Old Gigs
Posted: Fri 4 May, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Gigs, Music, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This year seems to be another one with a lot of band revivals – and I’m happy about it.
First of all, the band “The The” announced that they were going to do their first tour in twenty-odd years. Having been a fan for a long time, I got tickets.
The first-announced one, back at the Royal Albert Hall (where I saw them *cough* years ago) is the single most expensive gig ticket I’ve ever bought – the gig sold out in minutes, and I was in the queue, so the only ones that remained by the time I got there were ridiculously costly (but also have hospitality included, so I’ll make it pretty much work out, somehow) but fuck it, got one anyway.
Then they announced a second gig, this time at Brixton Academy on the following night. Much much cheaper. So I got one for that too.
Later, they also announced a smaller warm-up gig, in Nottingham. Yup, got that too. (It’s ridiculous, and I just hope it’s worth it)
There are a couple of others this year as well, including Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, both of whom I’m going to see.
And then yesterday, the Cowboy Junkies announced they were coming to the UK for three concerts – in Glasgow, Manchester, and London. I think the last time I saw them was on their last visit here, although for some reason I appear to have missed one a couple of years ago – had tickets, didn’t go. I’ve been a fan of them even longer than I have of The The, so it was a no-brainer.
Glasgow and Manchester went on sale today, and I’ve got one for Manchester. The London ones don’t go on sale ’til the end of the month, but I’m already seriously considering getting one for that too. It’ll depend on the price, but it’s pretty likely, if I’m not going to see them again for another decade…
Gone Phishing
Posted: Wed 2 May, 2018 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Geeky, Security, Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the things about being a techie is that I own a fair number of web domains. Some I’ve got for things like ongoing projects, business names I like, and a bundle of other stupid shit. A lot are in the “when I get a chance” state of being – the ideas remain, and haven’t been done by anyone else, but for now they’re kind of drifting.
However, one of the other things I do is have a couple of domains that are purely for use when buying stuff. They’re set to forward everything to my home email account, so it means I can set up anything @ the domain and it’ll do what I want. While it sounds a little bit mental, there’s a very good reason for all this.
For the purposes of explanation, let’s say I own a stupid domain, like myemail.com
So – when I buy something from a new company, I register with them using [company_name]@myemail.com . Any mail there will come to me – it’s a legitimate email address, just not one I’ll ever send an email from. (I can if I need to, but that’s a different point) Everyone’s happy.
The key, though, is that if [company] starts spamming me, I can block that specific address, rather than having to do any kind of weird and fragile message rules etc. It’s easy – I just add [company_name]@myemail.com to the ‘bin everything’ list, and there we go, it’s gone.
What I’ve found recently though is another interesting one – I can easily tell when [company] has been hacked, or lost its mailing list somewhere.
This week, I’ve been getting some *very* clever phishing emails (the ones about ‘just log in, give us your details, and we’ll sort this out’) to one particular address. They’re good enough that if they had come direct to my home email, I might’ve clicked on one by mistake. (I haven’t, but I could have) They’re *that* good. But I can see that they’ve come to [company]@myemail.com , so a) I know they’re shit mails, and b) I know that [company]’s mailing list is being used.
I’ve let [company] know, although there’s not much they can do about it now. But at least maybe they can notify their customers that their details have been leaked/stolen.
All told though, it’s another interesting reason to have that particular domain, and to use it in this way to keep my own information as safe as possible.
You Had One Job
Posted: Mon 30 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Customer Services, Cynicism, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »[This follows on from a conversation I was having over the weekend, so I thought I’d write a bit more about it here. You lucky people]
This year so far has in many ways been an exercise in frustration. I’ve felt like I’m keeping on having to fight things all the way, just to get people to do their sodding jobs. It’s incredibly annoying, frustrating, and just leaves me tired and pissed off.
I know I’ve written about this kind of thing before – it seems to be a bit of a theme round here. And it’s not even like I expect miracles – all I want is for people to do their fucking jobs right. That’s not too much to ask, surely?
For example, one of the current bugbears has been a particular travel agent, who is supposed to be organising a break. It’s been in the process now for about six months, with the travel happening next month. I’ve given them a decent length of time and space, and absolutely nothing happened. Indeed, the only time anything started happening was once I got in touch with them about six weeks ago, to find out what was going on. All of a sudden the tickets and so on appeared, along with acknowledgement that they’d dropped the ball, that the initial contact had left the company and there’d been no handover or successor assigned to deal with me.
The problem was that the names on all the bookings – flights, hotel and so on – *all* had spelling mistakes. I’ve raised it with them, and they’re “going to deal with it”. But man alive, this is the job they’re supposed to be good at, that they do all day every day, and they still make mistakes like these? I’m honestly not reassured, and won’t be until I’ve arrived at the destination and know that everything has worked out. Which is hardly a relaxing start to a break, it’s fair to say.
The stuff with the bank, the car insurance people, and the windscreen people have also been fine examples. Along with several others I’m not in the mood to add just yet to the list here.
All I want is for people to do their jobs. Why is that so bloody difficult?
More Sorted
Posted: Sun 29 April, 2018 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Following on from last week’s “One of Those weeks” post, things did end up working out OK, I’m pleased to say.
