King of Excellent (according to Scaryduck)

Sunday, January 30

Just a quickie...

I have had this emailed to me, and it is a perfect relation to the dodgy lyrics.

Enjoy.

Saturday, January 29

URGENT VIRUS NOTICE

There is a dangerous virus being passed electronically, orally and by hand.

This virus is called "work". If you receive work from any of your colleagues, your boss or anyone else via any means do not touch it. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with work put your jacket on and take 2 good friends to the nearest pub.

Purchase the antidote known as "Wine". The quickest acting is called Chardonnay but this is only available for those who can afford it, the voluntary sector equivalent is Lambrusco. Take the antidote repeatedly until work has been completely eliminated from your system.

Update 28-01-05: after extensive testing it has been concluded that beer may be substituted for wine but may require a more generous application

Friday, January 28

Domain Wars

And who said the small man cannot take on the big corporation singlehandedly?

Since the dawn of the World Wide Web back in 1994, domain names have become valuable commodities and people have held corporate giants to ransom when they want to create their website only to find the website name has been already snaffled up.

One of the first instances of this was the case of the two brothers that purchased the "www.apple.com" domain name, and then sold it to Apple for $3m. And fair plays to them I say. More recently Apple have again come into the limelight when their Itunes domain was found to have been already set up by Benjamin Cohen, and understandably he is taking a stand and saying it's his, and they can only buy it from him.

A better twist was a young 17 year old student, who's name was Michael Rowe. He set up a website for his fellow students to talk about anything and everything. He even had some programming tips on there, so what else could he call himself but Mike Rowe Soft? Bill Gates himself took offence to this blatant attempt at hijack a Microsoft name, and took the young genius to court. They offered to pay what he had paid for the domain name ($10) and he laughed at them. At the end of the day, he has more right to the domain name then they do.

All I need to do know is find a domain name I can Cybersquat on.

Oh look. www.blogger.co.uk is available.

Thursday, January 27

Spam is now the scourge of my life.

bastards

Like I'm not fed up with spam already, I wish I could come up with a way to return the sodding email to the real sender, not the sent return adddress. The picture is of my email spam filter, after my one day excursion to London. As you can (possibly) see, you will see I have 3154 emails spread across 3 accounts. Fortunately the spam filter does it's job, and I find that not one of them is actually a real email. I have a large list of IP addresses that are from email senders, and one day I will email each and everyone of the senders some crap email made up of each and every other email sent.

That'll teach the bastards.

Wednesday, January 26

Don't touch me, no really, don't.

I am sat here trying to work out which part of me hurts the most. Let me explain.

Each year on the last Tuesday of January, I head up to the big multinational cosmopolitan cess pit that is London to see my old colleagues from the leisure industry. Earls Court (note to self: who was Earl, and what did he catch?) is laid siege by some 30,000 men in sheepskin coats as it hosts the Amusement Trade Exhibition or ATE for short. This year, for the first time, I decided to take young Johnaitch with me. He’s old enough to behave well enough, and young enough to get us the VIP treatment from any stand holders.

So, through my own choice, I leave at 4:30am up the delightful artery that is the M4. I leave early because most of the bad drivers haven’t finished slapping on the makeup before 8, and if all goes to plan I can be in the West London suburb before then.

Each year the show has got progressively worse. As the industry has fallen into decline, and more and more of the sad tossers who still work in it compete with each other and say how good an industry it really is, the show has shown just had bad things have gotten. Normally it is a case of get in, walk around for the first hour, comment on how crap it is, and pick out the best bits for the next few hours. This year was different. Each and every stand was looked at. Admittedly some people didn’t grasp the idea of the leisure industry, but it was interesting enough to become enjoyable. One stand specialising in security cameras was ribbed by me, for selling cameras at twice the price of Maplin, and then insisting that "No, really, these cameras are different." Another was a security system that filled a room with smoke to stop burglars getting away. You stepped into a plastic conservatory, and promptly went blind. Half way through the demonstration, I suddenly thought that having whooping cough and doing this wasn’t such a good idea.

As we walked around one stand drew my attention, with two guys I recognised from the TV. I beckoned over my offspring who much to his delight (and mine) saw World Champion Robot "Razer."
Clicky to Embiggen
The poor guys must have thought I was their biggest fan, because there wasn’t a thing I didn’t know about their competitions in Robot Wars. In my defence it was something to do with a certain video tape that was watched over and over again when John was younger. Honest.

Each and every year I have seen, tried and come away disappointed from 3D theatres. No amount of chair jiggling or naffly recorded videos of motorbike views make it different. Only this year an American company did with their 3D Theater (note the misspelling of theatre). It was a simple premise; on a runaway mine cart in a haunted mine. The difference was the untrendy 3D glasses - no red and blue view when you put them on, only slightly darker. Interestingly enough, made to look bad and tacky, so that people don't steal them apparently. I couldn’t understand how this was going to make the Image 3D, but it did. Spectacularly in fact! So much so, that one of the first real 3D moments, a log being propelled towards me like a javelin, actually had me flinch and raise my arm to protect myself. Another point confused my poor brain when some bats were flying around the room, and the lady in front of me was further away then the bats, but was blocking my view of them.

