Last Hurrah

It is the last day of the year 2018, a very hard year for me and most people that I know but it is finally over. Goodbye cruel year.

My cellphone is warm from all the happy New Year wishes that I have been receiving that little Princess lay on top of it to gleam off the heat while it has been rain continuously outside.

Doesn’t look so Good

And here readers, is Velile not looking so good. But why isn’t he looking so good you may ask. To answer I need to start with a joke, a Van der Merwe joke. You see in Ireland we have Kerryman jokes and here in South Africa we no different with our Van der Merwe jokes, although I must say I haven’t heard of a Van der Merwe joke since the 90s, we have Zuma jokes now. Sjoe so this is an old one then.

Van der Merwe saw a horse for sale in the local newspaper for only R100. So Van goes and checks the horse out. The horse looks okay so he asks the farmer, why is he selling the horse for so cheap. The farmer replied “’cause it doesn’t look so good”. Van thought this was strange because to him the horse looked fine but he paid the farmer the R100 and took the horse home. The next day Van stormed back to the farmer, and angrily demanded his money back because when he tried to ride the horse, he found out that the horse was blind. “I told you”, defended the farmer, “he doesn’t look so good”.

So now back to Velile, no he is not a horse but he doesn’t look so good. Early this year he had some operation to replace the corneas but is still having problems and now he needs even oversize text on his phone.

Up a Pole

A storm is brewing as I was leaving work today, but some eager beavers were up the cellar tower mask doing maintenance. Eish being up a pole in face of brewing storm clouds is not a job for any acrophobic people such as myself. Well I don’t fear heights but have a respect for it knowing that I bounce as well as I can fly and lightning is not friendly here.

23 Days

23 days, yes it took South African cellar company Cell C, 23 days to replace the screen of my Samsung Galaxy S3. A friend of mine had his phone, also a S3, cracked in the same way as mine. And he took it to the Samsung store in Clearwater Mall and had his phone returned to him in 14 days.

So what did I learn about Cell C from this terrible experience. Firstly Cell C's Call Centre was a horrible experience from the get go. Secondly never believe Cell C when they say anything plus many more mistruths added to the other confused deliberate lies, we are busy upgrading our network and you should experience a marked improvement by July. And the same we are busy upgrading our network and you should experience a marked improvement by September, yeah right.

It will take a phenomenal miracle to trust Cell C again.

Nokia Rubbish Cell C

My Samsung Galaxy found itself falling off my desk onto the hard cold floor. My bottom lip was trembling as I watched the LCD display colours starting to mix into each other. It was alright at first as I knew I was covered by insurance so I phoned MiWay Insurance and they requested to take it to Cell C with whom I have a contract with to get a quote for repair or replacement.

Now that is where my problem went south. Armed with my claim number from MiWay, I took my broken cellphone to Cell C in Norwood, the closest franchise to my work. At first they said that they didn't have any phones that I could use as a replacement while my phone was in getting a quote. After kicking up a stink, they found a piece of rubbish called a Nokia X2-01. How do they expect me to work with that? To add fuel to the fire, the small print says that they can take up to 21 days to fix which means I am paying Cell C for a smart phone plus extra data and they give me rubbish.

The light is dimming fast for Cell C. Like their data, they offer such cheap service because they don't have any. Plus MiWay Insurance should have a replacement phone policy while your one is being repaired or replaced. MiWay is Your Way, sa foot.

Helkom

Yesterday the telephone lines went down. First the electricity, then potholes and talk of the water supply, now the phone lines. Telkom is still working on it. I had to buy an E220 HSDPA USB modem that works with a cellular SIM card. The photo today is Carol’s side table which surprised me after the maid lined up all the bedroom remotes and phones.