Not sure whether it's an age thing but the days, months and years seem to just fly by for me.
Dropped my son off at Uni in September and it seems like only a few weeks back, but he's back tomorrow after over 3 months of being away.
The wife's big operation was five months ago and that also seems like only weeks ago.
Has the world speeded up or are the things I do nowadays responsible, watching TV, using the internet etc are all time consuming while giving the impression you haven't achieved anything, so is my brain relating achievment to time periods as in "he's only done 2 weeks work in the last 3 months, so it's only been 2 weeks"?
I know what I mean.... haha
Saturday 13 December 2008
Junk Spam Whatever
I wonder what the chances are that the people who have sent me all that junk mail recently read my little rant the other day?
Just seemed strange that I've just checked my mailbox and not one single mail about Viagra, Rolexes or College degrees were there, usually it's at least ten per day at the minimum.
Got my customary bank scam one which was kinda funny as the link to verify my account had an address leading to Scubapirate.com which seemed appropriate :)
Just seemed strange that I've just checked my mailbox and not one single mail about Viagra, Rolexes or College degrees were there, usually it's at least ten per day at the minimum.
Got my customary bank scam one which was kinda funny as the link to verify my account had an address leading to Scubapirate.com which seemed appropriate :)
Thursday 11 December 2008
Bargain?
So all the high street shops are offering massive discounts in the attempt to get credit crunch hit families in before Christmas.
Now I'm cynical of all "half price" and "60% off" type discounts as over and over again I see products still costing the same as they used to before the discounts, there are laws against this but the department that enforces it must be totally overrun as every store is doing it.
It was nice to be proved right again today as the wife went to buy my Daughter-in-law a Christmas present, she had checked in an old Argos catalogue we had (the early 2008 edition) and the price was £14.99, so she went in and was shocked to see the price had doubled to £29.99 in the new catalogue but on checking the with the cashier she found out that there was a 50% Christmas discount on the item bringing the price down to the original £14.99 .... that was lucky!!
Who said Rip Off, no the increase during the year was obviously down to the price of Oil wasn't it? I know it's only a jewellery item but there must be a legitimate reason for the 100% increase during the year.
Sigh
Now I'm cynical of all "half price" and "60% off" type discounts as over and over again I see products still costing the same as they used to before the discounts, there are laws against this but the department that enforces it must be totally overrun as every store is doing it.
It was nice to be proved right again today as the wife went to buy my Daughter-in-law a Christmas present, she had checked in an old Argos catalogue we had (the early 2008 edition) and the price was £14.99, so she went in and was shocked to see the price had doubled to £29.99 in the new catalogue but on checking the with the cashier she found out that there was a 50% Christmas discount on the item bringing the price down to the original £14.99 .... that was lucky!!
Who said Rip Off, no the increase during the year was obviously down to the price of Oil wasn't it? I know it's only a jewellery item but there must be a legitimate reason for the 100% increase during the year.
Sigh
Oliver Postgate RIP
Strange thing happened the other night while watching the news on TV, they announced the death of Oliver Postgate and I suddenly felt incredibly sad :(
Know I didn't know the man and to be honest I probably would never have even recognised him if I saw him, but I felt the sort of sadness you only get when a loved family member or close friend dies.
For anyone who hasn't heard of him he was the creator of classic kids animations in the 1960/70's such as the Clangers, Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nog amongst others.
The sort of TV programmes I grew up with and will still sit and watch if they appear on Telly, I even bought the box set of Clangers on DVD.
This was the sort of innocent childrens TV that is now sadly missing, you knew it was cheaply made but you didn't care because that's what gave it it's charm.
The closest thing I can think of today is Nick Park's plasticine animations such as Wallace and Gromit and Creature Comforts.
Here's a classic Clangers episode
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wfsMZKwqw3w
Junk Mail
Since having a computer and e-mail I've always received junk mail but lately it's getting ridiculous.The pic (left) is a small selection of the 200+ junk mails I've had in the last week, I don't know any of the people in the "from" or "to" boxes and if your name is there it probably means your computer is carrying some sort of trojan / mailing worm and you need to run anti-virus.
