I passed Jordan!

My Guitar Hero career is now complete, I've finally completed that most stupidly hard of songs on expert, Jodan. I won't say it wasn't close, I think I was literally one missed note away from failing on two, if not three occasions, but I'm very proud of my 79%, 3* score.

The Does Nothing-o-matic

Anyone remember this great Honda advert?



Well, someone who's clearly played too many games of Mouse Trap, and probably seen that advert above, has constructed the absolutely spectacular...'Does Nothing-o-matic' using only items found in his house. Enjoy:



Pity he forgot to include a song by The Sugar Hill Gang at the end :(

Microsoft Interns' Event #1

Friday of last week, sixty or so managers were sitting about and wondering why their respective interns weren't answering their phones or email. Or possibly it was just me that forgot to mention it...

I realise it's a bit odd for me to blog something over a week after it happened, but in my defence, I was waiting for people to send me pictures, which they've never done.

Anyhow, the event was one of those team-building things, for which we get a budget set aside (well spent, I hasten to add) and this quarter's entertainment was brought to us by a scavenger hunt around London. Great way to see the place for those that haven't been there before - and I've never actually gone as a tourist, so I saw a bunch of Cool Stuff I never bothered to go find before - and had a lot of fun.

We were split into groups in the morning, and everyone designed their own t-shirt, with the caveat that it must say 'Microsoft' on the front, using felt-tip pens. Being team 'C', I suggested that we call ourselves Team Carlsberg (for reasons I hope you can work out fairly quickly) which probably led to some confusion about which company actually employed/sponsored us.

Then it was off out to get photos of a list of utterly random things, and collect a lot of other bits - most of which involved simply walking up to strangers and asking odd things of them. I've been on this kind of thing before - but it's never worked this well in the past, probably helps that (nearly) all the interns at Microsoft are very confident folks.

Here's a couple of my favourite tasks:

Find a 1971 penny
Easy, and we got it in pristine condition too - although, it did cost us £3, which seemed a bit extortionate for a penny. You might think that last sentence the thoughts of an uncultured fool unaware of the antiquities trade - but the gent in the shop who sold us the penny seemed shocked that we'd want to buy one, explaining that it was 'just the same as the current penny'. Interesting.

Get someone to take a photo of the whole team doing tai-chi in a tranquil location
Various poses from The Karate Kid and a bemused office worker on her lunch were the order of the day for this one.

Get your photo taken with a policeman
We thought we'd go one better and get our photo taken with a policeman we saw holding quite a hefty gun. It wasn't till he said "I'm kind of busy right now" that we realised he was in the middle of arresting someone...

Get your photo taken with a famous celebrity
One group managed to hunt down Ricky Gervais (who recorded the following video for Microsoft interns), but all our blagging efforts were fruitlessly concentrated on the major radio stations, and we failed here :(

Get a free drink, and document it
One video phone, one bit of smooth talking - easy.

Take a photo of a team-member doing sit-ups on public transport
I think instructor led exercises on the tube every morning could really take off...

Get one of the male members of your team a free makeover
Can anyone guess who that was?

Collect money from four different countries
We thought it was be a bit cheap to simply get four types of Euro, and a bit expensive to get the currency from a bureau de change, so simply resorted to stopping tourists. In retrospect, our opening gambit of 'have you got any currency' probably wasn't the best, and explains the scared looks on some faces as they hurried away.

Take a photo of the team in the palm of another team member's hand
Thought this one came out very well...

One final bit of awesomeness during the day was the pizza chef in Harrods, singing opera as he baked - legend.

--

The evening's entertainment occured at The Gardening Club - a very chic venue where the interns' events' budget (I love grammar) was spent wisely on...drinks. Even the prize for the scavenger hunt was alcohol - got to love students.

Those who weren't drinking wine were drinking cocktails, and those who weren't drinking cocktails were at the bar waiting to be served. The lack of natural light in the underground club turned everyone quite primal, and when we stumbled out at around 9.30pm (it had been a long day), no-one could quite believe it was still fairly light. The nightlife in Covent Gardens by the way, is amazing, even out on the street.

I don't recall too much here, but I'm sure it was great fun - looking forward to the next one :)

Bullying works

From that classiest of papers, the Metro:

12 year old boy charged with GBH

Whatever happened to survival of the fittest? School is the place where the weak are weeded out, and have their social skills so impeded by bullying that they can then happily dedicate their lives to solving the world's problems in a dark corner office somewhere, away from sight.

If all this anti-fighting lark carries on, then the vastly intelligent will have normal social skills, and then we'll all just be sitting there helpless when raptors/skynet/ents decide to rampage over the earth with various lasers and bombs.

Get good service from the Royal Mail

I got a lovely letter from Hebs a couple of days back (why don't you guys ever send me letters? I hate you too), after I'd been waiting for one for weeks.

You see, she'd promised me one, and told me she'd sent it more than once, but those evil folks over at the Royal Mail kept managing to lose her letters. To prevent it this time, she left a cute note on the back of her envelope (click to enlarge):



So, that's it, all it takes is a personal touch and a smile, and one can get anything done. And you're all bastards for not writing to me.

Xx

Will It Blend?

So I think, in terms of the age of the Internet, that by now the whole Chuck Norris fad has become so old it could almost be new again, as a retro theme.

That's my excuse for posting this pretty awful, but awfully loveable video, enjoy:

DUCK AND COVER

Ok, I *do* want everyone to be alarmed here. It's recently occurred to me that I'm not only getting my TV and phone from Sky now, but that I'm also getting my broadband. Yes, that's right, I'm on SkyNet.

Ringing customer support now to find out when the holocaust will be...

Tie-Dye Heart Downtime

Sorry about all that fuss today folks. I've now got a static page I can throw up straight away if the back-end goes down again, so please let me know asap if you just see a big error message instead of lovely comics in the future.

All is fixed now, and I've put a new comic on there ahead of schedule to make up for the fuss. Do excuse these teething problems and keep coming back for more bits of fun :)

The Ultimate Steal

Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for £40 - students only.

So this is a new promotion from Microsoft, and if enough people take part in it using the link above, I get some cool stuff.

I wasn't planning on posting it up here as I've been known in the past to advocate some even cheaper methods of getting Office at University. However, a fair few of you have mentioned the offer to me in passing, so it seems a bit churlish not to at least offer up the link here.

Doubt I'll win anything, but worth a go. If you know of anyone else who's planning to take up this cool little offer, get them to use the link above too - if I do win the pretty prize, I'll be sure to blog about it for you :)

You guys are all sick

So, whilst playing with my favourite tool, StatCounter, to move some of my paid-for allowances over to Tie-Dye Heart (hey guys, guess what, I have a comic! *wink*), I came across some quite disturbing stuff. Here is a selection of search terms people used to find my blog today:

• Team ina - Clearly an educated soul


• MS paint guitars - Perfectly normal so far


• BT line reactivate - Wonder if I changed their mind?


• I hate BT - Me too..


• I Hate BT - Pattern here anyone?


• I hate BT - ...


• Fuck off BT


• Fuck BT


• BT Fuck - I really hope this person just got their words mixed up


• I hate working for BT - And I'm so retarded I think typing that into a search engine will help

Enough of that, there's more though, I promise. Here's a couple of really disturbing ones:

• Peep show olive oil - What?


• Terry Wogan naked picture on the web - What's worse? That they Googled that, or that that phrase somehow links to my blog?

Enough of that scary insight for now...

Advertising for Tie-Dye Heart

Thanks to all of you who've been helping out so far. As per your requests, I've created some HTML you can use to put a button/banner on your mspace/blog/etc. Have a look on Tie-Dye Heart - About or just copy paste the below for a button:

<a href="http://www.tiedyeheart.com"><img src="http://www.tiedyeheart.com/img/Button.jpg" alt="Tie-Dye Heart Mini" /></a>



Or for a banner:

<a href="http://www.tiedyeheart.com"><img src="http://www.tiedyeheart.com/img/Banner.jpg" alt="Tie-Dye Heart Mini" width="400" /></a>

(To change the size of the banner, change'width="400"' to some other number)

Comic #1 - Lightbulb

I'm not going to do this for every comic, but I just wanted to say a little something about the first comic up on the site, Lightbulb.

