Markus’ Blog

Everybody is writing about Rogers and their ridiculous iPhone plans these days. I will, too, but with the slight twist of comparing Roger’s plans to the plans available in Austria rather than the US.

The situation in Austria is different in the sense that the iPhone is offered by two cell phone providers: T-Mobile and One. That alone makes it more difficult for the individual provider to be as stupid as Rogers.

As of today, XE.com reports an exchange rate of $1.60 for €1, which makes things a little more expensive than they would have been even a month ago, compared to the Canadian Dollar.

T-Mobile:

Phone: €49 (8 GB), €99 (16 GB)
Contract duration: 24 months (changes to other iPhone plans allowed)
One-time activation fee: €49
Classic plan: €39/month: €0.25 per SMS, 1000 combined airtime minutes (mobile + landline in Austria)
Supreme plan: €55/month: 1000 SMS included, 1000 airtime minutes for each of the following categories T-Mobile, landline, other mobile carriers, voice mail (that’s 4000 minutes total)
Incoming calls: unlimited
Data plan: 3 GB of traffic included in the above
Data overage: €0.10/MB

One:

Phone: €149 (8 GB), €229 (16 GB)
Contract duration: 24 months (no changes allowed)
One-time activation fee: €0
Monthly fee: €10 for (Sep. ‘08 till Dec. ‘08), then €25
Airtime: 1000 minutes (all of Austria, cell and landline)
Incoming calls: unlimited
Data plan: €14/month for 100 SMS and 3 GB of traffic
Data overage: couldn’t find any information

Bottom line:

Not the greatest, but certainly more affordable than Rogers. From T-Mobile, you can purchase an iPhone for $158 ($79+$79), sign a 2-year contract and pay a monthly fee of $63, and that gives you more than Rogers: $199 for the phone and $115/month for the plan, locked in for 36 months. If you go over your bandwidth limit, it can still get expensive, but not as expensive as Rogers.

At the end of the day, I don’t think I’ll ever get the philosophy behind Roger’s iPhone plans. It’s the be sneaky, screw the customer over, take advantage of our monopoly, hope the customer runs past their bandwidth limit so we can charge even more approach. Customers are going to realize that (and they already have), and they’ll be rightfully pissed because of it. Rogers could have had a instead. Had they offered reasonable prices, they wouldn’t have been able to handle the stampede of eager customers, making good money in the process and not alienating their current and future clients. But no, they need to be stupid morons and try to make money the blunt (rub-it-in-our-face-we-are-the-monopoly) and sneaky (we-hope-you-exceed-your-bandwidth) way. I hope they get what they deserve, i. e. barely any iPhone sales. That’d be fun.

Would I, personally, be getting an iPhone if we had plans like the one offered by AT&T? Yes, absolutely. How about the T-Mobile or One plans from Austria? Maybe. Not sure. It’s on the verge, but still manageable enough that it could, realistically, be a yes. And with Roger’s plan? Hell, NO!

Apparently, a father held his own daughter captive for over two decades, abused, and had several children with her. I stuns and disgusts me how people can even think of doing anything like this.

All this happened in Amstetten, Lower Austria, maybe a 90 minute drive from where I grew up.

The story is making top headlines on CNN and the BBC, and probably most news broadcasters in the Western hemisphere.

Not even two years ago, a different case of a child being held hostage was finally discovered. That one happened even closer to where I used to live: in Gänserndorf, a mere 40 minute drive from Korneuburg. In that case, the victim managed to escape and the captor committed suicide.

I am sitting at a table at my parent’s place writing this post (typing on a German keyboard no less — leads to many wrong characters ;-)).

Happy New Year everybody!

Today was another day meeting with family — and saying good bye already. It’s almost time to head towards London already. It was a fun afternoon that went on for way longer than originally thought. My Grandma had tons and tons and tons of food — as per normal. And the most asked question there is “Do you want something to eat? To drink, maybe?” And if it’s not my Grandma asking, it’s my Aunt.

Brigette’s most used phrase these days is “Nein danke.” LOL

Tomorrow will be a shopping day in Vienna, on Thursday we’ll visit some exhibits and we’ll see if we can find some other ways of experiencing Vienna on our last day. Friday morning we’ll leave for London.

It’s cold and grey out (only -5°C, but a wind chill of -15°), but we’re having a quite good time nonetheless.

We met my relatives for Christmas day, took the 26th off of meeting people, went to the opera on the 27th and for dinner with my relatives again on the 28th. Tonight it’ll be the first encounter with my friends (at one of my friends’ apartments in Vienna) since summer 2005. Hopefully I’ll be able to meet more of them tomorrow night at the only pub in Korneuburg (Gwölb). We shall see, I still have to phone around a bit.

