for the next 8 hours or so, and even Mrs A. told him to shut up and do what he was being paid for more than once.

He spoke a lot about his belief in reincarnation and having a happy soul. Of clean living in mind and spirit. Then he had a piece of fruit cake, a cup of coffee and a cigarette for lunch.

He gave me his business card so that I could pass it on to friends. I spent Wednesday night exhausted on the couch sticking pins through it.

Moving? Call me and I'll tell you who to avoid.

Comments

[nailpolishblues]

This is awful of me but I was laughing so hard [internally, of course..] at this. My last removalists were excellent, quite quick, arseholes [they criticised my packing skills - not my fault if my book collection is a trifle heavy], and they charged like wounded bulls but they never did ask me my star sign. Still, at least I didn't have to carry anything upstairs.
It's always a toss up, I guess.

[Flashman]

I think the insecurity of wireless internet comes from when you take an ADSL connection and connect it to a wireless router (wireless within the home).

With the wireless internet you're thinking about, your computer (well technically your modem) picks up a signal from a nearby repeater station, much like a mobile phone.

I'm *fairly certain* that there's no security issue in that scenario. You should read further into the matter. (Then again, if you take your wireless signal and then share it wirelessly within your home, the security issue returns.)

Is that clearer, or did I just muddy the waters?

[JtH]

NPB - Mine still charged accordingly. Nearly $900.00 for the day.

FM - I had thought of doing the wireless router for the laptop which has centrino or some such. I will have to look into it further. I am currently typing from my new 'unwired' connection. So far so good.

[nailpolishblues]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I guess the trick now is to just stop moving. :D