This is really the spirit I'm going for with the comic, it's a lighthearted joke, with something a little deeper if you fancy thinking about it. By using humourous observations to challenge the norms and point out the sillier stuff in life - can we really change the way people think?

I hope so.

Tie-Dye Heart goes public!

My brand-new webcomic, Tie-Dye Heart has, after half a year of waiting and working, finally been released to the wide world. I don't really think I can communicate how happy I am here, or how much this means to me.

I've always wanted to do something like this, and I encountered so many problems, so many let-downs and so many things I couldn't do without help, that I'd started to lose confidence in my philosophy that if you want something, anything, enough, then you can get it.

The comic represents a lot of hard work, from myself and three other folks and has the single goal of bringing a smile into people's days. I'd like to ask you, and your friends, and their friends, and their fish, to go out and publicise Tie-Dye Heart, by whatever means you think appropriate. Those of you who do a good job can have your very own [at]tiedyeheart.com email address.

Here's some examples of what other folks are doing, let me know what you get up to:

• Putting the URL as their MSN subline


• Putting the URL in their forum signature


• Blogging about the site


• E-mailing friends about the site


• A Facebook Group has been created


• Putting up posters and handing out fliers (contact me if you want some of these) - I can print and post them if you're in the UK, or give you the stuff to print yourselves)

And, enjoy :)

Great news

So I've finally gotten done, something I've been trying to accomplish for over half a year now, and something I've wanted to do for a lot longer than that. All will be revealed shortly, once the final kinks are worked out - but for now I have a request.

If anyone fancies helping me out with some promotional work - posters, flyers, word of mouth, changing your forum signature, blogging, anything at all, then please get in touch. You can mail me, call me, instant message me, talk to me in real life or just leave a comment on the bottom of this post.

There will be rewards.

The Great British Pint

The EU's had a lot of stupid ideas in the past, and quite often they've managed to annoy the people of Britain, which might explain the national reluctance to completely join in all the fun. That and the fact that the average Brit is inexplicably xenophobic (I'm no exception) and would rather die than associate themselves with the French.

The EU made a lot of progress winning over the English voters when they left wales off a map - but unfortunately forgot that the level of literacy in Wales has increased by leaps and bounds in recent times - 9/10 farmers can now make their mark on a voting slip.


_{...the UK Independence Party (Ukip), which wants Britain to pull out of the EU, welcomed the removal of Wales. - BBC News}

They've thrown all their hard progress away though, with recent attacks on the much beloved British pint. Brits could put up (grudgingly) with not being allowed to sell goods by weight in pounds alone, and being forced to used grammes. Our milk suddenly got measured in litres, but as the dairies cleverly kept the quantities the same, no-one minded too much, and everyone still talks about pints.

When they tried to make us ask for half a litre of beer though, that was one step too far, and so it's with pleasure that I can tell you The EU are backing down - and we can keep our antiquated, nonsensical measurements, all of them. Thanks to Anthony for letting me know about this one.

Under the covers however, they've slipped in a stealthy change to our pint, which is the first step on the road to having us all wear berets and carry around rings of onions. No longer shall we see the Crown on new British pints, instead we're being forced, despite a petition to the PM to have some crappy European symbol on glasses.

As such, the penalty for smashing a pint glass will no longer simply be being kicked out of the pub for the night - but instead a mob lynching up on the nearest lamp-post. You have been warned.

Microsoft Interns USA - Bye Bye Bye

This supremely dorky video was created by a bunch of Microsoft interns over in the states when they were coming up to the end of their placement.



We're going to mutilate Rappers' Delight in much the same fashion come the end of ours :)

Ian MacGillivray

For reasons that will forever remain a mystery, this blog has moved from being the third Google result for "Ian MacGillivray" to the seventh at some point between the last time I was bored enough to Google my name, and today.

You'd think I might be upset, or at least, not extremely happy about this, but you'd be wrong. Because, for the first time since I can remember, the top result is no longer this:



Do you have any idea how horrifying it was, when, as students do, a group of people sat around searching their names, and eventually came on to mine, and the first five words that came up were 'gay lesbian bisexual transgender student'. I hate that guy with a passion.

This other Ian MacGillivray though, seems great. Likes the outdoors, does nice paintings - what more could I ask for?


_{Stag, Hinds Stormy, by Ian MacGillivray}

Tanked Tramp Purée

As if I needed another responsibility in the office, I've taken it upon myself recently to try and raise morale. Too many people just sit around looking glum, eating their lunch at their desk and just not smiling enough. Sure, there's plenty of cool people too, but I'm sure they'll also appreciate a laugh anyway.

So, here's a repost of a little ditty I put up on their site, courtesy of Wordsmith;

Hello there buzzers,

As one of the resident students, I feel it's my duty to make my first post on the buzz complete nonsense, but I also want to address a problem I've found in the department. You see, the UK DPE Partner Team feel they're a bit of an Untapped Marketer at the moment, with people a bit confused about what we do. Are we a Naked Mutt Paperer, or simply Tanked Tramp Puree?

I'll let you make up your own minds there, but if you fancy chatting to anyone to help you with that, then I'd like to introduce the guys who make up the Red Puke Apartment.

Leading the team, we've got Paul Maher - though, consider yourselves warned, he's A Real Hump sometimes. Our resident superhero, Neon Slicer may be a handy contact, note that by day he's known as Eric Nelson.

If you're looking for interesting people, then maybe Dave Allen is your man - get him to show you his Lead Navel. Another of our curios is Nick Page, who lives in a Pink Cage since developing A Pig Neck.

Those of you with specialist queries should get in touch with David Gristwood - who's quite an Odd Twig Advisor. If this isn't your cup of tea, and you'd rather Brisk The Nu, then Keith Burns, our resident Scotsman is the one to see.

Your entertainment needs are catered for by the pair of us who compiled this little project, Michael McClary, who offers his DJ services under the name Creamy Mac Chill, and of course myself - many a Spring night out can be improved by the May Cigar Villain after all.

We hope you've got a bit more visibility of the team now, and I'll admit I still don't recognize every face around the office, so please feel free to introduce your teams with a similar post.

Thanks,
A lacy mail virgin.

Anecdotes

Not that my life hasn't been interesting recently (four presentations in four [work] days) - but I thought I'd share a couple of stories I've heard from the various places I've visited and people I've seen with you instead of just talking about me. I've got no reason to believe these aren't true, but I've also got no 'reliable' sources either - so, with a pinch of salt :)

Out of place
"A friend of mine's a policeman back in Norwich, and one fine summer day he was walking along Gentleman's Walk (Main Street) when he came across a couple of tourists. They looked a little bemused, and were getting some very strange looks. The policeman strolled up, and asked them if everything was ok, trying to hide a smirk on their face, and received a question he'd rather been expecting:

"Can you tell us how to get to the beach?"

I say he'd been expecting this - they were wearing bathing costumes, flip flops and carrying a surfboard, on a Sunday lunchtime, in Norwich. Now, for those of you who aren't aware of this, Norwich is a good 20 miles away from any beach at all - the policeman ended up pointing them at the train station. Apparently, the couple's hotel was advertised as 'good for access to the beach', and this couple had taken the advertisement a bit too seriously.

Working away from home

Quite a while ago, back when I was still toddling around, a certain insurance company with the initials L and G decided to get rid of a lot of their regional offices. They replaced these with some hot-desking areas, that never had enough space, and weren't too well located, in an attempt to get their guys working from home. They then gave out a bunch of cash to their disgruntled employees in order to fund a lot of home offices.

