Ouch

There is going to be a wedding in the family at the beginning of November. It's not really going to be a huge celebration but somehow we still felt like we should prepare something. They don't want the general wedding progamme with silly games so the only option is to play some music. So I got my guitar out of the box to play a few Irish songs with my cousin (who is totally into Irish music and plays the tin whistle).

The problem is that I have a Western guitar with steel strings and of course once upon a time I had to get the hardest strings for this guitar (because it sounds so much better but the fingers are completely destroyed ... who cares about fingers when you can have the sound eh?). The finger tips of the left hand are so sore now ... and I have to practise every day to manage at least the basics .... I must be am mad .... ouch!

Frozen

Frozen waterfall and sunset over frozen lake - you get that a lot in Norway in November. 

Ahhh, winter is on its way and this year I really hope it will bring lots of snow :)

Customer-friendly ... yeah, right!

Dear company starting with an a (and sharing the name with a river in South America), 

for years I have been a very loyal customer since I never had problems with any of the products I bought. In particular, I liked your offers on mp3 music because I am moving a lot and having to transport lots of CDs is just not very practical for me (since I listen to music when working at the computer, I would make mp3 files out of CDs anyway). 

Until now, there was no problem with buying and downloading mp3 music as long as I was in Germany (with my IP address to prove it). Recently, you decided to change to a new payment system and you promise that the customer can get the product with just one click. That actually works well with books for another (kind) product I have. With the mp3s, however, it does not work for me and instead I get a message that this purchase is only allowed for people residing in Germany. If you do not want to sell your products that is fine with me but what really annoys me is the fact that after 3 e-mails from my side, explaining that I have a German IP address AND a German provider AND am residing in Germany, you're still not believing me and instead tell me that I should use my computer at home since internet cafés and public places sometimes might use international IP addresses and if in doubt ask my provider. Strangely enough, all the tracking programmes I tried to check my IP address confirm that I am actually in Germany (and I know that I am or at least I thought that I was). And since you had no intention to take my problem seriously for the past 4 days and maybe look if something on your side was wrong (which can happen no doubt), I bought my music from a different store. You will not believe it, they never complained that my IP address was not German (and they have the same restrictions as you do).

Way to go!