I hate to think just how much if the internet's bandwidth is being wasted with this amount of junk flying around, surely it's only a matter of time before this and all the annoying advertising on every web site kills the net.
About 5 years ago I could happily surf the web with a 33.6 kb modem connection, now it's not much faster despite a 20 gb broadband connection due to every site having a multitude of flashing adverts and pop-ups.
Reasons for my increase in junk mail over the last couple of months? I've put it down to one or two things (or both).
In this period I joined Facebook, and I used my e-mail address on one of those car insurance comparison sites.
Just in case anyone sending out this shit cares!!
I don't need Viagra or Cialex (I have no problems in that area)
I don't want a replica Rolex (My old Timex works fine)
I don't need a genuine college degree (because it's not genuine is it).
Friday 5 December 2008
What a bunch of Bankers
So I go into the bank today (the one who cut my overdraft after I used it for the first time in years) to deposit the money they wanted after withdrawing it from my gambling account.
I decide not to have an argument over their pretty shitty way of treating me so I'm reasonably calm at the counter and then the assistant says to me "have you received a leaflet about the banking changes?", "No" I say "what's changed", so he tells me that I can no longer draw out less than £30 and I can't ask for a mini statement at the counter.
Cue a mood swing "So you're going to cut your bank charges then due to the reduced service are you", he replies "no sir it's to reduce waiting time at the counter" so I point out that it takes as long to withdraw £30 as it does £10 and possibly longer.
He gives me the raised eyes look so I then ask what happens if I only have £29 and he says I can still use the ATM, "and what if I only have £9.99 how do I get my money then as the ATM has a £10 minimum" "surely you stopping me from withdrawing MY money is theft and must be against the law".
Don't know if he's buzzed for help but another member of staff appears and rescues him by taking me off to her desk.
I make my point and also tell her what I think about their overdraft policy but as usual it's banging your head against a brick wall with these people.
I still regret the day all those years ago when my work told me that they weren't paying us in cash anymore and we had to open bank accounts.
I decide not to have an argument over their pretty shitty way of treating me so I'm reasonably calm at the counter and then the assistant says to me "have you received a leaflet about the banking changes?", "No" I say "what's changed", so he tells me that I can no longer draw out less than £30 and I can't ask for a mini statement at the counter.
Cue a mood swing "So you're going to cut your bank charges then due to the reduced service are you", he replies "no sir it's to reduce waiting time at the counter" so I point out that it takes as long to withdraw £30 as it does £10 and possibly longer.
He gives me the raised eyes look so I then ask what happens if I only have £29 and he says I can still use the ATM, "and what if I only have £9.99 how do I get my money then as the ATM has a £10 minimum" "surely you stopping me from withdrawing MY money is theft and must be against the law".
Don't know if he's buzzed for help but another member of staff appears and rescues him by taking me off to her desk.
I make my point and also tell her what I think about their overdraft policy but as usual it's banging your head against a brick wall with these people.
I still regret the day all those years ago when my work told me that they weren't paying us in cash anymore and we had to open bank accounts.
Thursday 4 December 2008
Ban DVD's
20+ Years of video collection (and even some bought at full price).
Now they're all worth less than 50p each :(
Might just be me? but some of the later ones were pretty poor quality even when bought new.
Would that have been the companies trying to persaude you that you needed to buy them all again on DVD for top quality?
I wonder if the quality of DVD's will now start to diminish in the hope that we all go out and buy replacement Blu Ray discs?
A New Collection
New health warnings on my ciggie packs.
Have to smoke more so I can get the full set.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
Bank Whores
They love you when you've got plenty of money, but as soon as time's get hard they just want to drop you.
Not the first time it's happened to me but it still pisses you off, when I had a fair amount of money with them and a regular wage it was "we love you" and here's a bigger overdraft even though you've never asked for it.
But as soon as you go overdrawn its "we've had to review your overdraft and we've decided to reduce it, so please pay in the required amount to keep your balance in credit".