Now, many of these employees weren't too happy about being forced to spend a lot more time at home with their wife and kids (proper men, eh?), and so a bunch of them clubbed together, and got themselves a small office above a sandwich shop in the centre of town. As this wasn't a corporate office, depsite a lot of fuss from the lawyers, L&G couldn't do anything about all of the pictures of...not well dressed women on the walls, the No Smoking policy and the like.

Plus they made a profit on the whole deal too.

Fully covered

An American (who else) 'lady' was known to have once called up her breakdown cover company because she was unable to get into her car. When they arrived, sure enough, the doors were locked. They began to pry their way in, when she noted that the keys weren't permanently lost, merely misplaced. Misplaced about four feet towards the earth in fact. She was so obese/lazy, that she couldn't pick up the keys from the floor in front of the car, where she'd just dropped them. I'm still quite curious as to why she didn't merely ask a passer-by though...

--

Update: Today's randomness is brought to you by the random world of the Blogosphere. Julie has an answer to somebody's question of the day - 'Clowns: Delightful or Terrifying - read her reply, if you dare.

Beauty in the breaks

I love art, in its many, many forms, and it always lifts my 気 to see someone, anyone, create something with love which expresses that which they find beautiful. When I too, however, find it beautiful, then it stays in my thoughts for quite some time, and I always try and find a way to share it with others. Often it's a piece of music, a very simple sketch or a lovingly constructed sculpture, but just sometimes, it's something you'd normally think of as far less soul-less, paid for by a corporate giant:



Now, TV adverts for large corporations may not seem a likely art-form to move me so, but when an advert is this good, one barely even notices the product being sold (though I'm sure the viral effect is superb for business). Often the high budget can lead to something even better than the short indie films - which are invariably too pretentious to enjoy anyway.

Commercials of this quality aren't a new concept, with a few companies having a very good history in this department, possibly most notable amongst them Volkswagen of all people. Then again, these guys did start with one of the best propoganda teams of the century behind them - so you would expect some top notch stuff. Did anyone else love The Pretender advert below?



I was also trying to find, amongst the vast archives of utter rubbish on Youtube, a Twix advert that's currently on the TV which I quite liked. It's not normally the type of thing I'd have posted up, but I guess this Vodafone ad has just got me in the mood to appreciate adverts. Regardless, I couldn't find it, but I did find the following cool Lego construction:



What I love, a lot more than the actual video, is (currently) the most recent comment on there (which you can see by clicking here or simply clicking on the video above once it's started playing) - which quite simply states:

Why don't you just pull it out for free?

I can't remember the last time I heard someone so simply sum up the ignorance of the masses to art - but the problem is, I can't quite figure out whether this guy is a genius, or is just actually that much of a pickled egg sandwich. Guess it all comes back to that which the mouseover in XKCD comic 301 says:

Fun game: Try to post a Youtube comment so stupid that people realise you must be joking

Randall's right, it's nigh on impossible.

Graham Lineham

I recently stumbled across the blog of Graham Lineham - writer of Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd - it's a pretty good short read, worth subscribing to if you're the kind of person who likes to fill up their day with so much random internet trivia that work is merely an afterthought.

On there, he himself has posted a link to the YouTube version of the Anti-Piracy Advert he wrote for the IT Crowd - with the brilliant title Anyone who watches this owes me 50p - seems he really does know the target audience of that show well :)

A less pleasant article I found on there, equally interesting, are his comments on a US Newspaper's cartoon depicting Iranians as cockroaches, and the similarities with 'The Eternal Jew'. Have a read of his post - It Must Never Happen Again - Happening Again.

The IT Crowd Returns

For those of you who've been buried under some kind of...what is it real world people do nowadays anyway? Football or something probably, and not the good kind at that (we're so addicted in my house in Reading).

So, anyway, attempting to get back on track, for those of you with various burial-related deficiencies, The IT Crowd is finally back with a second series. Proof again that enough anonymous geeks signing online petitions can actually get some things changed. Although, admittedly, it's mostly only TV shows that get affected.

The show's brilliantly made, and I'm such a geek now that I can actually relate to most (not all, not yet) of the little snippets and 'issues' they throw in there - from hyperspeed phone vibrators, to oversized TVs, internet piracy (is wrong, remember kids) and all the other fun stuff they throw in there.

Channel 4 have decided not to put every episode online this time (which I'm sure, will convince all of the shows fans to buy it legit, and not just say, torrent it), but plenty of YouTubers and the like have superceded that decision. Here's one of my favourite bits from the latest series - go watch the rest of Channel 4 and buy the DVDs, I want a series 3 guys :)



--

_{AND THEN STEAL IT AGAIN}

Wooden computing

Whilst browsing through Youtube, I was unlucky enough to stumble across this fairly awful video, which has been extremely popular on there recently. I'll leave it to you to work out why - or to simply enjoy it if you get whatever it is I'm missing:



From here my train of thought dawdled, until I decided to plug the phrase 'wooden computers' into a search engine to see what came up.

Wow.



Above is the Wooden iPod by ZapWizard - if Apple don't put that into their next-gen range then I think they're really missing out on an opportunity.


_{“To be honest we do not have the cheapest masters in Moscow...”}

This one's a piece of Russian brilliance, with everything hand-carved, and you can even buy your own, though take note of the quote in the subline above, I imagine it'll cost more for the outsides than for the gaming rig you put inside. Update: I actually went away and asked them how much the above would cost - US$15,000. Ouch. However, if you want to see the product of some really hardcore time, effort and love...



Wow.

This one took over 300 hours of effort and is completely hand-built by Nicholas Falzone, nothing I say could be worth of it.

o2 Simplicity

I recently signed up to a new mobile phone contract - o2 simplicity, after my previous one ran out. It's a great deal, for £15 a month I get:

• 200 minutes


• 400 texts


• 1mb browsing

I'm not sure the browsing will be enough to meet my needs, now I've got a fancy Smartphone, which I'll be hooking up to my Outlook, but the rest of it is fantastic.

Got to love o2 customer service too, took four minutes from ringing them to hanging up with a new contract effective immediately, and that includes the time wasted because I'd completely forgotten all my details.

And best of all? It's a 30-day contract, which rolls over, so I'm free to go anywhere else whenever I want. Nice.

Miss Teen America 2007 - Miss South Carolina

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.



For those of you who missed it first time around, here's a transcription of her answer:

I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so, because some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and I believe that our education like such as South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as and I believe they should our education over here, in the US should help the US, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children.

And for those of you with a musical bent, here's the video mashed up with some absolute rubbish from George Bush:

BT - Sorted

September 14th - 18:34
I email the CEO of BT again, explaining that nothing has yet been resolved and asking that he get someone to contact me.

September 14th - 21:01
CEO of BT replies, apologising and asking his team to get in touch.

September 14th - 22:00
Head of the Chairman's Office mails me from a Blackberry, promising to ensure I'm contacted in the morning.

September 15th - 09:04
Carmel Alexander (what a name!) calls, I'm really nice to her and she apologises a lot, finds out exactly what needs to be done, and promises to go away and do it

September 15th - 11:13
Carmel calls again, to inform me that the line is back up, a Direct Debit form has just been put in the post and that the previous two bills have been cancelled.

--

Not bad eh? Seems the last guy from the Chairman's Office who was supposed to sort this out went on holiday instead, I sense he's going to be in some trouble when he gets back. Guess I can get on with blogging about random rubbish I find on the internet and various places I go now, instead of a utility company, which probably hasn't made for thrilling reading.

For now though, I'm off to make some phone calls! :)

Ten Top Tips to get the best customer service

1) Take it to the top.

Here's a list of CEO's email addresses for many major corporations. Only use this once you've tried all the other options and given them a reasonable time (two weeks) to reply to your concerns. If you've still got no response, or you're getting back crap, then it's time to contact the guy at the top - the buck stops at his inbox.

Remember, be very polite, acknowledge that you're taking up his important time but be firm that you'd like something resolved. You probably don't need to go into too much detail with this mail - just enough to horrify that CEO that his customer services department is doing something wrong, enough to persuade him to get some of his top guys to get some other top guys on your case. No more call centres in Asia for you.

