PE>> A modem is not an investment.  It is a luxury.  It gets financed

PE>> differently.



RB>> If something is not EXACTLY what I want and is not of the best

RB>> quality, then I go without, 



 PE> You bought a $2 million stereo system rather than put up with Jap

 PE> Crap, did you?  I don't think so, Russell.



In Fact, I do not have a Stereo at this stage in life, (But I have

Had them in the past. (300watt Jensen with 8 x 100 litre 3way Speaker

Boxes, (turned the whole house into a vented Enclosure, if you

opened the right windows). You could turn it up and walk down the

track a quarter of a mile and sit dangling your feet in the creek,

and listening to the music comfortably.



There is nothing on the market that I really like & MUST HAVE, at

the moment, and my circumstances have since changed. In the house

that I am living in now, I can hear the neighbour's clanging their

knives & forks when they sit down to a meal (lucky to be 25 feet away)

And as I get older my passion for lots of noise has given way to

a passion for dead quiet.



So as I said above, "I Go without", rather than buy things that don't

meet my demands.

If I WANT something then I have it. I am just very fussy about what I

want.



RB>> I Do not buy it. Therefore Everything

RB>> that I buy is treated as a luxury.



 PE> Food is a luxury too, eh?  I don't think so, Russell.



Basic food to keep you just alive is a need, anything above bread &

water is TREATED as a luxury. Have you tasted really good Mountain

Water, or eaten Potato bread,... to me, they are a treat.



Lets face it, EVERYBODY eats too much, including me.

If you treat it as a luxury, then you as least, dont end up

Obese & able to SEE where your money has gone.



I have learnt to treat everything that happens in my day as a new

experience and to treat my self to one thing a day (no matter how

big or small)

Everything second is a bonus, that should be taken advantage of.



RB>> So, OK. Maybe I should learn how to budget & manage my money, like

RB>> you do.



 PE> Might help.  I have a massive spreadsheet with EVERY SINGLE DAY for

 PE> the next few years on it, how much we're spending on groceries, etc

 PE> etc.  That is more to get the most out of the timing of our bills

 PE> rather than to save money though.  The best thing for saving money is

 PE> to work out in advance how much you need, and then get that allowance

 PE> every week.  You sure find out where the money goes that way!  We didn't

 PE> used to control it to that level, and sometimes we would say "Where did

 PE> we spend all our wages".  Well we know exactly where they are now,

 PE> because the budget worked, and it's all in the home loan.



I do know where all my money goes, but I would not want to get into

this, as deep as you, Bookwork is a drag to me And I wouldn't want to

get so involved that I had no reason to smile.

I would however like to get back to the stage, where I bought

everything for Cash and did not owe anything on my 3 credit cards.



I used to be this way, but since my accident, I lay at home and

buy\pay bills over the phone using my credit card and a credit card

can too easily be seen as unlimited income and therefore I do

forget and get very generous sometimes.



PE>> wild women, unless you count the odd abusive message I might send

PE>> to Denise about here stupid initials.  I eat lollies, and write

PE>> public domain code.



RB>>  Ah , There is your downfall. you had me convinced that your way was

RB>>  the better way, that your head really is screwed on properly, that



 PE> Well actually I don't know for sure that it's the better way, but with

 PE> 99.999% of the world being the other way (people who may as well have

 PE> never bothered to come down out of the trees), I figure there's room

 PE> in the world for someone who potentially wastes their entire life in

 PE> the pursuit of things which may not really be important.



Don't you mean NO ROOM here.

May be you haven't convinced me.



RB>> You are not a Cult leader are you?



 PE> I suppose so.  Abject lack of followers though!



RB>> You are very convincing.



 PE> It's nice to know.  But it would be even nicer to know what it was I

 PE> convinced you of?  From memory I was just stating what I did, and a

 PE> pure statement of fact can not be "convincing".



Well for one, you conviced me that you ARE human and there is merit

in your thought on life.

Looks like we are ALL Mean in or own little way





PE>> People like Brenton, who are Real Men, will

PE>> tell you that I am wasting my life, everyone should be like him.

PE>> The fact that he feels the need to convince me of my own plight

PE>> of despair gives me great satisfaction that I'm on the right track.



RB>> And here I was trying to do similar. I Bow (or is that Bowel) to you



 PE> When I was 20, Mike Tyson was also 20, and knocking the daylights out

 PE> of anyone who came within 1 metre of him.  It was quite obvious to me,

 PE> that in the realms of heavyweight boxing, I was a useless turd.  I

 PE> chose a different field to compete in.



RB>>> I can't really understand why I had trouble logging into his

RB>>> netcomm. I dial them most every day, with out the trouble that I

RB>>> had with his, those few times... This EC thing, must have been user 

PE> error

RB>>> somewhere.



PE>> Poor old Russ.  There is no AT command to say "fuck up low level

PE>> negotation".  On EITHER modem.  The reason you never saw it before

PE>> was because you have never run the modems with the particular line

PE>> characteristics you get with me.  Maybe every 5 seconds there is a

PE>> slight click in my line, because the bitch upstairs has a cuckoo

PE>> clock that emits EMR.  I don't know.  But you find out bugs in modems

PE>> by finding a single example.  You don't find them by saying "well

PE>> most people don't have the problem, so you don't exist".



RB>> Of course, you are right.



 PE> If you're serious, that's a nice change and admission.



Yes I am Serious.



RB>>> He really made me so mad, that he could use a Courier and
then pass it 

 PE> up

RB>>> for the netcomm. (Money, not being the issue, here)

RB>>> Can't see the grass, for the green.



PE>> The ISP's words made a lot of sense to me, "It's not a $200 better

PE>> modem - it's not even a better modem".  That was a hell of a logical

PE>> thing to say, and it summarized his testing perfectly.  I had NO

PE>> evidence to suggest that he was wrong.  I KNEW I had a lot of

PE>> problems with the USR, I didn't know what the problems were with the

PE>> Netcomm in my environment.  Turns out he was wrong when he said 

PE>> "it's not even a better modem".  I didn't know that at
the time.

PE>> The Courier is my preferred modem, assuming no price difference.  

PE>> BFN.  Paul.



RB>> I am humbled, what more can I say.



 PE> It is a logical course of action, nothing humbling about it.  BFN.  Paul.



Wouldn't mind finding out where you can buy Logic pills, I need to

up my intake.

Rod speed has a fairly Sane, logical approach, I might ask him

who his chemist is.



Russell



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