Vodafone offers an online account management facility, which allows you do various things relating to your phone account including making a prepay payment.

I registered for the site months ago, and I remember it as a painful process. First, they require that your password is at least six characters long and contains at least one number and one letter. That’s fine – I tend to create cryptic passwords anyway – but for some reason whatever I was entering wouldn’t get accepted by Vodafone’s site and I ended up having to invent some bizarre password which I didn’t keep a record of and instantly forgot.

Again, that shouldn’t be much of a problem in itself because Vodafone offers a convenient “Forgotten your password?” page which allows you to reset your password by entering your mobile number and your date of birth. Pity it doesn’t work.

I’m reasonably confident that I know my own birth date, but I entered it three times in different formats (Vodafone suggests the newbie-confusing “Y-M-D” format, but I also tried “D-M-Y” and “M-D-Y”) and every time it rejected me. After the third attempt, it locked me out of the site for 24 hours. Great.

So now I have to top up using the over-complicated and tedious phone service system. But that’s another rant altogether.

There’s several occasions during the year that I really miss having Sky TV: the All Blacks season, the NBA Finals, and cricket season.

As a result I’m becoming quite out of touch with sport, which makes a Sky subscription very tempting at certain times of the year. However, I’ve been refusing to subscribe for a few reasons:

1. The subscription options are poor. 90% of the reason I would subscribe to Sky is for sport, yet I can’t just pay for the sports channels.
2. It’s expensive, in my case. To subscribe to basic high-definition Sky with just sport, it’s over $90 per month. That’s a lot for a few extra hours of TV per week.
3. Nothing is negotiable. You can’t customise anything. You can’t “install” it yourself. You can’t get out of any fees.

The last one – nothing is negotiable – is the kicker for me. Sky won’t let you customise your subscription package to get rid of all the crap channels you don’t want. They won’t waive the joining/installation fee even if your residence is Sky-ready and you’re smart enough to plug in a decoder all by yourself. And, if you join whilst they’re running a “special deal” (at the moment it’s “only” a $50 joining fee for My Sky HD) then you’re tied in to the service for 12 months.

Personally I don’t think joining fees and minimum contracts are acceptable when it’s clear that they exist only for bonus profit. Sky has nothing to lose by allowing me to subscribe with no joining fee and no minimum term (perhaps with a 28-day notice of cancellation).  The fact that they outright refuse to negotiate is why I’m not going to be giving them any of my money any time soon.

Then again… I’ll still be missing it when the New Zealand/West Indies test match is on next weekend.

It’s that time of year again, and the Cancer Society of New Zealand is actively collecting money to fund cancer research into cancer causes and treatments, providing support to people affected by cancer and other initiatives such as public awareness programmes.

More information is available at the Daffodil Day web site.

Chances are incredibly high that you know someone who has suffered or is suffering from cancer. If you haven’t already given to the cause, I urge you to make a donation.

I can’t believe New Zealand is jumping on yet another television bandwagon and creating its own “…got talent” show – New Zealand’s Got Talent – based on the hugely successful American series.

From an easy money standpoint, this might seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, like New Zealand Idol, Stars in Their Eyes and various other Kiwi-made bandwagon shows, this is doomed to be a failure for the simple reason that New Zealand hasn’t got talent.

Here’s my predictions:

• Performance distribution:
  • 60%: Rapping, beatboxing, hip-hop & breakdancing
  • 20%: Singing
  • 10%: Band/instrumental
  • 10%: Other
• The first season will have fewer acts and fewer episodes than its American counterpart
• There won’t be a second season.

Looking forward to it.

Well, it’s finally happened. I bought 48.34 litres of 98 octane petrol today for $103.88. Ouchies.