Compare Prepaid Mobile Phone Charges

Vodafone have closed down Crazy Johns.  It is still possible to recharge existing sim cards but one can't buy new ones.

I figured I would see what prepaid plans are out there and try to compare them in some systematic way.

I am sure the providers do their best to make it as hard as possible to make these comparisons.  So I had to simplify things a bit.




For each option I record the following
  The actual australian dollar cost of the recharge
  The included dollar value for calls to land lines and other companies mobiles.
  The number of included voice minutes
  The number of included text messages.
  The flag fall cost
  The cost per minute (if they sell in 30 sec blocks I just convert to minutes)
  The cost per text message.

I ignore any free or discounted calls to mobiles on the same company.
I ignore the discount to night time calls.
I ignore the data side of it all together.
And I created a google spread sheet.  You can change it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aoydfm9DZtASdEdLdjYtNUlNZS0zYjNGc0VpaFJLUlE&usp=sharing

Flashpoint 24-feb-2012

This weeks lectionary readings

Readings for the Coming Week

Second Sunday in Lent (February 24, 2013)

• First reading
  • Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 - Lords covenant with Abram
• Psalm
  • Psalm 27
• Second reading
  • Philippians 3:17-4:1
• Gospel
  • Luke 13:31-35 or 
  • Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a) - the transfiguration
  •  
  •  

It looks like Luke 13_31-35 is the go

Luke 13:31-35

Good News Translation (GNT)

Jesus' Love for Jerusalem

³¹ At that same time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “You must get out of here and go somewhere else, because Herod wants to kill you.”
³² Jesus answered them, “Go and tell that fox: ‘I am driving out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I shall finish my work.’ ³³ Yet I must be on my way today, tomorrow, and the next day; it is not right for a prophet to be killed anywhere except in Jerusalem.
³⁴ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets, you stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me! ³⁵ And so your Temple will be abandoned. I assure you that you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

SCIENCE EXPERIMENT / CHILDRENS TALK
Pending a better suggestion we will do the guided balloon thing.
We have a taught string.  A straw on the string.  A balloon stuck to the straw.
Blow the balloon up & Let go.
It is directed and races along the string.
We contrast this with just letting the balloon go and it just flies randomly around and ends up any place.  Could be behind us or even comes back to where it started from.

And the parallel is ....
In the bible reading, Jesus is focussed on his task.
In the demo, the balloon is guided by the string just like Jesus was guided by his calling from God.


 

Ellie's disgusing birthday party

Today after church we went to Rocks riverside park to Ellie's disgusting birthday party. We believe to celebrate her eighth birthday. We ran into a number of people we knew - The Mawhinnies, Filardo's. And need was say those Horky's.

Doninique - Disgusting

Still disgusting

Cybele and friend - definately not disgusting.

Paul set up this tarp.  The first game involved spagettie.  We are led to understand that some small girl vomited and the boys though she was just getting into the spirit of the game

Jemma - Disgusting

Row your boat up the road

The recent flood inundated the BGS boat shed.

They organised a working bee and took all the stuff to a nearby industrial shed.

I arrived on Wednesday to do my usual parent volunteer thing and it was amazing.  A huge shed 3/4 full of boats.

Rumour has it donated by a Terrace parent.  For those who do not keep up with such things "Terrace" is St Josephs school up the road from BGS and that makes them the competition.

The Shed had all the BGS boats and some of the GPS boats.  I row from the GPS shed.

With the River closed it was land training.  Here we have rows of "Ergos" (Rowing machines).

You can see some big fans at the back and when the kids were on the machines they had music pumping and the atmosphere was electric and reeked with the smell of sweat.

 Chris is in the dark Tee shirt second in.

When not on Ergo's the kids were running and leaping and playing touch footie.

I was amazed at how the school reacted and made very good use of the time.  A lot of coaching on style and improving fitness at the same time.  In many ways they worked harder on both fitness and style than they were doing on the water.  Lets hope they can translate all of that onto the water in the coming weeks.

 Today was the big move back for both the GPS and BGS clubs.

6:30am saw me lugging GPS boats.
Then from 11-1:30 I was doing my ever helpful parent role with the Grammar (BGS) kids and then at 3:00 Chris and I helped the BGS move.

Most of the boats were simply carried about 1km back to the BGS shed.

 Parents, old boys and all chipped in.  There were also some ladies with very niceairconditiond cars to drive up back to pick up another boat.  Reminder to self - Boats get heavier, much heavier the further they are walked out of the water.

Coming onto the apron at the BGS shed.  You saw this under water in the first photo.

Many of the boats had had their riggers removed and so there was a working bee to bolt them back on.

5:00pm all done.

This is the GPS shed early afternoon on the Tuesday.  I believe this is pretty much as high as it got.  Maybe half a meter higher

This would make launching so much easier.  At low tide the ramp slopes down a lot.

Movie Review - Flight

Friday night and the last free Friday night for the term.  The calendar is full.  mostly P1.

Marcus, Sarah and Dan having a sleepover at Bryace & Steven's.
Chris could look after himself for dinner.

A voucher for the "Blue Room" Cenema had appeared at my party (Thankyou).  This is a nice venue.  The seating is in pairs and you share a little table.  Food and drink is deleivered during the  movie.  Megan and I had excellent pizza.

Being my birthday, I chose the movie flight.  Billed as an action drama as I recall.

Well it turned out to be a little like chocolate mud cake.  Looks good and all that chocolate raise your expectations but when you get into it it just does not deliver.  Somewhat dry and leaving you with a feeling that it could have been a lot better.

Spoiler alert - Don't click the read more link!