Adventures of bug-boy and intro to hellopeter.com ...

There is this brilliant website called Hellopeter.com where you can lodge complaints about service or even compliment someone if you feel that you got exceptionally good service from them. The owner of the site is Peter Cheales who wrote a book about service called either I was your customer or I used to be your customer…I forgot which. Anyway you get the idea. I know a while ago they tried to make it more international than South African but I’m not sure how successful that was – but it’s pretty good for SA. You have to register if you want to make comments but it is free. The companies who respond pay something for this feedback service I believe although it is entirely possible to make comments about companies even if they aren’t registered there. I like this because it’s nice to have a place to moan (it’s not just a female thing I assure you…many men also use this site) and also if you are considering moving to a new bank or taking out a contract for some service you can use this to see what some other customers experienced there before you jump from the pan into the fire, so to say.

This week I had the opportunity to complain about Vodacom …at length…Unfortunately I only get more or less 120 words to do it in so I had to trim down my scathing remark to about half its original size. The bones of it can be seen on the link below if you’re interested and if they actually take the time to respond their response should appear there too in a day or so. The original title also didn’t quite fit. It was meant to say “slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through Peanut Butter” and now it just says stampeding through p? Well close enough for me…

http://www.hellopeter.com/the_comment.asp?recid=60999

Other events this week – I saw Freddy during the week for a nice skinder (gossip). I missed that! Thanks Freddy. And on Friday I took Wanette out to dinner because I missed the big birthday bash and after that I went to the club with Simone’. It was so weird...I almost never go there and the one day that I do I run into so many friends. We saw Werner and his entourage...and Tammy and Ryan together with theirs too...it must have been the full moon that caused it? ;-)

And also I don’t mind sharing with you that a praying-mantis (Hottentotsgot in Afrikaans) has started hanging out in my one bonsai tree this week. It has been four days running now that it’s been there, and I am tickled pink because it’s supposed to be very lucky to have one around. (Guess who’s buying a lotto ticket? whooooohoooo!). My brother feels sad for the little fellow and told me not to get too attached because he thinks it’s male one and a female will surely be round any day now to chomp its head. (They are well known for the fact that the girl-mantis bites the boy-mantis’ head off during mating), and won’t you know it?! Today when I was watering my trees and herb garden there she was…the wanna-be-killer herself is approaching from the herb garden directly below where my gogga (bug) has been hanging out in the tree for this whole week. I managed to take some photos of both for you to see… You might wonder if I’m going to interfere, and save bug-boy’s life? And the answer is sadly “No”. If he wants to survive he’ll have to keep it in his pants or outsmart her like any other wild mantis. Good luck bug-boy! I hope to still see you sitting in my tree next week.

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Saturday morning after a late night Friday I zipped through to Jacky’s place for an enormous cooked breakfast with her and some of her other pals. It looks like they want to do it once a month or so. I like the idea…and the breakfast was very tasty. Here’s a pic of Jacky getting ready to cook the bacon and scramble Ben’s eggs… (The recipe apparently originated from her boyfriend Ben…it’s not his actual eggs…hahahaha relax!)

Anyway, I hope that you all will have a great adventure filled week ahead! I will be spending my time mostly studying of course, and investigating the prospect of earning bucks by filling in web surveys or writing trashy novels for cash? Also after a chat to my cousin Melanie I am contemplating doing 5 sit-ups for every e-mail I send…I am going to have abs of steel that’s all I can say! Please spare a thought for the life of bug-boy too if you have some time…