The totally off-topic thread

[cove]

When you run your own SMSF it is difficult to criticize oneself but tonight I was thinking I should.
The Dow went down 1,000 but has recovered a bit to be down 4%.

 

[wooley]

How long do I give it before I consider having second monitor to use?

I wouldn't worry about it.

Going back about 6 years they doubled up on my order: I paid for a laptop and 2 screens.... And 2 laptops and 4 screens turned up.

After spending weeks trying to sort it out and return the extra gear it was obviously all too confusing for their customer service team and they processed a refund of the original order and arranged pickup.

My original single payment was refunded... And no equipment was ever picked up.

 

[Flashback]

I just go around people who start taking out their cough only at the point of getting to the conveyor, if there is a space in front of them. Never been challenged. If I was I will simply reply "I'm ready to go, you're still F'ing around".

Have done this several times before. One time someone did get in a huff, but as per your comment I politely responded that they were taking their own sweet @$$ time and I was clearly ready to move on before them.

On another note, in Laos DPR at the moment - the people seem so much more friendly / less pushy than in Thailand (at the markets).

 

[cove]

I love the folks who decide to do up their shoe laces right at the base of stairs or an escalator. They are likely to be related to the folks who hold up the airport security lines.

 

[Flashback]

I love the folks who decide to do up their shoe laces right at the base of stairs or an escalator. They are likely to be related to the folks who hold up the airport security lines.

That's the one!!

This will be interesting - internet is not exactly "tip top" in Laos, and I need to try and do a telephone interview from here using Skype (only sensible option really). Other option is calling my mobile, but it'd be £1/minute to receive.

Then there is the option of getting a local SIM and seeing if they want to call that.... or they can wait a week till I'm back in the UK!

 

[drron]

Have done this several times before. One time someone did get in a huff, but as per your comment I politely responded that they were taking their own sweet @$$ time and I was clearly ready to move on before them.

On another note, in Laos DPR at the moment - the people seem so much more friendly / less pushy than in Thailand (at the markets).

Yes they are.The young women actually love a fellow with a larger waistline.Come up and rub it.Worked recently in Burma when a couple of women from Laos were at a temple.I invited them to have a rub and they enthuisiastically took up the offer.
Happens because they are reminded of the Happy Buddha.

 

[drron]

Don't blame them. Especially if they were waiting around for 3 hours last time and had not been seen.

But I do John as I am very rarely running behind time-the 5th patient did turn up and I saw her 15 minutes before her appointment time.
All of them were rung Friday so knew they had an appointment.If they knew they weren't going to come they should cancel the appointment so someone else from the waiting list could come.

 

[anat0l]

But I do John as I am very rarely running behind time-the 5th patient did turn up and I saw her 15 minutes before her appointment time.
All of them were rung Friday so knew they had an appointment.If they knew they weren't going to come they should cancel the appointment so someone else from the waiting list could come.

How are doctors educated to manage patient appointment time?

Yes, some treatments require more time and others not. Sometimes a spanner gets thrown in the works. Years of experience surely helps in determining, say, how much time so-and-so a patient needs in order to get treated for so-and-so. Some doctors are in the situation where if they don't see x patients in a day, they won't be able to afford the rent.

Some doctors who work in the public hospital are completely devoid of thinking of this and let the system take care of it - they just have to worry about seeing whatever patients are arriving next.

 

[ReLoad]

AFF snap poll time!

You land in SYD at 5.05am on BA from SIN.

You are booked in whY on the 8am service to MEL in a rather nice seat in 4A.

You can get moved to the 6.15 flight for free but you get seat 20E.

What do you do?

 

[Flashback]

AFF snap poll time!

You land in SYD at 5.05am on BA from SIN.

You are booked in whY on the 8am service to MEL in a rather nice seat in 4A.

You can get moved to the 6.15 flight for free but you get seat 20E.

What do you do?

Stick with the original - gives time to shower, freshen up, have breakfast etc!