It’s Christmas Eve, the day we traditionally give and open presents in Austria. We’ll be doing a sort of culturally merged Christmas this year: opening presents the evening of the 24th and doing our stockings the morning of the 25th. My parents have had stockings of their own for two years now (don’t think they have put them to use yet ;-)), after I sent them stockings as one of my Christmas gifts two years ago.

Tomorrow (on the 25th) is also the time for the “big” traditional family get-together at my Grandma’s place. My auntie Irene, uncle Leopold and my cousins Günter and Marion as well as ourselves will show up at my Grandma’s place for yummy, yummy lunch (roast pork with bread dumplings) — to die for and soooooooo unhealthy lololol.

There’ll be a few more presents to open there, as well.

My mom’s sister, Hermi, has also invited us over for a short visit. We’ll be going there some time in the afternoon.

It’ll be a long day, but it should be fun. And that’ll be it for Christmas 2007.

We’ve been following the pre-Chrismas tradition of visiting Christmas markets yesterday and we’ll be going again today.

Yesterday we went to see the market at Schönbrunn. It was quite cold, not so much because of the temperature itself (-5°C), but more because of the strong wind. We were bundled up, but apparently not bundled up enough.

We had originally planned to visit another market yesterday, but were too frozen to do so, despite the hot fruit punches with rum.

Before venturing out to Schönbrunn, we had lunch with my parents and my grandma at the Donauturm, Vienna’s small version of the CN Tower (it looks more like CN Tower than the Harbour Outlook in Vancouver). The food was quite delicious (except for the salmon, which was only average), and the company was certainly nice. The view sucked big time, though. But what else is new in fall/winter in the Eastern (flat parts) of Austria: low fog every day and grey-in-grey all around. Above the fog layer it’s bright, clear sunshine, that’s why it’s beautiful weather in the Alps. Not so much in Vienna or Lower Austria. We still enjoyed ourselves, though.

Today, the plans are to do what we didn’t finish yesterday and to visit two or three more markets — and have more of that punch or some mulled wine (why else would one go to the Christmas market if not for the booze? lol)

We’ll be dressing warmer, this time, too.

We made it, we are in Austria, safe and sound. It wouldn’t be us, however, had there not been some hiccups along the way. I am just amazed how we always seem to be uncovering new ways of making a trip more “interesting”.

In the end it wasn’t so bad and worked out quite well. Way better than last year for our honeymoon. It started in Vancouver, when the Air Canada counter wouldn’t give us a boarding pass for our second leg (Heathrow to Vienna), because the “airline doesn’t allow us to print boarding passes for you at this point.” Our luggage was checked through okay, but we were instructed to go to the transfer desk in London and get ourselves boarding cards there.

That turned out to be a bit more of a hassle than originally thought. We only had 90 minutes to make the connection to begin with, and lining up for a boarding pass was not really the plan. In London we learned that another couple travelling from Vancouver to London and Vienna had managed to get boarding passes for the London-Vienna leg in Vancouver. Quite annoying that we couldn’t.

After taking a bus to a different terminal, we had to go through security again, even though we had just stepped off a plane and had never left the secure area. That’s a Heathrow special, it seems.

Then we had to wait in line for about 30 minutes in order to get our boarding passes from an agent who didn’t exactly look like she knew what she was doing. When she was done confirming with her supervisor that we were good to go, she told us to hurry, because boarding had already started. So, we rushed from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 — only to find out that nobody was getting on the plane yet. Not only that, our plane ended up being one hour late. Fun stuff. There’s nothing like rushing for nothing.

But the fun wasn’t over yet. We spent an hour waiting for our luggage in Vienna and it never showed up on the conveyor belt. In the end, we checked with the lost and found counter and, big surprise, found our three suitcases lined up nicely against one wall, together with a bunch of other luggage. Apparently some geniuses in London had loaded some luggage in a container where it should not have been and that’s why it was never put on the conveyor in Vienna. It was instead delivered directly to the lost and found area when the error was discovered in Vienna. We weren’t the only ones affected by this. The other couple we had talked to earlier in London (the ones that had gotten the boarding passes in Vancouver) had the exact same issue.

It was a long and sometimes stressful day of travelling, but in the end we got in safe and sound and with all our belongings. And that’s what really counts. Now Christmas holiday can finally start.

It’s less than a week now till the next big trip — this time back home to Austria to spend Christmas and New Year’s with family and friends. Starting to looking forward to it.