I assume they think I have bank accounts elsewhere with thousands of pounds of spare cash!!
A nice touch by them was to have my new zero overdraft in effect from the 26th December.. Merry Christmas.
'kin Bastards
Not the first time it's happened to me but it still pisses you off, when I had a fair amount of money with them and a regular wage it was "we love you" and here's a bigger overdraft even though you've never asked for it.
But as soon as you go overdrawn its "we've had to review your overdraft and we've decided to reduce it, so please pay in the required amount to keep your balance in credit".
I assume they think I have bank accounts elsewhere with thousands of pounds of spare cash!!
A nice touch by them was to have my new zero overdraft in effect from the 26th December.. Merry Christmas.
'kin Bastards
Insurance Vandals
Received an e-mail from Direct Line offering me car insurance with vandalism cover.
The headline was "are you worried about the car vandalism in my town", now I hadn't heard about any vandalism in my town so wondered why they mentioned it?
Three days later I read the local paper and it reported a spate of car vandalism had occurred the day before in my town.
Coincidence maybe?
I can't help thinking that some marketing type had bunged a few quid into the hands of a local hoodie gang and told them to go round and smash a few motors, but they had obviously taken longer than expected to do it so the e-mails had already been sent.
Of course this is just my opinion.
The headline was "are you worried about the car vandalism in my town", now I hadn't heard about any vandalism in my town so wondered why they mentioned it?
Three days later I read the local paper and it reported a spate of car vandalism had occurred the day before in my town.
Coincidence maybe?
I can't help thinking that some marketing type had bunged a few quid into the hands of a local hoodie gang and told them to go round and smash a few motors, but they had obviously taken longer than expected to do it so the e-mails had already been sent.
Of course this is just my opinion.
Wannabe Gangster
I've finally found a reason for using Facebook, the addictive games.
Loads of gangster games like Mob Wars, Mafia wars, Gang wars etc where you can gather together mobs of "friends" (or people you'll never ever meet or know) to go around committing various crimes and murders in this virtual world.
Bad taste yes, but really addictive.
Tesco Shares
The wife cashed in her Tesco shares a couple of months back as she wanted to get another car (or old banger).
She'd accrued them while working for Tesco's for many years and they were worth about a grand.
I thought she was mad as one company in Britain that seems to always be on the up is Tesco's due to them taking over every free space and garage around (we have around ten of their outlets within five miles of us).
But it seems that people have finally realised that Tesco's are ripping people off (with their prices now looking more like Waitrose), where they used to be one of the cheaper supermarkets.
The share price has tumbled as worries over stores like Aldi, Iceland and Lidl who are taking Tesco's customers.
At times in the past I have shopped in all of them and Aldi and Iceland are pretty good although I'd have to be desperate to shop at Lidl's (personal opinion based on some right crap I bought there a few years back).
I think a lot of people are following my style of shopping where you buy the products on offer at a specific shop and don't touch the other goods which they've raised the prices on to cover the advertised bargains.
So the upshot is that she has made a couple of hundred pounds more than if she cashed them in now :)
she should be a stockbroker with that financial insight.
She'd accrued them while working for Tesco's for many years and they were worth about a grand.
I thought she was mad as one company in Britain that seems to always be on the up is Tesco's due to them taking over every free space and garage around (we have around ten of their outlets within five miles of us).
But it seems that people have finally realised that Tesco's are ripping people off (with their prices now looking more like Waitrose), where they used to be one of the cheaper supermarkets.
The share price has tumbled as worries over stores like Aldi, Iceland and Lidl who are taking Tesco's customers.
At times in the past I have shopped in all of them and Aldi and Iceland are pretty good although I'd have to be desperate to shop at Lidl's (personal opinion based on some right crap I bought there a few years back).
I think a lot of people are following my style of shopping where you buy the products on offer at a specific shop and don't touch the other goods which they've raised the prices on to cover the advertised bargains.
So the upshot is that she has made a couple of hundred pounds more than if she cashed them in now :)
she should be a stockbroker with that financial insight.
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