Also lets you arrive slightly later and thus miss some of the peak hour traffic....

 

[RooFlyer]

I love my GP. He takes very good care of me. But he has a mostly +40 (possibly mostly +50) patient base (which includes me) and is chronically behind time, all the time. Its not uncommon, if I am (say) 3rd or 4th of the day for him to be already 30 to 40 mins behind schedule, any further back than that its a guaranteed hour plus. It drives me crazy - in reality unless I am first or second up I have to allow 90 minutes for a 20 minute appointment. But you can't complain - he's just taking care of the patients that present; the problem I believe is that people present with 2 or more issues which need more than one appointment slot. I take heed of the notices in the waiting room to book a double appointment if needs be; I wish others would.

Unfortunately I don't think its feasible for patients to get customised appointment lengths - certainly not with Medicare here in Australia and bulk billing etc.

Where I do go crook are the receptionists who don't say and sometimes refuse to say how far behind their practitioner is. If they are an hour behind, and all the people before me are in the waiting room, then there is at least 30 minutes I can go off and do something else. If by some miracle the doc catches up a bit and I miss my turn, then that's my problem. I had one receptionist of a specialist who told me, when I asked when my time came and went by 15 minutes, that I was in next. What she didn't know was that I had already chatted to others in the waiting room who were also looking discontented and there were in fact 2 others before me, also waiting! She didn't like me pointing that out, one little bit.

Nowadays, I call ahead to my GP's receptionist to ask how the doc is going - they know me (and the doc) well enough to tell me if I have 30 or more minutes grace to get in there.

 

[Pushka]

When you run your own SMSF it is difficult to criticize oneself but tonight I was thinking I should.
The Dow went down 1,000 but has recovered a bit to be down 4%.

I made some adjustments yesterday.

 

[TomVexille]

AFF snap poll time!

You land in SYD at 5.05am on BA from SIN.

You are booked in whY on the 8am service to MEL in a rather nice seat in 4A.

You can get moved to the 6.15 flight for free but you get seat 20E.

What do you do?

Stick with the original - gives time to shower, freshen up, have breakfast etc!

Also lets you arrive slightly later and thus miss some of the peak hour traffic....

What they said

 

[chelzmalee]

Where I do go crook are the receptionists who don't say and sometimes refuse to say how far behind their practitioner is.

Nowadays, I call ahead to my GP's receptionist to ask how the doc is going - they know me (and the doc) well enough to tell me if I have 30 or more minutes grace to get in there.

My doctor is ALWAYS behind, but the receptionists tell those who don't know "call us 20mins before your appointment to see how he's going". This means I have to take up less work time with waiting and I don't have to hang out with sick people for too long Also, I've noticed if someone isn't there, the doc goes to the next person in the queue and when he comes out again, checks if the missing person is back yet.

A new surgery in town, though, have been known to give "Your appointment is 2 hours behind. But you don't get put in the queue until you get here". WHAT?! People don't have 2 hours to be sitting in the doctors surgery. Much less if they have kids who get bored (those toys can only hold their attention for so long)

 

[JohnK]

you were quick to pm me after the Hawks came up short Friday - as i was try to sleep with a 5am start ...

... interesting weekend in the NRL ... go Storm tomorrow. ..

It sure was.

Storm got flogged by the cellar dwellers and Manly's season is effectively over. Would have been interesting had they made the eight as they were the in form team.

 

[feezable]

My u11 lived every boys dream last night... elimination final (had been postponed due to Sunday's bad weather) ... the score was 24-21 against his team. (Low scoring wet weather game). With just seconds to go he took a contested mark in the goal square, there were about 15 kids around the ball, how he jumped and got it i will never know... the siren sounded.... kids screaming to make him miss.... he walks back, lines up and kicks the goal to win. He was very emotional afterwards, it was probably the most pressure he's ever felt.

 

[RooFlyer]

Standard disclaimer: the following is not financial advice.

