Category: Random

I recently found myself in dire need for a new pair of decent cotton pants and since I already knew what size I wanted, I decided that I would try to buy my pants on-line. I had soon set my sights on a fine pair of Dockers khakis in my latest quest to go from ‘rags to britches’. Dockers are an internationally famous brand of slacks produced by the Levi Strauss company, for those of you not so well versed in the world of such ‘off-the-peg clothing for gentlemen’—a term which I admit is a bit of a contradictio in terminis by the way, but I digress. So anyway, I was quite hopeful that I could buy the pants I wanted, in the size I wanted, in pretty much any website that sold them.

Well, my extensive search landed my on all kinds of websites, ranging from the pricey web shop on Dockers.com to the more affordable, and apparently laborer abusing, Germany based retail store Zalando. They all had the exact model Dockers pants I wanted, but oddly they just never had my size: W42/L30. They did have W42, but then length of the pant legs was never right; L32, L34, L36, etc. And if they did have L30, then the width was never right; W34, W32, etc. I thought it was really weird. Like I was jinxed or something, or fate was playing some cruel joke. And I don’t mean that my size just happened to be out-of-stock, I mean that my size wasn’t even listed as an option at all. They just didn’t sell them. So in the end, I ended up getting a pair of Dockers in size W42/L34 and having those four inch longer pant legs taken in by a tailor. That cost extra of course and made the pant legs look a bit too wide. So that displeased me.

But what could I do? If this is the best I can find, then there’s not much I can do about it. However, I started asking myself whether I had done something wrong. Did I look in the wrong websites? I don’t think so. Was a new collection about to arrive, thus prompting sales and causing popular sizes to sell out? Also not likely. The Dockers khakis are supposed to be timeless classics, available all year round. Well then, is my size simply so damn popular that the massive 1000 horsepower sewing machines used in tiny Asian sweatshops are simply unable to sew the pants together fast enough to keep up with demand? I hope not, because W42 is a big size so that would imply that most people are obese. And I’m happy to say that isn’t the case, not in Europe and surprisingly not even in the US. So if that isn’t it… then what?

I think I know, because I made an interesting discovery recently. I noticed that you could also buy Dockers on Amazon.com in the US. Not only that, but Amazon.com even has my size! Look at the screenshot below, see?

But importing stuff from the US is a bit problematic—what if I need to return the pants because I’m not happy with them? But apparently Amazon.com also has stores in Europe; Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. All of those sell Dockers too. So then I started by checking out two the Amazon stores in Germany and the UK. But guess what: they don’t have my size. Check out this screenshot from Amazon.de, for example.

Alright, we have now established that the pants are not available on-line anywhere in Europe. Not in any of the Amazon websites, not in Zalando, not on a number of other sites I didn’t mention here. Hell, they aren’t even available on Docker’s own damn website for the Netherlands. Thus I have know established that the only way I can get these pants is to order them from outside Europe. Well okay then, it would be pretty difficult to return them if I don’t like them, but let’s say I do just that. Now let’s say I order them from the Amazon.com site in the United States; it’s a huge, well known company and they do ship to countries outside the US. That’s just what I’m looking for. So you’d be inclined to think that sounds like a very good idea, right?

How mistaken you would be. Because shipping stuff to the other side of the world is actually a bit more expensive than domestic mail. And as soon as the Dutch mail company gets the package, they have to declare it to customs. Cost? Depending on the package, €13,— or €17,50. Then (depending on how many pants I buy) customs will charge a further 21% revenue tax and 12% duty over the entire value of the shipment, including the shipment costs. My word, this is turning out to be a complicated an potentially expensive enterprise. But why is the Dutch government making it so unattractive for me to buy my Dockers outside Europe?