Let us not forget the delightful Sega stand. Normally swamped with Japanese teenagers not letting anyone else get a look in, this year men were treated to a delightful blonde in a pink bikini. The first time we saw her, we were stood there for 10 minutes, in an ever increasing puddle of drool. Each time we then needed to pass from one side of the hall to another, we were inexplicably drawn back to the Sega stand. No idea why.

On the way home we decided to stop in my old neighbourhood in Reading for a bite to eat and a look around. Yep, it’s still a dump.

I got home at 10:30, in pain, exhausted, and quite frankly wanting to die.

Same time next year then?

Saturday, January 22

The customer's always right...

Bollocks!

Take BT today. A friend of mine (Mr. Jammy, curiously enough) has gone with BT Broadband, much to my objection. Well after much pussyfooting around, removing a single virus that was downloading itself as soon as he signed on the net, I finally got his system running happily. We had safely downloaded Windows Update, and I was in the final stages of downloading other stuff when for no reason except BT was bored, the DSL line died.

Ever noticed how much the BT looks like a cock up?

Ok, BT, what do you have to say for yourself? 150 is dialled and eventually I got some pleb who insists he is not trained to help and I need to call the 09063 helpline number at 50p a minute. Now... BT in their helpfulness have put a bar on all calls starting with 09 and so I can't phone their helpline. In the end they agree to put me through to their technical support, and I am talking to a delightful scotsman called Doug. He asks what I have done to check everything, and we conclude the only thing I haven't checked is the DSL filter. I have to phone him back, and when he says to just call, and ask for him, I suspect I'll get the wrong Doug so I ask his surname. He replies, "you don't need it, I'll be the only one."

Guess what. Well let me just say the finally tally of the call was something like "Hi, yeah, can I speak to Doug please?"

"I'm sorry, we have over 400 people here, and I don't know anyone called Doug"

/doh.

Eventually after much sweet talking (25 minutes to be exact) I get Doug, and he agrees to send an engineer. Only after warning me however that if the engineer can't find anything wrong, a bill of £120 plus vat will be issued.

"So you mean to tell me, that when you agree something's wrong, and it's an intermittent fault, you will send someone to fix it even though they might not find anything and might not fix the fault?"

"yes."

And this from a company that boasts they want to keep their customers, not drive them away. My mate has only been with them for 24 hours, and already he's having these problems.

If he'd gone with AOL he'd have not had these problems (!)

Friday, January 21

More jammy then Mr. Jammy of Jammy Dodgers getting covered in jam.
Jammy dodger

A good friend of mine, we will call him Mr. Jammy, has been rather jammy over this past month or so. In fact, in Manchester a local chav might be heard calling him a "spawny get*".

He couldn't believe his luck when he got the telephone call from his local DIY store a few days before christmas, letting him know his new kitchen was now ready for collection. He phoned me, rather excitedly, and asked if he could have a lift there to collect the kitchen. I said okay, but I was rather puzzled when I arrived to collect him, to see he had not only already got the kitchen, but in the short time since the call had installed it, plumbed it in, floored around it, and even painted the walls around it AND the paint was dry. The reality was they'd messed up. We went to get the kitchen anyway (well you would wouldn't you?) and took it home already to be installed after a month's 'error realisation' period.

Lucky huh? £800 worth of new kitchen units for free.

So, when he gets a knock at his door delivering the new torch he's had free from a mail order catalogue, he is surprised to find he had had it delivered the week before. Again, Mum's the word.

New torch anyone?

To cap it all, he needs a new phone from one of the main service providers. They've run out, so they promise it will be posted next week when the stock is replenished. In the meantime, he finds that a local shop of the same provider has the phone in stock, and they agree it would be easier to cancel said order, and to give him a phone from stock. Makes sense huh?

So, guess what gets delivered this week. Yep, a new phone, all boxed, NO SIM! Like they knew he'd already had it from the shop.

Muppets.

P.S. If you want more then one item of something, try buying it in Swansea. You never know your luck.

*chav speak for "lucky person"

Tuesday, January 18

For such a small island, we really are a diverse race.

A conversation with Anni has led me to this...

It’s interesting that Great Britain measures barely a thousand miles from top right to bottom left, and yet has more accents and dialects than most continents!

We all speak English, yet we can find Celtic Gaelic in the highlands of Scotland, and each and every sign in Wales is in English and in Welsh. Note how in North Wales it is mostly in Welsh and in English though. Only people in Essex seem to understand each other clearly, and likewise with residents of the North East and the Newcastle area. People from Wales seem to think that all Scottish people sound Irish, and everybody thinks that real cockneys sound like people from the Eastenders, and yet Essex people sound more cockney then cockneys.