2) Say No To 0870.

There's another great web service, called Say No To 0870 which offers a list of geographical numbers that can be used as an alternative to the 0870 numbers companies insist on giving out. Now you can take advantage of your free minutes and call packages whilst bitching out the incompetent fools on the other end of the line.

3) Good manners go a long way.

There's a real person on the other end of your e-mail/letter/call, and they had absolutely nothing to do with all of the problems you've received. They're just as sick of the installation guys screwing things up as you are, but after months of receiving crap, they're just going to get defensive if you go on the offensive. If you produce a polite request for help, even going so far as to apologise for the tone of your letter (in that most British of fashions), then you'll gain their attention, sympathy and empathy, and are much more likely to get a personalised resolution, instead of one that's merely automated and script-based.

4) Look like a big-shot.

When you communicate, it's best to make yourself seem as professional as possible. If you work for a large corporation, use your corporate email address to send messages. Have your letters franked by a company instead of sticking on a stamp by hand, and print out the 'To:' labels. Possibly even get a 'secretary' to write your letters for you, and be sure to include a random string of digits as 'My reference' along with their references too. Use a formal letter template. All of the above, and your many other ingenious ideas around this theme, will show them that you're an important person, not to be trifled with, and they'll do their best to get your problems fixed, out of fear for their own jobs.

5) Keep accurate records.

Date every letter you write, and keep a copy for yourself. Make a note of every phone call, including who you spoke to, how long you had to wait, and what the progress of that call was. Back up every bit of email correspondence you receive. When it comes to a final solution (sic), then being able to present a stream of incompetence and wasted time, fully documented, is going to make things very impressive on your side of the argument, and increase the chances of compensation.

6) State your demands clearly and reasonably.

All too often I hear or see people get in contact with a company that's been giving them grief, and start the call with a long winded story about Steve not turning up and then some guy on the phone giving bad advice, as the person on the other end reads a magazine and waits for the complainer to get to the point. Instead, be clear from the outset what you want out of your communication, but make your demands practical.

You can exaggerate a little to give yourself a bartering position - but if the demands (£x off your next bill as compensation, a proper contract posted out within a week and full service restored by Tuesday) seem reasonable, they'll likely accept if you have a strong enough story. I tend to end every letter with a list of exactly what I want done - giving the person on the other end a well structured and defined action plan.

7) Don't lie.

When dealing with a large corporation, you'd be surprised at how thorough their records are - especially as they've gone off and made so many mistakes on your account. If you begin to lie about dates, amounts and correspondence, you're likely to get caught out, and once you are, you lose any hope of a leg to stand on. No longer will you have the sympathy of the folks in the complaints department, instead you'll meet corporate defensiveness via the party lines, and you'll be lucky to even get what you legally deserve, let alone anything on top of that.

8) Be communicable.

As soon as you start a complaints procedure, flood the company involved with all of your contact information at once. Personal mobile phone numbers, the full range of e-mail addresses, everything. You want to make sure that whenever anyone picks up your case and looks at it, they see a way of contacting you that's appropriate for the message and the hour, and then take that up. If you start getting spam or unwanted calls later on, it's merely the work of one clear, polite sentence to indicate you wish for your records to be removed.

9) Share your experiences (within reason).

When you've been having troubles, don't keep it to yourself - be sure that others know. I'm not saying here that you should spend every night out for the next month bitching and whining, but be sure that friends and strangers alike are aware of your issues. They may very well have some good advice or contacts within the company, and this can often lead to a speedy and satisfactory solution.

10) Try to get a dedicated contact on your case.

As soon as you receive a useful looking reply to your issue, then make a note of exactly who that response originated from. Don't be afraid whilst on the phone to ask for someone's name and extension number - as soon as you have this they are at your mercy and will do their utmost to resolve your problems. Whether that's due to the small bond of friendship you forge, or simple annoyance is irrelevant, it simply works.

--

And remember guys, feedback doesn't always have to be negative. If someone's done a great job, over and above what you've expected, then always consider sending them a thank you note. Even better, consider getting in touch with the line manager to let them know how impressed you were - the good news will get back to the employee just the same, but you'll also have done wonders for their career - letters of recommendation are rare, especially in the telecommunications and utilities industries.

Happy hunting :)
Ian.

Xx

New homepage

Although the unbelievably fabulous site which has previously served me well as a homepage and, ocassional source of nourishment (when whichever of my ladies was around was in good humour) is now back up, I've still been looking for somewhere new to call home, since starting work.

BitchMakeMeASandwich.com, for those of you who weren't aware, was my old homepage, and did a perfect job - static content, tiny bandwidth and a smile a day - and it was very hard to find a replacement.

Fortunately, I recently stumbled across the simply fantastic d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com. It makes me so, so inexplicably happy that someone's gone to the effort of making a yearly payment (albeit, a fairly small one) to get that domain, just for the benefit of the internet's grammar police. I was going to say for the benefit of those who simply can't spell that fairly basic word - but they'll never manage to find the site ;)

BT admit fault

Well, Alcoholics Anonymous always say that the first step to resolution is admitting to yourself, at the highest possible level, that you have a problem. I've slightly paraphrased that to include the dubiously sensical phrase 'highest possible level', so that it fits in with the next bit. The next bit, as you've probably guessed from previous posts and the title of this, is that BT have admitted that the service they provide is 'awful'.

It wasn't just some random phone operative in Delhi telling me this either, the word came straight from the top - from CEO Ben Verwaayen. Here's what he said in relation to my latest email:

Ian
This is awful, sorry about that
Team: can we contact Ian asap please?

Ben

Ah, email, I love you so.

Naturally, I'll tell you how well or not his team follow up on this.

--

Update:

Ian

Sorry for the problems you have had and the lack of contact. I will arrange for you to be contacted tomorrow and get this resolved.

Jim Brown
Chairmans Office
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Or, as Danny interprets that one...

Ian,

We're really sorry for the problems you've been facing and our lack of communication throughout. In order to resolve this we're going to pass you from pillar to post until you eventually end up back with our customer service team in Mumbai.

Some made up person
Some made up BT Head Office

Fuck BT

I've dealt with bad customer service departments before, but it's normally simply a case of being unlucky enough to find one of the few bad apples, employed on minimum wage with no real knowledge of procedures that proves frustrating. In previous experience, once you move up the chain of command to those who are in a position of some authority over others, you can begin to get a decent level of service and your problems rectified.

Then I met BT.

April 26th 1986
Nuclear explosion at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected, hundreds die. Those left most twisted, torn and mutilated are hired into the upper echelons of the BT customer service department. With radioactive matter seeping into their brains, they draw up the guidelines which all future BT service will be based on.

July 13th 2007
Move into new house. Plug a phone into the line and find that it's dead. Call BT from a mobile phone to get line activated. Go online and order Sky Talk as our call provider - BT are only to be utilised for the line rental as they have a massive monopoly on the hardware infrastructure. This costs an extortionate £11/month, but there appears to be little choice, unless we want Virgin.

July 20th 2007
After 7 days, I ring BT again asking for the line to be activated. It appears a request was sent the very minute I rang after moving in, but that someone had forgotten to press the 'confirm' button. Seconds after this is done so, the line is activate. Hurrah! All the bad press was for nothing - BT seem mostly competent.

January 17th 2005
Two thousand, three hundred and twenty seven cases of acute, spontaneous brain death are traced back to BT's automated phone system. Directors of the company fail to turn up to court for so long that the charges are eventually dropped in frustration.

July 24th 2007
Letter arrives from BT telling us that the sum of £12.50 is overdue on our account. I'm not entirely sure when we were meant to previously have paid it (this is the first communication that's arrived), or where the extra £1.50 on the bill has come from. Regardless, I'm busy, so I pop onto their website to pay my bill.