It will be the exact opposite of last year’s Christmas experience:

• It’ll be cold, not tropical and hot.
• It’ll be “old”, well known places, not new locations to explore.
• It’ll be with people I have know for a long time as opposed to new acquaintances.
• We’ll be gone over New Year’s as well.

For my schveetie pie it’s of course going to be the different than for me, given the language barrier, the fact that my family and friends are essentially strangers to her, and all the places are foreign as well. The different climate’s going to be the same for both of us, though.

Looks like Greater Vancouver made it into the Austrian News today. The article says that a jury in New Westminster, near Vancouver, found Robert Pickton guilty of murdering six women on his farm. It also gives a few more details about the case and talks about an upcoming trial against Pickton for murdering 20 more women.

Real fun stuff, I have to say. — I guess it could be so much worse (as in apartment trashed and tenants becoming violent), but it’s still annoying as hell.

My condo in Austria has been rented out since February 2006. The first year, during which it was rented to a middle-aged married couple, things went pretty well. The tenant tended to pay rent approximately a week late every month. Due to long weekends and holidays this sometimes lead to me not getting the rent till the 11^th or 12^th of the month. Getting it around the 6^th was “normal”. Not something you could get away with for very long in Canada, but laws are different in Austria. They are much more protective of the tenant, not the landlord, since the former is considered the “poorer” of the two while the latter is the “richer”. It’s stressing the social aspect of society. — Makes sense, I guess, in some ways, since people are not renting out the basements of their homes there to recover part of the mortgage cost, like they do here. So, somebody renting out is usually someone who can afford to own two places (one to live in, one to rent out) or is a commercial landlord. Plus it’s all about consumer protection and the tenant is, in this case, the “consumer equivalent” while the landlord is the “business owner”.

I was a little annoyed by his always paying late, but given the law and the fact that I am almost 9,000 km away, I just sucked it up.

Then that couple got divorced, in May 2007 or so. And the husband couldn’t afford the rent anymore on his own. Of course, he didn’t contact my mom ahead of time, letting her know what was going on. In June, he just stopped paying rent altogether without saying anything. Not good. My mom had to phone him up and find to what the hell was going on.

In the end, with the help of the realtor lady who had helped us find the renter, it was agreed that he would be moving out after two months and that the rent for these two months would come from his security deposit. The law requires three months of security deposit (not half a month as it is here). So, we kept two months of the deposit (as rent for June and July) and returned the third month to the tenant when he moved out.

The good parts about this story: the condo was in very good condition, not trashed in the least (it’s fully furnished), the guy was nice and understanding and didn’t try to put up a stink — which I am sure he could have to some extent, had he tried.

He was out by July 31, 2007, and our trusty realtor lady had already found a new tenant by that point. A young German business man who travels lots and was sick of staying in hotels. The furnished apartment was perfect for him.

He moved in the middle of August. So far, so good. There were a few hiccups getting the three months worth of security deposit from him (he obviously hadn’t done his research and didn’t know he’d need that much money up front), but in the end it worked out. It delayed his move into the condo by about two weeks, though.

However, it now looks like the fun hadn’t even started till that point yet. As unbelievable as it may sound, he has never paid his rent on time since moving in. Yes, NEVER. Not only did he not pay on time, it took several phone calls from my mom and meeting him in person each time to receive the rent — in cash. Afterwards, my mom had to go to the bank herself to deposit it.

He keeps promising that he’ll set up an Austrian bank account and create an automatic monthly transfer to take care of the rent, but this has not happened to date. How hard is it again to open a bank account? Not very. It took me about three weeks (if that) after coming to Canada to open a chequings and a savings account. Besides, the European Monetary Union ensures that it is possible to transfer funds within the EU free of charge, meaning he could even pay the rent from his German account just fine.

He seems to be a nice, friendly, reliable guy, and he has always been very respectful and forthcoming when my mom phoned him (and met him in person), which I appreciate — but come on. I know you are lying to her, dude. If you really wanted to set up an automatic bank transfer, like you claim, you had plenty of time to do so by now. Since the middle of August, to be precise. It’s not that hard. Yes, you are traveling lots, but still. And there’s always web-banking.

I have now invoked the help of our trusty realtor lady. She seems pretty confident that she can talk some sense into him. I hope she’s right, but she has never let us down. If she can’t do it, then nobody can and my current tenant is a real stupid MOFO (for not listening to her) and I’d like to have him out of the condo today rather than tomorrow.

Oh, and did I mention that he hasn’t paid his rent for November yet? Well, I guess, that didn’t really come as a surprise now, did it.