Stick That, National Express
Posted: Thu 26 November, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, National Express East Anglia, News, Travel Leave a comment »Fantastic news today that National Express are to lose their franchise on the East Anglia route three years earlier than expected.
I’ve written before about just how shit National Express are – and how shit they’ve been with their customers – with ‘under-the-table’ price rises on tickets and the like. (Which reminds me, I’ve got something to add on that score, but it can wait) So I think it’s great that their utter shitness has been recognised, and had something done about it.
Of course, this isn’t going to be a “with immediate effect” thing. The useless fuckbags still don’t lose it ’til 31st March 2011. I wonder how many nasty little fare rises and shitty tactics they’ll put in place between now and then in order to maximise their income (and thus profit) before losing the contract?
Wii Pray
Posted: Wed 18 November, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Despite being an avowed atheist (or at best agnostic) I think that this is a hilariously brilliant idea.
It’s not quite in the same category of misguided as the infamous Amish Online Dating site which I still hope is a joke, but have a cynical suspicion that someone really created it as an idea.
And in the meantime, remember that actually it’s Satanism that is the only perfect religion. If you fuck up in Satanism, you get to go to Heaven…
Spamtastic
Posted: Wed 18 November, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »I got this spam the other day…
My names are Janet Brown, I was diagnosed for cancer for about few weeks ago. I have been touched by God to donate to you, from what I have inherited from my late husband to you for the good work of God/needy/charity, I decided to WILL/donate the sum of USD$10Million to you. Contact my Attorney/lawyer/Barrister Stephen & Associates with this, specified email; { [Removed, for obvious reasons]} Tel; [Removed, for obvious reasons],for the funds release, my personal ref number law/WILL/9834520012. I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished as I don’t want anything that will jeopardize my last wish. Regards,
Mrs. Janet Brown
That’s exactly as I received it – the only thing changed is that I’ve removed the contact details.
But what you’ve got to wonder is this: What kind of blithering idiot numpty would ever respond to something like this?
And if even one person did respond, it would just prove that Barnum was right – there truly is one born every minute.
Pseudonyms
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Thoughts, Writing 1 Comment »Over the weekend, Belle De Jour, one of the last remaining published ‘anonymous’ bloggers (which should really be pseudonymous bloggers, but let’s not be picky) has come out and revealed her ‘true’ name. There was also a piece in TechCrunch by Paul Carr about this, which made for interesting reading.
While I (for obvious reasons) don’t have an issue with pseudonymous bloggers, I do think that Carr’s point is equally valid – if you’re going to write something under a pseudonym, don’t go out and get a book deal. The concepts of pseudonyms and fame are pretty much mutually exclusive – yes, there are some people who’ve managed both, but not really during the current media-driven Age of Celebrity.
For me, some (OK, a fair number) people know my ‘real-life’ name. I write as Lyle to keep things separate from the real world – I don’t want a Google search on my real name to bring up D4D™, and I don’t want searches on D4D™ to easily bring up my name. I believe it is possible to make a connection or two these days, but I still try to keep the two apart as much as I can.
But I don’t want fame or a book deal. If I were looking for that, I would’ve done things very differently with D4D. (I mean for one thing, I’d have had a theme for it, rather than just random sweary rubbish) And for the writing I do where I would like/love/dream of getting it into production, of seeing the writing become properly known, I write in my own name, and on a totally different site.
I don’t have a problem with people writing pseudonymously, nor with them deciding to remove that pseudonymity in order to re-join the two parts of their lives. That’s fair enough. I do object to the media forcing people to lose their pseudonymous lives (as happened with Girl With A One-Track Mind when her book came out) but that is – apparently, at least – not what’s happened with Belle de Jour.
As usual, I don’t really know where I’m going with this – it’s just a random spattering of thoughts. I suppose I just end up being bemused a bit when people get the book deal and still think/hope they can stay behind the pen-name.
Caught on your own spike
Posted: Fri 13 November, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Sweary 1 Comment »Following on from all the guff this week about Gordon Brown supposedly mis-spelling the name of Jamie Janes in a letter of condolence (and it really does take a special kind of sanity/logic to name your child with almost-matching first and surnames, doesn’t it?) and the Sun’s hate campaign about it, I just love this…
Yes, they mis-spelled it too
But of course it’s OK for the Sun to mis-spell it (as “Jones”, in case anyone cared) and not incur the wrath of – um – The Sun.
Hypocritical fuckers.
The Hallowe’en Paradox
Posted: Sat 31 October, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Weirdness Leave a comment »In some ways I feel the same about Hallowe’en as I do about The Festering Season. Mainly it’s the paradoxes that annoy me.
In the case of Hallowe’en, we’ll float past the crap about grown people dressing up like kids and so on.
But what gets me is this :
For most of the year (excluding the run-up to the Festering Season and Hallowe’en) children get told to not talk to strangers, not accept sweets from strangers, not accept anything, so forth, so fifth. But come the Festering Season, they’re told to talk to strangers about what they want, accept presents and all that shit. And come Hallowe’en, all of a sudden it’s fine for kids to dress up, go round the neighbourhood and knock on the doors of people they don’t know and have never met, and get sweets.
Which is – to me, anyway – just really fucking weird.
2012 Idiot Tax
Posted: Thu 29 October, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »In yet another case of “There’s one born every minute”, the BBC has a story today about the fact people are already getting taken in by sites selling tickets for the London 2012 Olympics. That’s despite the fact that tickets won’t be going on sale until 2011…
As I’ve said before, the people who pay money to sites like that really just have more money than sense, and deserve to be taken for a ride. It’s like an idiot tax – if you’re an idiot, you will pay.
According to the story, “it is illegal to sell fake 2012 tickets in the UK, Olympic organisers said.” . But what happens if you’re not actually selling fake tickets? By that I mean that you’re advertising tickets – but not actually supplying even false ones. Sure, it’s fraud etc. – but technically, it’s also not selling fake tickets. It’s ‘just’ taking money from morons.
I’m forever being told that I’ve got far too cynical a view of people and their stupidity. But still I see stories like this and I’m still amazed that no matter how low my expectations, people still go lower than them.