Every Scotsman hates the English; The English make jokes about the Irish; The Welsh would like to only be Welsh; and everybody hates the French. The Northern English hate the Southern English; Liverpudlians hate Mancunians; Glasgow is divided into heavy drinking Rangers supporters, and heavy drinking Celtic supporters. Everybody takes the mickey out of Brummies. London Taxi Drivers dislike going “South of the River.” Everybody thinks that Cornish folk are simple inbred yokels, because they have an accent not of this planet. Estuary English is widely regarded as rough and ready, and yet to live in the area you must be earning the most to stay there.

The Welsh call the English Saesnegs, the English call the Welsh sheep shaggers. The Scottish call the English Saesanachs, and the English call the Scottish sheep shaggers. The North Welsh call the South Welsh Taffs, and the South Welsh call the North Welsh sheep shaggers. Everybody calls farmers from the highlands sheep shaggers.

We regionalise people because of their accent. We dislike them if we follow these rules, and mistrust them until we know them. And yet, if we get the chance to have a go at the Americans, we all join in and become as one.

Sunday, January 16

What is love?

Sometimes, when your life is at a low ebb, you might ask yourself this very question. The obvious, sometimes isn’t so obvious after all. The psychology of love is an altogether different animal, let me explain.

You love your lifetime partner even though at some point in your life you didn’t even know they existed. You love your son or daughter but would not want to spend the rest of your life with them. You love your parents, but that love does not necessitate feelings of affection for them

Your lifetime partner might not turn out to be the one you love. You might have thought it was love, but then you find that perhaps you don’t love them. You undoubtedly did at some point, but the reality of it is maybe now you don’t. Do you stay with this person? Do you lead a life and a lie? Do you tell them you still love them, send those cards on Valentine’s Day, give them presents for Christmas?

The short answer is yes. Why? In the back of your mind you want this person to be with you, to be by your side. And therein is the crux of the definition. It doesn’t matter if you are talking the older generations of your family, the current generations of your family, or the younger generations, you love them because you want to be with them. You want to know them, you want to talk to them, and you want to be in contact with them.

Normal service will be resumed etc etc

Monday, January 10

First and foremost...

... can I be the last to wish you a happy new year, and the first to wish you happy halloween.

Teachers should never lower their guard

Its 1980-something, and a teenage adolescent by the name of Rikaitch was feeling mischievous. The school computer lessons mostly consisted of word processing, and really were quite drab. It didn’t help with the fact that every other school in the area had the popular BBCs and we had to make do with Link 480zs . A small group of us were 'in' with the computer teacher, because we would get to school early, and help her to set up the computers each day. For security reasons the computers were locked away in a cupboard each night, and apparently this cupboard was impenetrable and could withstand attack from local burglars, teenage residents, or even special military forces. Anyway, the room was left unlocked during the day, and it became a game to see who could get onto the server PC for the longest, and do the most subtle alterations. One day Mrs Coleman, the computer teacher (a most interesting and unlikely computer teacher, more then likely just taken the post even though she really was a maths teacher) was away probably selling technical secrets to the Russians. We took the chance and told the cover teacher that we always work on the computer in the room. He looked doubtful, but when we showed him work we had already done he was so impressed he agreed.

So, there it is. 3 mildly pubescent aggravators sat for the next 2 hours at the control centre of each and every computer in the school. Oh yes, the power, I could feel the power. Mmmmmm, what could we do? Well first was to lower the security just enough on the main computers to allow us access again in the future. This was rattled off in a couple of minutes. We needed to do more, but being uncreative 13 year olds we thought we would go looking for inspiration. Some level of security was in place, but we found that this could be disabled by just going around the password program. Eventually we found access to a Commodore Pet.

“Strange,” said one of my counterparts, “I didn’t know the school has any Pets.”

“Oh they don’t really, only the one in the head’s office,” said the other accomplice.

“Gumpf,” I said.

Closer examination showed it was said computer. I typed quickly, the chance of being caught now red handed would be fatal. One of the guys told a weedy member of the class to keep a look out for us, or face a dead leg. Not a lot could be found, but one large file was too tempting. Just to stop us losing such bounty, we copied it to the main server and set about looking into it.

“Bloody Hell!!!” cried one person.

“Flippin’ ‘eck” cried the other.

“Gumpf”, I said, again.

It was only the teacher’s personal details. Full names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, inside leg measurements. You get the picture. We’d struck hacker’s gold. How could we possibly print out the list though, with the teacher’s desk next to the printer? We decided we could do better then that. We modified the file so that it would work in the main school database program used by each and every year to learn how to make and query a database. The seed was sown, and it was only a matter of time…

3 weeks passed, and a fellow pupil appeared in registration one morning with a large computer printout. His older brother had come across it, and printed out the entire list. They took the list home, photocopied it (good on them!) and came back in to distribute the list to anyone that cared, for a small fee of course. By break time they’d sold out, and we were getting a tad nervous and hot around the collar. By lunchtime the great “Chester” (the head) had beckoned me... me?!?! Only me. I had to plead my innocence, but apparently because of my knowledge, the computer teacher was the only one who thought I had the ability to do such a thing.

The fact of the matter was she was right. I knew one thing though…

They could prove nothing.