One of the main reasons for these taxes and duties is to prevent foreign nations from overwhelming the Dutch market with cheap products, as that would damage the Dutch economy. And we all know how weak and fragile the Dutch economy is, ahem. While some basic protectionism may seem reasonable, it basically boils down to the ridiculous idea that import is bad and export is good—a notion that was famously challenged by Frédéric Bastiat. Right, let’s see if I understand correctly—I would be paying all that extra money for what exactly? To help ensure that the domestic Dockers market of The Netherlands is not inundated by W42/L30 Dockers khakis? Why exactly would that be a bad thing? On the contrary, from my perspective it looks like what the Dutch economy needs most right now is precisely a massive levee shaking deluge of Dockers. Flood the holms, break the dikes, and dam(n) the Dutch mercantilism!

OS X is renowned for its ability to configure peripheral devices automatically as soon as you connect them—usually all that is required is an Internet connection for downloading drivers and such. Thus, since I began using my Macbook, I have found that life really is has become so much easier without the need for all those installation CDs, or having to track down the product support page on some hardware manufacturer’s website. Such common annoyances that I endured regularly as a  lowly ‘PC’ user are now a thing of the past. I just plug something in, the laptop asks me to install the drivers and then it just works. Most of the time.

But sometimes, every now and then, something doesn’t immediately work just the way you expect it in OS X. And one of those things is the Creative Sound Blaster USB audio system. You see, I happen to like gramophone players. And I find it very convenient to be able to just plug in a USB cable and then just record and play records with superior audio quality. In other words, one of the main things I use the Sound Blaster for is to connect a gramophone player so that I can listen to vinyl records via a pair of separately connected active computer speakers. For an idea of my setup, see the following diagram.

Looks fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? So you would expect that everything would work fine, once you go into the sound configuration menu in OS X and select ‘Embedded phonograph’ as ‘sound-input’ and ‘USB Sound Blaster HD’ as ‘sound-output’. Wouldn’t you? I know I would.

Indeed, any reasonable sort of fellow would just start playing a vinyl record at this point and fully expect the vintage music to start pleasantly hissing and popping out the speakers. At least, this was my hindsightedly rather naive expectation. So when that didn’t happen, my initial surprise was rapidly succeeded by considerable disappointment, utter befuddlement and bitter frustration—in short order.

Then I began searching the web for a solution, but found bupkis. Someone suggested that I try Jack for OS X, but I found this program to be overly complicated and (in spite of reading the manual and following the instructions) incapable of solving the problem. I am currently employing a temporary solution by using Audacity—a great free audio editor and recorder. Just start monitoring the right input source, and you can suddenly hear the music. I posted a hopefully bearably short video on youtube to demonstrate what I tried initially and how Audacity for reasons unknown to me just works.

While I still have no idea why the records don’t just play normally in OS X, I think the fact that Audacity somehow does manage this is cause for optimism. I feel it’s just a matter of pinpointing what Audacity is doing exactly. Hopefully I will soon figure out what the problem is, but until then this provisional solution will do nicely. And of course I also hope this workaround might help someone else. But if anyone has a better suggestion or can point to something I forgot to try, then I’d love to read about it in the comments!

[UPDATE]
I forgot to mention a crucial setting you have to apply in Audacity in order for this solution to work! You must enable the option ‘Software playthrough: Listen while recording or monitoring new track”. To do so, just select ‘preferences‘ in the menu and go to ‘recording‘. There, make sure that option is ticked and click on OK. Now start monitoring again as I demonstrate in the video and it should work!

More importantly, I think I have found out what the problem is. It would appear that Apple’s OS 9 used to have the option to ‘play input through audio device’. See also this picture of the OS 9 menu where that option may be selected.

So apparently this option was removed in OS X. A great pity if you ask me. But I have discovered a simple small free program that is designed specifically to enable sound pass-through on OS X. It’s aptly called LineIn and appears to be actively maintained by its developer. Just select whatever input you like and whatever output you want and press the big ‘Pass Thru’ button. In other words, much easier to use than Audacity for this purpose. Here’s a screenshot. Problem solved.

LineIn screenshot

Day 1.