The website is broken, and gives me back an error that's roughly as useful as the old classic:

Error: There is an error

or

Error: There was a failure. Use the following error code to resolve the problem#ERROR: ERROR CODE NOT FOUND

That's ok, I'll try the phone service. Ah, much better - I enter in my account number, and then tell it how much I want to pay. I enter in my debit card details, one at a time, until I get through to the end.

"Sorry, that's not a valid issue number. Please enter a valid issue number, or press # if you do not have a valid issue number"

Whoops! Made a typo there didn't I. I re-enter my issue number...and get the same message. Clearly the typing error was elsewhere - but I don't seem to be able to re-enter anything else, whatever I press (including #) merely gets her to repeat that message. Upon furiously mashing the keys and swearing at the phone for a minute, I get a slightly different, but identical in content message. This loop appears infinite. I hang up.

I try again, being very sure to enter my details, the same happens - I give up.

October 5th 1994
48 British people commit mass suicide in Switzerland following encounters with BT customer service. BT bribe the media to make the event look related to a cult founded by their board of directors, the Order Of The Solar Temple.

July 25th 2007
I try the website again, still broken. I try the online 'contact us' form to report that the webpage is broken - the online 'contact us' form is broken and just returns 'null' after I press submit.

I try the automated phone system to pay my bill again, entering two new cards into the system, every time I'm still asked to re-enter my issue number again and again, this is getting silly.

I ring the BT Helpline to attempt to be put through to a person. Everyone who answers asks me to give them my account number. I do so, and they're shocked when they find it starts with 'GB', each panicking and passing me along. I have no idea what's going on. Eventually I'm told I'll be forwarded to someone in 'Services' who can help me. They sure can, they hang up after 'hello', saving me valuable time spent listening to them talk crap.

I ring again, and again, and again. Every time I keep getting passed around until someone simply decides to hang up on me. I am not happy.

July 27th 2007
I send a letter to BT, as chronicled in my first Blog post, I Hate BT, asking that they please send out the Direct Debit form I was promised when I first signed up for a line, and fix the various errors.

August 1st 2007
No reply, I try the email and phone automated systems, still broken.

August 8th 2007
Another letter from BT demanding payment. I use it to start a small fire at an orphanage.

May 24th 1979
BT's customer complaints department is shut down for a week as George Romero hires the entire staff to play as extras in his latest film

August 27th 2007
I send a second letter to BT, after there has been no response to my first, as transcribed in my blog post I really, really hate BT.

August 30th 2007
The blogosphere again comes to my rescue, with a fellow student by the name of Anthony giving me the email address of BT's CEO with a recommendation I email them.

August 31st 2007
I email the CEO of BT to inform him of my situation, and ask that something be done. He passes the message on to a secretary, personally assuring me that she will take care of it.

September 3rd 2007
The ceo's secretary emails me to ask for my account details, and a contact number. I supply these the same day.

December 2nd 1992
Robert Black brought in as a consultant to fix BT's falling customer service standards. He is eventually hired as head of customer relations, with a golden handshake of $14 million.

September 5th 2007
Our phone line is cut off, for non-payment, despite the fact that in every correspondance I have asked for urgency in order to avoid exactly this. Every call is now redirected to a BT system. After toying with the automated payment system (still broken) I wait on hold for 2 1/2 hours until the battery in the cordless phone I am using dies.

September 10th 2007
Still no response to my two letters, still no sign of the direct debit form promised two months ago, and still no call from the 'high level customer complaints team' I gave my contact details to.

September 14th 2007 (Today)
Still nothing. I kill 18 small children, leaving the bodies in a ditch on the border of Suffolk. Probably best if you don't mention this to the police. I'm off to email my good friend Ben, the CEO of BT again, to see if that helps at all.

--

Just now, I found a man named Jim, aka TheRantMan has yet another...'interesting', story about BT, in case you think I'm just exaggerating or being unlucky. I am a bit miffed he feels the need to compare BT to Microsoft in terms of customer service though, I always found MS's to be great.

First presentation over!

Well, I'm sitting on a train home from Nottingham, where I've just been to give my first presentation on Visual Studio 2008. This one was to the good folks at Tribal, who were having their first 'Devfest'. Their company's grown quickly and has a lot of disparate offices writing very different applications for different sectors, and they have had very little visibility 'till now of what was going on in the rest of their company. As such, they've had a couple of days to get together and find out what's going on - and also to hear about some new Cool Stuff^TM from me.

So after a hectic start to the week for me, in which I did little else but make sure all my demos worked, and did all my homework on some of the deeper features of my little product, I journeyed off to Nottingham yesterday afternoon. I had a short stopover in Birmingham, where Julie, fresh from Ghana (where she'd been volunteering in a clinic for a month) and Terra, fresh from bed, came to say hi. After that is was back on the train up to my destination, where I arrived to find things not exactly as planned.

In my optimistic view of yesterday evening, the lovely chap from Tribal I'd been having a laugh with via email would meet me at the hotel, and introduce me to the rest of the group. I'd then wait around for the other Microsoft guy who was coming along to turn up, before settlng in for drinner and drinks. As it was, after I'd checked in (and been upgraded to an 'executive suite' for some reason), I got a couple of text messages. My friend from Tribal had a dog-related emergency, and so wouldn't be along that night - and just to outdo him, my friend from Microsoft (who I'd also never met) had a mother-related emergency, and wouldn't be coming at all. So, once I managed to drag myself away from my sumptious suite (eleven lightswitches, need I say more?) I decided to just go looking for the crowd of geeks.


_{I imagine executives in the 70's designed the hotel's decor...}

There was an unfortunate lack of glasses and ponytails, but I was fairly encouraged by the exclusively male table of pale, skinny folks in t-shirts who'd gone for the 'burger and chips' option in the restaurant, when pretty much everyone else had a suit on and a plate of nouvelle cuisine in front of them. Once I'd wandered over and ascertained that yes, these were to be my drinking and dining partners for the evening, all was well, and the conversation especially interesting.

It was quite gratifying (friends everywhere sigh as my ego becomes yet more inflated) to hear from all of them phrases such as "Can you believe he got a job at Microsoft straight out of University" and the inevitible question of 'how' - which I mostly answered with vague references to illicit rituals and bribery. Once I'd said I came straight from uni they seemed under the impression I was a graduate rather than a student, and I managed to avoid disavowing them of this illusion without lying outright to anyone. I never really want to tell partners/customers I'm only on a placement, I think it would take some weight away from my words - hardly ideal given that I'm relying on them to trust me in order to get them dabbling with possibly unstable technologies.

There was a bit of a blur of names and new faces in the bar, but the words 'Can I get you a drink?' were a very satisfactory common denominator, and I left the bar at some late hour, sensibly only a little tipsy, given that I was planning on doing the 9am presentation. As it was, the other guy from Microsoft who'd stepped in at the last minute (and arrived at 8.30am that morning) took the hangover slot, though I had to be on my feet there to help answer some of the very tricky questions these guys poised. It's a lot harder when your entire audience is from a single company, as product specific questions are fair game - so they can come out with some really specific stuff and expect you to know the answer. We got through that one unbloodied though, with good responses to all they could throw at us - though I was empathic and a bit anxious after watching one of his demos fail to work.

I managed to get through my presentation unscathed, with all of my demos working exactly as they should (once I'd snipped out a couple of bits that were unachievable thanks to my breaking of SQL server a couple of nights ago) - and in record time too. LINQ, which normally takes me about 2 to 2 1/2 hours to demonstrate only filled up 50 minutes of my hour and a half to two hours slot - leaving a lot of dangerous Q&A time, and me to demo lots of the other cool functionality that I wasn't quite as confident in. The guys all seemed pretty impressed though, and are going to take the product on, so job done there - just another presentation tomorrow to go, and then I get the weekend off. I say off, I mean, I get the weekend to prepare for the day long event I'm organising on Monday :(

On the way back I had a longer stayover, and popped back to visit my old house in Birmingham, and to sit through Julie's fascinating but interminible set of four hundred photos from Ghana - as well as to see all the cool stuff she'd bought there (taking advantage of the horrific exchange rate which made everything dirt cheap). I got a present - a handmade top (below) which is pretty ace - and picked up various things I'd left behind. I also realised how much of a snob I've become in my fancy Reading house, can't believe I used to live like such a student *wink*. It was quite amusing, and a little touching, to find out that things I'd left behind had been nicely stored, waiting for a decision on what I wanted to do with them. For things like an acoustic guitar, this was fair enough - but, four tins of peaches? I was rather bemused.

