Pot, Kettle, and Black
Posted: Tue 9 September, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Writing Leave a comment »Personally, I think it’s utterly ridiculous that JK Rowling has managed to block the publication by Steven Vander Ark of an unofficial Harry Potter encyclopaedia, based upon the website he created.
Rowling has even admitted in the past that she’s even used the original site created by the book’s author in order to keep track of her characters. When the information was free, that was fine – but now that he wants to make some money out of it, ooh, that’s not fair.
And let’s be honest, it’s not like Harry Potter is anywhere near an original character anyway – and nor are the books overly original. It’s just that they’ve been very profitable, and have allowed Rowling to make enough money to sue over stupid cases like this.
In my mind, there’s a market for reference books to complex multi-novel series, for example. I’m sure there are “Lord of the Rings Companions” (Although I can’t be arsed to look for them) alongside “Tolkien Companions”, and many others.
Of course, Shell Cottage wrote about this in a far better way than I can (and I remember reading that piece back when it was first written) so it’s best to go there for a far more cogent explanation of the entire farce…
More Money Than Sense
Posted: Thu 4 September, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »This story, to me, illustrates what can happen when you’ve got more money than you know what to do with.
A Russian millionaire buys a £5m house in Sandbanks, Dorset. However, he doesn’t like the house itself, just the land it’s on. So he plans to pull down this house he’s spent £5 million on, and then build another one (allbeit with a new extra bedroom, with its own sun terrace) for another £2.5m.
Now maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see the point of buying a house, only to knock it down and replace it.
But then, I don’t have £7.5 million to chuck down the drain, either.
Knowing the Junctions
Posted: Thu 4 September, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts 2 Comments »Whenever I’m driving, and listen to the traffic reports, they usually cause me a problem.
You see, I just don’t know the junction numbers for the roads I’m using, so I just don’t know whether the reported issues will affect me or not. I’m OK with direction (i.e. north/south-bound etc.) but if I hear a report telling me that junctions 25-28 of the A[xx] are jammed, I’ve no flaming clue where that is.
I know last year this very nearly caused me a problem – coming home from a concert in London, the signs were all reporting “Road closed after Junction 9 – diversions in place”. I had (and if I’m honest, still have) no idea whether I turned off at Junction 8,9, 11 or 52 – so the signs were effectively useless for me.
Is this just me? Have I not been driving enough yet to know the junctions off by heart? Or would it not be easier to see “After the Cambridge A11 turnoff” instead of, for example “After Junction 9” ?
Organisation of the Festering Season
Posted: Wed 3 September, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Festering Season, Getting Organised 3 Comments »
Today, I’m deeply deeply traumatised. We’re already organised for what’s happening on Christmas Day – and that’s a truly depressing thing to have happened by September 3rd…
It had actually started being discussed on Sunday, and then on Monday we got a brochure from the place we went to last year. A quick email of the menu to other interested parties, and it was agreed that we really should go back – everything had been really good last year, and everyone had come away deciding that it was a really good way to do the Festering Season.
So I called them yesterday, and it’s all booked. Of course, we still have to pay for the bugger, but this way we don’t have any of the late-November “Who’s doing what, where, and when?” discussions and last-minute plan changes as well as all the stress of anyone having to be up at 6am to start off cooking etc.
All the same, it’s pretty depressing to have got this all in place in September. I swear I’m never this organised usually…
Blocked Roads and SatNav
Posted: Mon 1 September, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness 6 Comments »Another day, another pig of a drive in to the office.
Today, two trucks had collided, with one spewing its load of 10T of steel all over the road. Luckily (in some perspectives) I knew about this one before leaving home, so I’d also brought the SatNav with me.
By the time I got to the A11/A14 junction, the police had completely closed off the A14, and were sending people down to the M11 to come back up the A505 – both of which were by now also completely rigid with traffic.
I set TomTom to know that there’d been a roadblock on the A14, and at first thought I’d let it take me where it wanted. Until it kept insisting I turn round and go back to the A14. Stupid piece-of-shit satnav. So in the end, I used my knowledge instead, and got through the middle of Cambridge instead, with TomTom repeatedly insisting “No, you need to go back to the A14, you need to go back.” and then eventually “Oh, hang on, yeah, you’re right, you can go this way, and you know what? It’ll take you right to the office.” The undertone of “I’m great, aren’t I? How would you have managed without TomTom” is probably just me disliking the poxy thing.
Actually, I’d have done pretty well even without TomTom. I was 90% sure of where I was going, and where I needed to be. I might have made one mistake, but that would’ve been it.
Also, I want to check this on the way home, but I’m sure it’s pointing right to go West on the compass setting. Any time I noticed it today, it was doing so. All told, that’s a bit of a worry…
Pants
Posted: Thu 28 August, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism 1 Comment »On the BBC today, this story of a man who found his phone banking password had been changed made me laugh.
Pissed off with the twunts at Lloyds TSB, the man changed his password to (a remarkably tame) “Lloyds are pants”. And someone within Lloyds changed it to “no, they’re not”. Even better, he then wasn’t allowed to change it back, and wasn’t allowed to have “Barclays is better”.
“The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried ‘censorship’, but they didn’t like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long.”
Now if it were me, at that point I’d have chosen “Fkwitz” and insisted that it was my great-grandmother’s maiden name. But then, I’m malevolent like that.
Also, no-one has yet raised the issue that actually, it looks like Lloyds TSB staff can see your entire password. Which isn’t particularly secure, is it?