The car windscreen got replaced first thing yesterday morning, and the whole process was pretty painless (once I’d got the appointment organised and so on). The crack itself had definitely grown during the week, so leaving it another two weeks would’ve almost certainly ended up with it being a lot more serious. Considering that I was doing a fair amount of driving through the rest of yesterday, I was much happier to have had it sorted.
The bank issues also got sorted pretty efficiently, once I’d escalated the problem a couple of times. They still can’t explain why the auto-systems didn’t trigger for this – although I’ve heard some interesting bullshit along the way – but at least it’s all sorted, I’ve had the card cancelled and replaced, had some compensation for the hassle and lack of information, and the money was refunded immediately. So I can’t complain too much. I’d rather none of it had happened in the first place, obviously, but at least it’s all handled now. And as a happy side-effect it’s also shown the bank that I’m more on top of things than they are, and that’s now on-the-record.
So all things considered, the week has ended up in a much better place than the one it started in. Yes, it would’ve made life a lot easier if none of it had happened in the first place, but as it had happened, at least it’s done and dusted.
Non-Stop
Posted: Fri 27 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Business, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This last week has been (and continues to be) pretty non-stop, even by my standards. It’s been a weird mix of work, social, and work-related social.
I’m still trying to calm things down – and weirdly, at the moment my weekends seem to be freer than my weekdays, so I suppose that’s some kind of progress? But as usual, something has to give – and this time it’s been writing on D4D™.
I’m aiming to find a better balance of things, but right now it’s all on some kind of weird mutant seesaw/roundabout combination, and figuring out the physics of that is pretty tiring in and of itself.
I’ll get there, though.
One of Those
Posted: Mon 23 April, 2018 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Customer-services-wise, it’s been one of those weekends again…
While driving home on Friday evening, the windscreen got hit right on the edge by a stone, and cracked. Obviously the impact speed must’ve been fairly high, and it caught at just the right point, so it’s a fairly significant crack, and one that would almost certainly fail the MOT test (which thankfully is no time soon)
So when I got home I called the car insurance’s glass repair/replace number, and organised getting the windscreen replaced. (A fix isn’t going to be feasible, it’s new windscreen time) That all went ok, until we got to their next available appointment. Which was… May 9th. Yep, three weeks time, to replace a windscreen. Safe to say, not happy. I went back to the insurance company direct, explained why I wasn’t happy with that – I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I were in an accident while the windscreen were damaged. I’m willing to bet that they’d deny the claim, even with having the appointment in place, and the insurance company informed. They’re like that.
Anyway, they gave me a different number to call. Same company, different number, and as soon as I was speaking to them, suddenly a slot came free for a week’s time, rather than three. How amazing.
So it’s lined up to be sorted this coming weekend. I’m still not entirely happy about it, but it’s better than waiting nearly a month (because of other things, the replacement would actually have been another week after the ‘first available’ slot…) for it to be done.
Then today, I looked at my business account online, and there’s a couple of transactions I don’t recognise, and know I haven’t made. I call the bank, get them recorded as fraudulent, get the money back and so on. And that’s all OK.
But. But. The pattern of these transactions was precisely the pattern that’s used in fraudulent transactions. Two small (or smallish) transactions, this time both at the very top of the contactless transaction limit, in very quick succession, with a company I haven’t dealt with before. And then, within twenty-four hours, another large-value transaction, also with a company I haven’t dealt with in a while. That’s the absolute fingerprint for a fraud transaction – the first two check the card’s validity etc., the second is to make sure it hasn’t triggered systems or been registered as stolen, and then they try to profit from it.
As it turns out, in my case the big transaction was a valid one, but that doesn’t change the issue.
So that pattern of three transactions should have triggered every automatic fraud detection system, and put a hold on my card that would’ve then been dealt with during the big transaction. That’s what’s happened before with the same bank, the same account – except they were valid transactions that just happened to be in that order. And no-one can currently tell me why it’s not been triggered this time.
I’m not harmed in either case. I’ve got the money back, I’ll be getting a new card, and everything’s fine. I’ve raised a complaint about it, and I’m pretty sure that absolutely nothing will happen with it.
But yeah, the two things over three days, it all just gets a bit wearing, I could do with not having to deal with it.
Ah well. Fun and games.
Property Inspection
Posted: Wed 18 April, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, People, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the other things that came up last week was the annual property inspection and safety check by my landlord. It’s my sixth year in this house, and I don’t mind the safety checks at all. (Yes, they’re a legal requirement, but still, I’m happy for them to happen)
Getting them done is always a pain in the bum – every time I leave them a note to say please make sure the cats aren’t allowed upstairs, or trapped upstairs when they leave. Every year, they’re upstairs and closed in the bedroom. I get it, they’re not cat people etc., but jesus Fuck, is it really that difficult?
Anyway, this year, I decided to stay home while they did the checks, and now I can see why it all happens. They just leave doors open, no thought of anything else, get the jobs done, and then bugger off. I’m not surprised, but it still just strikes me as being a bit slack. Or maybe I’m too tense/stroppy about these things. I don’t know.
On the other hand, it also meant I got to finally meet my landlord. Again, six years in the place, and we’d never met. So it was good to do that, and for both of us to be able to put faces to names and so on. (Well, I think it’s a good thing so far. He might just decide I’m a disaster area now, and get rid of me come November…)
But all’s well with the house, too. A couple of small maintenance things and so on, but nothing urgent or needing lots of stuff done.
And at least the bloody cats weren’t trapped in the bedroom this time. I class that as a win.