Anyhow, enough of this rambling, I think I'm finally done with this train journey - time for some sleep.

Danger: Internet ahead

Despite the proliferation of books such as the fabulous Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the Grammar Police has yet to be recognized as an official governmental organisation.

<Sidetracking>Whilst checking my facts were true there, I came across some great websites - plug 'Grammar/Spelling Police' into the search engine of your choice and enjoy.</Sidetracking>

As such, it falls upon the common masses to stand up for proper usage of the language, and nowhere do they do so more vociferously or entertainingly as on the internet. The average online forum can be relied upon to have at least one 'grammar Nazi' who will stand firm against such disgusting phrases as "You're turn", and from this you'd think technologically minded people would know to mind their online 'manners', at least unless they're amongst close friends.

The Microsoft Social alias, as I've mentioned before, is a hive of many highbrow minds, where intellect and quick wit reign supreme. Something as potentially innocent as a male employee selling 'Red ladies boots' is pounced upon mercilessly, under normal circumstances, but not when there's even better fodder around. I refer you to this mail, sent there this morning:

Hello social,

Basically pretty sure sum1 has hacked into my hotmail/msn account I use at home, not at work.. as I cant log into my account, wiv the password ive bin using for years.. I also don’t seem to be able to get past the secret question bit... cos im an idiot..i think i gave bogus info wen i signed up...

If any1 knows a way I could sort this out...either sum1 who can get into my account wivout my pass and change the pass for me to get in..or know any1 internally I could communicate to sort this out..wud be much appreciated..Mite be a good challenge for ure techis if u wanna hack my account...and do good at the same time...

Now, content aside, there was no way something written this badly was going to escape being thoroughly ripped apart. In fact, in the time it took me to write my translation of it (below), the poor guy who sent the mail had received so many...replies, that he'd already had a go at re-writing it and apologising himself. As he managed to make a fair few mistakes in the re-write, I had no real qualms about posting the following translation:

Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

On this most calamitous of days, may I possibly impose upon your supreme wisdom and avail myself of your collective wisdom and experience? I find myself in rather a pickle, and unable to gain sufficient entry to my ‘hot mail’ box, with the disastrous consequences I’m sure you can imagine that entails.

It seems my secret handshake no longer cuts it – could it really be possible that some villainous scoundrel has bribed mine security to accept only the glove of another? Upon subscribing to the ‘hot mail’ service, I felt it prudent to avoid sharing too many legitimate details, and as such the ‘hot mail’ agency are unable to intervene here, so I call upon you fine people, with this request for aid.

If any of you have contacts in the depraved underworld known as the ‘inter net’ upon which my ‘hot mail’ box resides, who may surreptitiously gain entry, I endear you to introduce me. Alternatively, if somebody knows of a Prince of the ‘hot mail’ kingdom who may use their powers to my benefit, again I beg of you for their help.

Yours sincerely,
[his name]

Jamming with the new old guys

So one of the guys who works in my office, John Noakes, was heard to remark a week or so ago that the bass player in his band had recently undergone a triple heart bypass. Naturally I jumped in to voice my concern usurp his position and John threw me a CD with 11 tracks on it, and told me there was a practise the following Monday (aka, tonight).

Here's the 'setlist', as it were:

• Gimme Three Steps, Lynyrd Skynyrd


• Ten Words, Joe Satriani (instrumental)


• Walking By Myself, Gary Moore


• Whisky in the Jar, Thin Lizzy


• Once Bitten, Twice Shy, Ian Hunter (of Mott the Hoople fame)


• Stand By Me, Oasis


• Black Magic Woman, Santana


• Can’t Get Enough, Bad Company


• Waterloo Sunset, Def Leppard


• Hard to Handle, Black Crowes


• Cocaine, Eric Clapton

We played through all these tonight, with me 'lending my jazz influences' (aka, not playing the real bassline and just improvising instead...some would say it was just laziness in not learning the songs properly, but they're no fun) to the pieces.

Had a few jams too, which was sweet - been so long since I've played music with others. Given that the guys were in their 40's/50's (let's hope that that's either right, or that they don't find this post...) I was surprised by how much energy they had, and they really knew their stuff.

I felt a bit...underequipped with my £70 bass and £5 lead, given that everyone else turned up with a sackful of pedals, Gibson guitars and the like. Still though, it's what you do with it that counts eh? Or so say us students who can't afford fancy gear.

Hopefully I'll get a few more sessions with these guys before their regular bass player recovers (such a callous bastard aren't I), and after that I may see about adding some keys to their lineup, though I'm not sure I can keep up with them if I do that - we'll see.

All the best now, off to rest my fingers.

Xx

Dolphins are not humans

One thing I like to do when I'm bored is to simply pick a random forename (in this case, Martin) and a random surname (Stewart), and plug to two into a search engine, with the word 'blog' at the end of it. I like finding the little blogs, rather than the mass published ones, and getting a little insight into people's lives.

One thing I like to do when I'm even more bored, is to then blog about it myself.

Today I found, using the above, Mart the Rev's blog - he's a Presbyterian Minister in Christchurch, New Zealand, which is pretty cool for reasons I can't quite define. Possibly it's just because of this picture atop his blog...


_{I'm not entirely sure whether or not this is just a stock photo he's put some text on, or whether he's actually an 80's pop star}

--

To the point then - I found this story linked on his blog:

Dolphins not so intelligent on land

Hilarious though it is, it's a bit unfortunate that Mart here not only doesn't know key rule #17 of the internet - 'Never believe anything you read by The Onion' - but also didn't notice the word 'Satire' in the url. Still though, I do love this picture and subline from the article :)


_{A dolphin performs poorly in a University of Florida land-based locomotion test.}

The rest of the article is pretty hilarious too, so I suggest you go give it a read. If you need any more convincing...here's a couple of choice quotes:

In another test, several pounds of mackerel were placed on the ground, separated from the test dolphins by only 20 feet of concrete. The dolphins were unable to reach the food and feed themselves.

"In some cases," Lindell added, "the dolphins appeared to be looking directly into our eyes, as if pleading with us to help them perform better in these tests."

Been clicking around on that site (this post gets longer and longer...) by the way, if you liked the above, you might also enjoy:

Neck Strap Recall

Jewgle

So, Google has taken the very interesting step of apologising for some of their search results. Apparently, there's been a lot of fuss recently from people who have searched for the term Jew and found some anti-semitic content - specifically the top ranked site, 'Jew Watch' (which I shan't link to, for obvious reasons, go look it up if you feel the need..). This has been an issue, I discover, digging deeper, since April 2004, which has recently resurged for whatever rhyme and reason is driving the internet's fickle attention span, and Google are sticking to their guns by returning any site which meets their guidelines (mostly related to not cheating on SEO) and is legal in its host country, but in this case apologising.

This brings into the spotlight the interesting question of search engine morality - should providers be returning results which may be extremely offensive to a proportion of people likely to be looking up a specific term?

Personally, I'm with them on this one, as there are so many other search terms which result in extremely offensive content - and removing all of these offensive sites would cripple their business. Indeed - morality is always relative - I'm sure that the anti-semites running Jew Watch find some of the Jewish websites returned to be extremely offensive too. With something as dynamic and anonymous as the internet, it becomes so difficult to establish a common moral consensus that it's best to simply make available all of the information people wish to create, and allow the end user to decide which sites to give their attention and respect.

