Computer

(The second in what I fear may become a less than occasional series…)

Whereas The Girl and I do have a TV component to our cable contract (the big fat broadband connection being our prime concern!) I think it is fair to say that the majority of the content that comprises our televisual viewing is in fact streamed across the InterWebNet. The exact ‘what’ and ‘where’ of that which we stream is immaterial and will thus – for the purposes of this anecdote – remain an enigma!

The TV that we acquired with our property is plenty big enough (in my book) and whilst it may not be equipped with all of the latest bells and whistles (and indeed may not run at the sort of resolution that seems de rigueur nowadays) does plenty well enough for an old Luddite like me. The Girl may well disagree (she does!) and I feel sure that – at some stage – a fancy new device will be purchased.

For now, though, streaming video to the TV screen requires the intervention of a separate box of tricks and we have – since our arrival in Canada – utilised for this purpose an old computer that one of the terribly smart techie chaps in my team at my last school kindly refurbished for me. This device was pretty long in the tooth even then and is a lot older now. As is the way of such things it eventually developed a fault – the which manifested itself in the display of random lines across the screen at vital moments. This grew steadily worse until the challenge became to spot what was actually going on on the TV behind a blizzard of random visual effects.

This was – naturally – causing some friction within this happy home so I contacted said tech wizard (the one who had put the system together) and – as is the way these days – he connected to my humble computer from the other side of the world and investigated it remotely. He gave me his diagnosis:

“It’s f*cked!“, he told me.

Time to buy a new machine. Naturally it is now possible to replace the hulking tower that we had cobbled together with a tiny wee box about the size of a paperback novel, which will do everything and more at three times the speed. I ordered a prime example of same and sat back to await delivery.

Over to Canada Post…

Now – being keen to be able to follow the rugby again (and indeed to indulge in food ‘porn’) I carefully followed the online tracking most helpfully provided as part of the service. I was delighted to see my package on target to be delivered ahead of the advertised schedule. I watched it make its way across from the mainland in the middle of the night and saw it leave Victoria to head for Sidney before finally being delivered into our community mailbox.

I happily trotted up the road and unlocked our box.

Nothing!

Now – the way the community letter boxes work is as follows: each house has a letter sized locker and at the bottom of each stack there are a couple of larger lockers for parcels too big to fit in the normal one. If one receives a package it is placed in one of these larger lockers and the key thereto is posted into one’s normal locker. One retrieves the package and pops the key back into the posting box.

In this instance there were three possibilities: the package had not after all been delivered – or it was in the locker but no key had been posted – or it was in the locker and the key had been posted into the wrong mailbox! Naturally I called Canada Post and opened an enquiry. I also visited my local Canada Post office and pleaded with them and I repeatedly scanned the online tracking to see if anything further had been logged. All told me the same story. They would look into it but it might take three days or so to figure out what had happened.

Sure enough, three days later I had a phone call – from Canada Post. They assured me that the package was indeed in one of the bottom lockers (where it had been all along) and that a key had now been posted for me. All very well – I thought – but that means that a postman had visited the community box three days running and stood within inches of my sad, cold package and not done the decent thing and provided me with a key.

Now – how difficult would it have been to check this on the day that I reported it?

Hmmm!