Hi there - sorry about the mess at the moment, but this is kind of a new project in process. Hope you stick around to see the new features as they come online.

If you were expecting a photo album or something else - sorry, but those are not currently available.

Until a few minutes I was going to be ranting about some awful gunk I've been dealing with at the office - but now I've just hit yet another useless corporate black hole (compare with my earlier rant about Valve and Portal).

Anyway, here goes:

I downloaded the Spore Creature Editor Trial over the weekend... if you're not a gamer (or if you are and somehow missed this most hyped game for the past 3 or 4 years), Spore is an ambitious game that will take you from single-celled lifeforms through to galactic domination. When it gets here, that is.

Meanwhile, to sate the hungry crowds - the developers have released the creature editor, so that expectant gamers everwhere can build fire-breathing super-flying six-legged cow-beasties.
As I mentioned, I have this in trial version. This limits you to about 25% of the options available, and I fancied having a look see at the full monty.

Frustration #1

If you've visited the Spore site (I did link it for you), then you may notice that there is no option for Australia on the countries list. There is UK and a US one, though - so I thought I'd trek through them (good as I am at computer languages - foreign ones are a bit difficult for me).

I found the purchase I needed (only 5GBP or 10USD) - but neither of the English speaking sites included Australia (the US only lists Canada and the US, the UK lists pretty much all of Europe, Asia and Africa).

Frustration #2

Not to lose heart - I noticed the "worldwide" button at the top, which took me to the EA home page (the publishers behind the game). And there, on that page, was a button for Australia - getting somewhere.

I found the game - but not available to buy from the e-store. What?!

Frustration #3

So, still wanting to try and find some method of paying EA some money for the privilege of getting the other 75% of the editor features, I went to their customer support page.

2.48AUD a minute... so, at least 10AUD just to find out if I can buy the game (or, most likely, to listen to tinny music fade in and out while a voice periodically reminds me exactly how much EA value my custom - yeah, right).

The only method is to sign up for what I should just start calling YASMB (Yet Another Support Message Board). Seriously, I'm thinking there might be a business just to handle support issues on behalf of people who just can't face another signup to another site for only one simple question.

What is it with these companies that they feel they have to make us work for something that we're paying them for anyway?

All I want is a fire-breathing super-flying six-legged cow-beasty and name it Rover.