I think the real answer to this problem however, is the original meaning of that horrifyingly ubiquitous buzzward (buzzward; n; 'a misued and bastardised buzzword' - anyone else fancy helping this word I just made up take off? *grin* - I've just added it to Urbandictionary at the link above) Web 2.0 - a semantic web with each item associated with metadata. Microsoft have had a stab at this with Tafiti but the real problem's going to be convincing content producers of the value of adding real metadata to their information. For example, once JewWatch is properly associated with the metadata 'anti-semitic', then it's a simple query to filter it, along with other related sites, out of a query for 'Jew'.

Here's Google's apology, for those of you who are interested, by the way.

--

As to how I stumbled across all of this just now; I was attempting to track down a little story I'd heard at work about an online store run by a Jewish couple who are very strict on their faith. So strict in fact, that they still honour the tenet of not working on Shabbat - and as such will allow users to view items on their website, but will not accept any orders between sunset on a Friday and sunset on a Saturday. They even go so far as to change this every week to take into account seasonal variations, and calculate it from the physical home of their webserver. They really do have a kosher machine..amazing.

--

_{When I next connect to the Microsoft corporate network, and they notice all the anti-semitic websites I've spent my weekend visiting, I'm so going to get sacked...}

Gardening

With so much going on at work it never quite occurred to me to plan anything for the weekends, so in order to avoid an entire weekend dedicated to the XBox and my guitars, I volunteered to help out Claire (a friend from work) with her belated summer gardening.

She's got a gorgeous country cottage, bizarelly located in some kind of vortex in the middle of Reading. The whole area is green and rustic, yet for miles around it in every direction there's the usual urban sprawl one would expect - very confusing. Claire herself lives in a thatch-roofed placed amongst what used to be an orchard, so there's a lot of great apple trees around.

I was charged with hedge trimming, and much though I appreciated an excuse to get out and about, and have some real exercise, things didn't exactly go swimmingly. Cutting through the wire of the first pair of electric hedge-clippers fortunately didn't result in any form of electrocution, but still wasn't exactly ideal. "You realise they're [the cables] painted bright orange for a reason" says Claire - which would be a fair point if the rest of the thing wasn't also bright orange ;)

It wasn't until about an hour into causing bits of tree to rain down upon me that I realised I was allergic to something within that particular plant - a bit of a downer as I was covered in it. The rash has mostly gone away now at least, though I am still finding bits of tree dotted around the house...

Anyhow, back to reading The amazing adventures of Kavalier & Clay (great), playing Crackdown (great) and learning these 12 songs for a band practise on Monday with some guys I found through someone at work - more on that Tuesday morning I imagine.

Xx

Doing something right

So, this morning was quite a nice time to walk into work and find various emails waiting for me. Here's a brief summary of my inbox:

• Fifty emails from Social, offering to sell me various items, ranting about people's parking and having the most incredulous requests satisfied in minutes. There were no massive outrageous questions asked last night, so here's one from a couple of weeks back I really loved:
  
  

  Hi
  
  I need two recommendations:
  
  1. Lively bar/restaurant in Richmond, Surrey
  2. Tax accountant in the Reading area
  
  Thanks
  [person]

  
  Unfortunately, when I asked exactly how the two were connected, I didn't get much of an answer :(



• A hundred emails from the Silverlight alias, with various fun questions, problems, new sites and bug reports.



• A bunch of emails from my team, mostly about work.



• Invites from a partner I'm going to present to in Nottingham to go out drinking with their techies the night before the 9am presentation - someone must have let on that I'm a student...



• Lots of resources for all the presentations/demos I'm doing over the next few weeks - saves me writing my own! :)



• And finally, the two cute little messages that I started this post with the intention of showing off - really made me smile:
  
  

  Hey Ian,
  
  Just wanted to drop you a quick email to say how much I appreciate your hard work of date!
  You’ve settled in exceptionally well and become an integral part of the team.
  
  Hopefully you’re not too stressed at the moment – I realise the pace has picked up.
  Let me know the moment you feel you are overloaded and I’ll make sure we get on top of things together.
  
  Right off on hols...speak next week.
  
  Thanks,
  [My manager]

  --
  

  Hi Ian,
  
  Please can you let me know which of the following events you are able to attend? The reason we have allocated you to quite a few is because obviously you applied for the recruitment role showing interest and also [The student & graduates HR manager] recommended you to us as a very good person to take :)
  
  [some dates]
  
  Please can you let me know a.s.a.p as we’ll need to ask someone else if you aren’t able to do it.
  
  Thanks
  [recruitment person]

Clearly no-one's yet figured out I spend most of the day on Blogger & Facebook...

Participation

So it seems Amy Crehore's blog isn't just a great place to find art, there's also a couple of things to make you think there. One thing she's got me thinking about today is a quote from Einstein she posted up, saying;

"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time.We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil."

Now, with respect to the comments (both private and public...use public if you can guys, conversation's more fun with more people involved in it) from my mostly jokey post about slave labour - which was actually meant to get you thinking about things a bit - I'm not entirely sure I agree with these two rather popular figures.

Whilst I'm not the kind of person to petition outside Coca-Cola's offices (in fact, I'm so morally bankrupt I happily go out and buy it), I do fully believe that if you care about something, anything, then you need to take pro-active steps. If you love someone, let them know, if you want something, make sure you get it - and if you're massively opposed to a movement, a company, a policy, anything...then should you not do something more? Is non-participation really going to be effective?


_{Gandhi's famous stance against carbs made him a role model for teenage girls everywhere}

I think that non-participation can certainly work, in a limited number of cases - but my marketing brain also tells me that it must be a certain kind of non-participation. It must be public, it must be seen. That way you're not just 'doing nothing' or 'avoiding' the issue, you're actively taking a stance against it by refusing to participate.

I don't think this can solve all problems though - worrying trends of voter apathy don't impact the overall results of an election and the boycotting of a multinational by an individual won't affect their sales drastically. If you care, then tackle the problem head on, and be seen to be doing so - if not, then are small sacrifices in your life really worth the tiny impact? I mean this as a real question, not rhetorical...let me know.

Finally, physical violence is never the way forwards, but I think this part of the quote should also apply to mental violence. Often, bullying an individual is rarely going to change the thinking of an institution - so please guys, be nice next time you phone up a company that's as morally bankrupt as I, to tell them what they're doing wrong. The guy at the other end may not be totally blameless, but he certainly didn't drain those reservoirs (or whatever) on his own one summer.

--

There's also an interesting letter from Einstein to Gandhi on Amy's blog, but I'll let you click through to that, instead of stealing all the traffic from her post here :)

Naughty Sony

This article gave me quite a giggle when I read it:

Sony edits Halo 3 on Wikipedia

They could have tried adding in something a bit more subtle than "Although it won't look any better than Halo 2.", if they wanted to keep the edit in there though...

On a related note, is it just me that gets really annoyed by people vandalising Wikipedia? It's such a brilliant expression of the true value of the internet - people collaborating, managing themselves and constantly putting in time and effort, all for the benefits of thousands of people they'll never even see.

There was a Facebook group (I won't give them the credit of a link) dedicated to stupid edits on Wikipedia, which they then took screenshots of and laughed about (because, of course, bad edits never last too long *grin*). Unfortunately for them, they didn't stop to think about all of the lovely personal data they'd put into Facebook before joining that group. As such, they've now been reported to Project 42 for termination.

How to make tea

A guide to life by David Watson (originally entitled 'My mug is ruined and now I have ulcers.')

Reposted here verbatim (with a few corrections), by kind permission of Mr. Watson, to work around Facebook's privacy settings, because it's just plain awesome and something that many, many people need to know.