Thankfully, I don’t need to see a doctor very often. But recently, I found myself requiring the opinion of a specialist. So I went to see my doctor and she used the online system to refer me to a healthcare institution in Utrecht. All seemed just fine and dandy up until then. However, the next day I got a call from Utrecht and that’s when the problems began (the following conversations are all rough translations and not verbatim):

Day 2.

Me: “Hello?”

Utrecht: “Good morning, am I speaking with Menzonius?”

Me: “Yes, that’s my name.”

Utrecht: “Excellent, I’m calling because we received a reference from your doctor, is that correct?”

Me: “That’s right, yes.”

Utrecht: Great, we’d like to make an appointment with you. How would June 11 suit you?

Me: ?? (Here I am thinking: WTF?? That’s almost 3 months from now!)

Utrecht: “Hello?”

Me: “Uhhhh, okay… Would it be possible to see someone a bit sooner? It is rather urgent.”

Utrecht: “I’m afraid not, no.”

Me: “Okay, in that case would it be possible to go to one of your other branches, such as in Hilversum, if they can see me sooner?”

Utrecht: “No problem, but we can’t refer you; you have to ask your doctor for another separate referral for that.”

Me: “Rrrrrright…. I’ll do that then. Thanks. (for nothing)

Utrecht: “That’s alright, good day.”

Great. So then I call the doctor again. But I forgot you can only call the practice between 8am—12pm for appointments. Wonderful.

Day 3.

So, the next morning I give the ol’ medicine man a call again. I get the assistant on the other line and I tell her about the issue. She in turn informs me the doc is out on Fridays, but she’ll discuss it with the doctor on Monday.

Day 6.

True to her word, I get a call on Monday and the doctor has agreed to refer me to the branch in Almere which has a waiting list of only one week. She will email me the case number of the online referral via email. I need that number for all correspondence with the healthcare institution. The email will arrive in one or two days. Problem solved, right? Guess again…

Day 9.

One or two days pass by, and still no email. So I call again, and the assistant explains: “Ah, yes, sorry about that—there appears to be some technical problem with the online referral system. We will try again this afternoon and then you will either receive an email, or else I’ll call you.”

Day 10.

No email, no call. Great. So next morning I call again. The assistant informs me: “Sorry about this, but there’s still a big problem with the online referral system. How about we just give you a written referral note from the doctor and you just make an appointment by phoning the specialist you want to see? The doctor is not in today, would it be possible for you to pick up the referral on Monday?”

Looks like I don’t have a choice, so I agree to pick up the note on Monday. In the mean time, I call the general 0900 number for the healthcare institution in question and then the following conversation ensues:

Me: “Good afternoon, I was initially referred to your branch in Utrecht, but because of the incredibly long waiting list I requested my doctor to refer me to Almere. However, the online reference system is giving problems right now, so I will pick up the reference note on Monday. Would it be possible to make an appointment?

0900: “I’m afraid you’ll need to get the reference note first.”

Me: “Uhhh, but I already have a reference note for your branch in Utrecht. And I will get another one on Monday, so I will definitely have a reference by the time I get to see anyone in Almere. In fact, I will have two.

0900: Yes, but the first referral is only valid in Utrecht. We don’t want patients registered in two systems.

Me: ??? (Here I am thinking: What the hell kind of dumb fucking system is that?)

0900: Also, the insurance will give us problems if the date on the referral is after today’s date. And it is also our company policy to only make appointments for patients who already have a referral.

Me: Jesus Christ! Even if it’s only to make the appointment? Even though I will definitely bring a doctor’s reference with me? Even though I technically already have a referral?

0900: Yes, I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.

Me: Right, interesting. I’ll call again on Monday then. Okay, thanks.

0900: Alright, you’re welcome.

Next week, the saga continues on Menzonius.nl: Day 13 and beyond—will Menzonius finally get that appointment? Or will he transform into a bug-like creature? Stay tuned!