Optus – amazingly – say they can’t get a line from Telstra to run into our new home in Red Hill. 
I say they can go and get screwed – but I also always say “Don’t get even, get ahead.”
It’s time to stick two fingers up at the telcos and go for naked DSL.
What services [...]

“The Federal Opposition is concerned by an ABC report that people linked to a bikie gang were allowed access to the Prime Minister’s Canberra residence.
“ABC’s Insiders program says it has been told four men turned up to the Lodge late last year claiming to be maintenance workers.
“It is alleged they spent an hour inside the [...]

I want a gardener. Not a landscape artiste. Not a Jamie Durie. Not a horticulturalist. Not an arborist. I want an old fashioned gardener.
I want someone who will come once a month and mow the lawn, pull up the weeds, cut back what needs to be cut back – and preferably take cash in exchange [...]

We got home tonight to our place in the inner-south and found 24 – count ‘em – 24 separate items of junk mail* in our letterbox. Is this some sort of record?
In one way it’s tempting to contact the advertisers to let them know that the scumbags they have delivering their junk are ripping them [...]

We’ve just returned from a fantastic weekend at Mona, just outside Braidwood, but at $450 for the first night it’s not exactly somewhere we can go regularly.
So, what are the decent B&Bs and country pubs to spend a weekend in within a couple of hours drive from Canberra?
Any ideas?

I’d like to have a regular cleaner. We can afford a regular cleaner. Household politics prevent it – and the place is disgusting.
I want to get someone in for a spring-clean style top to bottom job, but don’t want to pay through the nose. Do RiotACTors have any suggestions? The cleaner(s) must be available next [...]

Here’s a weird one. I was looking for flowers last week for a Mother’s Day present for my thirthsomething wife.
I thought Manuka would have something  smart sophisticated. Instead, they had flowers you might take a maiden aunt on her deathbed. They were old fashioned, drab and embarassing.
Are there any decent florists in this god-forsaken town?

I know Canberrans like to talk about their general level of education, culture etc… so is there a video library anywhere in the ACT that offers arthouse, classic cinema and foreign language fare, not just your standard Blockbuster dross?
And as a long term visitor to Canberra but only a recent visitor, where are all the [...]