B&Q – Tossers
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 3 Comments »This time, the stuff didn’t even come off the lorry. The worktops were light grey with black flecks, instead of the expected black with grey flecks. You have to wonder at the epic degrees of twuntdom necessary to fuck up an order to this level, don’t you?
The worktops from the last ballsed-up delivery are still in the house too – the arsewipe bureaucrat tossnerds hadn’t even managed to tell the delivery company that they were supposed to be collecting anything.
Snotty letters will be getting written this weekend, I suspect. Copies will be placed on d4d™ as and when they’re written, which pay provide some level of amusement out of the entire farce process.
Decisions
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: General 2 Comments »I’ve just had a message left on my phone regarding a job that I was interested in back before Christmas. God knows what they’ve been playing at, but it’s only now coming to a phone-interview stage.
Now, bearing in mind I’m already in a new job, but that this one sounded really interesting, do I bother arranging the phone interview?
Decisions, Decisions.
B&Q – The Tale Continues
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 2 Comments »Over the last month, we’ve had endless hassles with B&Q. The initial order was remarkably simple. Two black(ish) three-meter-length worktops, and two laminate worktop ends. You wouldn’t think it was rocket-science, would you?
In the first order, they sent one blue worktop, two kitchen wall-units (1x1000mm and 1x800mm) and four 500mm cherrywood kitchen doors. You’ll note, the doors weren’t even going to match up with the wall units that we received but hadn’t ordered.
In the second one, they managed to deliver two worktops (and take away most of the problem delivery, except for one of the wall units) but also put in a metal vegetable rack, and something that now escapes me. And the worktops were a very nasty reddy-marble finish. Nowhere even in the vicinity of “black”. They were supposed to deliver “in the afternoon“, which translated to 11.30am.
Today is the third attempt. They’re supposed to be delivering in the afternoon, and give Herself 30 minutes notice so that she can get home from work to check the delivery.
So why have they called at 9.45am to say “we’re at the house – where are you?” ? Something makes me think there’s no fucking chance the delivery’s going to be right this time either. I just hope the blood’s been wiped off the street by the time I get home this evening…
Papal Health
Posted: Thu 3 February, 2005 Filed under: Health, News 3 Comments »Is it just me that’s ever so slightly cynical regarding the true health status of the Pope? (well, I know Herself is saying the same kind of thing, so I know it’s not just me) All the information is coming through the Vatican, the hospital he’s staying in is keeping very quiet, and it all sounds very dodgy indeed.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s not a nasty “relapse” over the weekend, or early next week once the potential new Pontiffs have all been notified, and made their way to Rome from wherever they currently are.
But maybe I’m just a cynic…
Title Switcher
Posted: Thu 3 February, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Since writing the little piece of code the other day for it, I’m pleased to see that the title switcher seems to be working fine. I know, it wasn’t complicated to do, and really it was only about ten or fifteen minutes to write it, test it, and make sure all was well. It’s nowt fancy, it’s not going off a database of title tags at random, or anything particularly funky like that (although hmmm, maybe for version 2…) but still, I always like seeing a bit of code that works properly first time…
Bulbs
Posted: Thu 3 February, 2005 Filed under: General 1 Comment »At risk of going off down a slightly trippy-hippy path today, I’ve been thinking a fair amount about plant bulbs of late. We’ve got a whole bundle of hyacinths in the house, all of which are currently growing like buggery. And seeing the way they’re doing this – and the speed they’re doing it at – fills me with wonder.
Bulbs are an amazing energy store. The plant lies dormant through the winter (or what passes for it in the UK at the moment) and when spring comes, bang, they go into overdrive. All of a sudden you see leaves sprouting through, and in the case of amaryllis and hyacinths in particularly, you can virtually watch the things growing. Then the flower-heads start to come out, and finally bloom, and the entire process is – to me, anyway – nothing short of miraculous. Yet plants do it every year.
Sometimes it really doesn’t take much to discover wonder in things. And Spring is the best time of all to see it. It’s bloody everywhere!
Day
Posted: Wed 2 February, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, General Leave a comment »It’s definitely been one of those days today. Half the team at work are off sick, and someone in the other department managed to destroy knacker their laptop hard-drive to the extent that the heads have impacted with the disc platters. Now, this is something I’ve never seen happen without the application of a fair amount of force (i.e. thumping) or gravity (i.e. dropping) – it takes an impact of some sort to do this.l
However, on this occasion we’re dealing with the miraculous. The disk heads have somehow magically impacted with the platters without any application of force whatsoever. In fact, the laptop has never even left the person’s desk. That’s quite impressive.
The other downside (having already bought a new laptop drive) is that it’s a Compaq laptop (hey, don’t blame me, I only work here) and as such the drive cage is – shall we say – a cunt. Two of the four screws are fine and standard, the other two have a weird head on them, which is going to require the application of force and brutality a star-head screwdriver. Thanks Compaq for making life SO much more simple…