Well, gor-bless the punters and professionals on the ASX! Miracle result today, but I see my golds still got slaughtered (again).

CBA $75.08 Vs entitlement (that word again) $71.50, due by 8th September. Form and booklet arrived today (x 3 ).

What to do? Obviously nothing, until the last moment. Both PE and yield below the sector, but its still my favourite bank (also have WBC and NAB).

I see entitlements not taken up will be subject to a book-build and then sold and the issue is underwritten anyway, so I don't see much risk of the offer failing so I'm probably in either by the entitlements or on the market if the price is below the entitlement price.

 

[JohnK]

AFF snap poll time!

You land in SYD at 5.05am on BA from SIN.

You are booked in whY on the 8am service to MEL in a rather nice seat in 4A.

You can get moved to the 6.15 flight for free but you get seat 20E.

What do you do?

Don't do middle seats.

Even 4B and 4E just like that solid bloke sitting next to me yesterday. His sequence number was 1 less than mine which means he checked into the flight ~45 minutes before departure. I had sequence number 118 which is not a full flight by any stretch of the imagination. I could not sit back in my seat so had to slump forward for the entire flight. And then he didn't even bother to rush off the flight.

What was the point of sitting in 4B and trying to tuck your shoulders in for entire flight?

 

[RAM]

Standard disclaimer: the following is not financial advice.

Well, gor-bless the punters and professionals on the ASX! Miracle result today, but I see my golds still got slaughtered (again).

CBA $75.08 Vs entitlement (that word again) $71.50, due by 8th September. Form and booklet arrived today (x 3 ).

What to do? Obviously nothing, until the last moment. Both PE and yield below the sector, but its still my favourite bank (also have WBC and NAB).

I see entitlements not taken up will be subject to a book-build and then sold and the issue is underwritten anyway, so I don't see much risk of the offer failing so I'm probably in either by the entitlements or on the market if the price is below the entitlement price.

The correct terminology should be "rights entitlement", that's why the ASX code is CBAR.

Just thinking via keyboard...Definitely not giving anyone advice....

The CBA rights are really giving you a really special call option. You are NOT forced to use them (same as any bought option) BUT they come with a twist. If you don't use them, and the CBA price at expiry is above the set price then you will receive an amount back for doing nothing.

Here is where it is interesting.

If you are DEFINITELY going to buy another 1/23rd of the CBA shares you already own (ratio of rights granted to shares already held) regardless of what happens to the market in the meantime AND you are optimistic about what is going on then you can look to buy CBA directly when you think the current market gyrations have reached their lows (and the CBA price is below the rights price). You do this in the optimistic expectation that the market will rebound and by expiry the CBA price will be above the rights' level - so you then get some money back from the value of the expired rights.

If you are DEFINITELY going to buy another 1/23rd of the CBA shares you already own (ratio of rights granted to shares already held) regardless of what happens to the market in the meantime AND you are pessimistic about what is going on then you can look to buy CBA directly when you think the current market gyrations have reached their lows (and the CBA price is below the rights price). You do this in the pessimistic expectation that the market will NOT rebound and by expiry the CBA price will NOT be above the rights' level - so you won't get any money back from the value of the expired rights AND you will have ended up paying more than you need have to in order to maintain your relative shareholding.

The difference between the first and second approach is that if optimistic you are likely to buy very shortly. If you are pessimistic then you will most likely buy very close to the date of the rights' expiry.

The third alternative is where you don't intend to pour in any more money. After all given that CBA has already increased in price about 30 fold from the money placed into it from its original float - if you're an owner from the float then you've got a good amount of money in it already.

So if in this mind frame then depending on your outlook you'll either sell the rights on-market on any bounce or let them expire and collect the money then.

Moving onto the next spin of the roulette wheel....

 

[andye]

Spotted this in the UK Telegraph. Some people can't bear waste

Woman drinks an entire £120 bottle of cognac at airport security because liquids aren't allowed in hand luggage - Telegraph