--

Stop, please, right there. It probably seems like a good time saving idea to just pour the milk in with the teabag whilst the kettle boils but its not. Just don't. It's bad enough that its already tainted with your Burberry perfume and under flavored because you cannot bring yourself to not fuss with it for 3 minutes. It ruins the sweet, amazing and beautiful gesture that is boiling dried leaves delicately flavored with blood, sweat and tears of our fellow, underpaid and overworked man. I'm sure you think that I'm being fussy here and a jackass but I don't give a shit because my anger pales in comparison to the sheer arcane rage of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. He died for your sins AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY HIM?


_{Hi, i'll have one venti black tea with water added to milk, a crazy straw and a severe gunshot wound to the lower gut please.}

Here is an idiots guide to making tea (because you are an idiot):

1) Put teabag in mug
2) DO NOT TOUCH THE MILK
3) Boil water
4) DO NOT TOUCH THE MILK
5) Add boiling water to the mug with the bag in it (hint boiling water isn't white and cold) and leave it there for a minute at the least. I know you can manage it, if you are a special snowflake then try for 3-5 minutes
6) DO NOT TOUCH THE MILK
7) Remove teabag (please if you do just one thing on this list then do this for fucks sake)
8) Put the milk in to taste and stir
9) Remove sugar from cupboard and throw as hard as possible out of the nearest window.

This tea should not taste like it was dispensed from the armpit of a sexually active pensioner so if it does then you've done something wrong, I suggest suicide.

--

Clushje

A friend of mine, Chris Lush, creates a lot of less traditional art through digital photography, sometimes along a natural theme - but quite often a bit more abstract. I've been meaning to share his work with you guys for a while, but as a couple of artists whose blogs I've been reading have tracked back to here, I thought now was a good time to actually do so.


_{Garden of the Gods}

This one's probably my favourite of his nature pieces, the range of colours is spectacular and you can really spend quite a long time staring into the picture without absorbing it all. I'm also quite a fan of this one though:


_{Photosynthesis}

From a more abstract point of view, one I really love is the below. I like to think that this is some kind of undersea collision, though I don't think that's what was originally intended. Be sure to click on the picture to get the high-res version.


_Irresistibly

There's a lot more beautiful pieces he's put up on his deviantart page, so be sure to check out his gallery.

Project 42

Whilst browsing through my Outlook, I happened to right click on the name of someone fairly high up here at Microsoft. I decided, mostly out of boredom to view which Distribution Lists they subscribed to, wondering if there was anything fun I was missing out on.

I found, and I hope I don't get fired/taken away in the night for this, that they were a member of 'Project 42', which comes with no further information and is restricted to anyone who wishes to join it. Naturally I was intrigued by the internal answer to Area 51, and decided to see if I could find out anything.



_{Google 'Project 42' and you'll see the remains of the last blogger to talk about it}


Well, information has been kept tightly under wraps (as I may soon be kept), but from the little I've been able to found, it seems Microsoft has decided to skip Skynet all together, and go straight through to trying to build God.

Project 42 on Blogspot is an unfinished blog (some say the author's remains can be found in a Parisienne back-alley) which considers a few points of interest to do with religion. There's not a whole lot of content there, but what is there is certainly worth a brief read, and maybe something a bit more in depth for the religious amongst you.

Project 42's Official Website is, naturally, completely blank. Or so one would think to look at it. What you don't know is that what it is in fact 'Loading...' is data in such a highly evolved form that our current internet protocols have no idea of how to decrypt it.

The hidden message on Funzig's Project 42 is hidden under some marketing buzzwords, and not immediately obvious. However, scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see the real information that is delivered to the initiated along with some training program on the CD. This detailed analysis of; "Memory, Learning, Knowledge, Intelligence, Conciousness, Creativity, Motivation and Innovation" is but one of many steps in the creation of a deity.

People, you have been warned.

An intern's workload

Fortunately, this doesn't ring true for my current job - but I'm sure everyone can empathise with it from one of their worse job experiences :)

Support slave labour

Recently I came across two fairly generic kitchen items in Asda, which looked pretty much identical and had the exact same price tag. I was therefore faced with the difficult decision of which to buy (fortunately I wasn't shopping with someone else), which I'm sure you'll appreciate required a lot of thought in order to ensure I got the Right One.

Firstly, as price wasn't going to help me, I tried to evaluate the two based on quality, but after much turning, poking and licking, I really couldn't tell the two apart, so I had to look a bit more in depth. The barcodes both had pretty nice prime factors, and made pretty patterns - each beautiful in their own way but neither really stood out above the other.

One final difference I noted, however, was the little mark on the bottom saying 'Made in...'. Item A was made in Taiwan, whereas Item B was made (fairly bizarrely) in Helsinki. Now, if the European item had been made in France, or 'Belgium' then I could happily have discarded it, but I've got no real issue with Finland, so racism couldn't help out here.

Initially then, I was going to go with the moral standpoint, not supporting the probable awful conditions of work those poor labourers in Taiwan, and the evil companies running those sweatshops. But...hey, if I don't buy Item A, then instead of getting paid four pence, these workers are only going to get paid three pence. Can I really do that to them?

Eventually, the decision was made very easy for me when I considered the following set of facts:

Goods made in EU - high price for labour
Goods made in Taiwan etc - low price for labour

Therefore, if same price, one of the following must be true:

Lower profits for the EU company (lol)
or
Lower quality materials/ingredients for the EU company

So, support slave labour. You'll be helping out the poorest families in the world, and getting yourself better quality goods at the same time.

Reading Festival - Sunday

Sonic Boom Six


_{Sonic Boom!}

Another of the great UK punk bands around at the moment, these guys put on a great show and were a lot better than last time I saw them, possibly something to do with the lead singer not being ill. Really lively tent given that it was early afternoon on a Sunday - highly recommended.

Simon Amstell



The man known either as "..not as good as Mark Lamaar" or "..the one who made a living from being sarcy to pop stars" was, given his long list of TV credentials, naturally the biggest pull to the alternative tent of the weekend. He's brilliant on various programs, but I was interested to see how he could handle 'real' stand-up, as I've not seen him do it before, and I was happily impressed to find out that he can indeed cope with all comers, as well as being extremely funny with just a microphone as backing and no safety net.

He had quite a different style to the other stand-ups, opting for more of a cohesive story around his entire act, interspersed with many, many interjections from the crowd. People were standing so far back outside the tent that I'm not even sure everyone who turned up to see Amstell actually got to hear anything, so I'm really hoping that next year they decide to get some stand-up on the main stage instead. Think about it - there's half an hour between most bands on the main stage, minimum - and would it really interfere with all the set-up and sound checking if they gave one man a microphone?

Fall-out Boy



So, pretty awful, as you'd expect. It was quite amusing as they tried to counter the bottling they received at last year's festival by bringing one of their friends on stage to hit himself over the head with a glass bottle at the start. It didn't work, but it was quite amusing.

Lostprophets


_{How to take a band photo for Myspace}

Having sat around the comedy tent for a while, and listened a little to a couple of other bands, I went and had a glance at Lostprophets. Whilst the music still wasn't massively to my tastes, I was really impressed by the amount of passion and energy they put into their show. It's great to see a band really going for it, and was quite touching to hear the lead singer say "This is one of the best moments of my life" (and look as though he meant it) after he managed (very impressively) to get pretty much everyone watching the main stage 'dancing' for one of their tracks.

Nine Inch Nails



Again, one of those bands that did put on a good show, but where I wasn't really too interested by the music. Fortunately, not many other people were either, so it was quite easy to simply walk through the crowd near the end of their set to get a good place for...

Smashing Pumpkins


_{So I was going to look for a 'smashed pumpkin' to point out how dumb the band were when they named themselves after 'great' pumpkins. I found this awesome picture instead.}

Now I've never been a massive fan of these guys - mostly because I've never given them much of a chance, but Lu's mad about them so naturally I had to jump into the middle of the crowd to go see them with her. We ended up a few rows back from the front in the middle - so there was a good view and a great crowd atmosphere and I was actually quite impressed by them.

A fair bit of the set was, unfortunately, just atmospheric arsing about with effects and the like, but when they played what I assume were their popular songs, everyone (myself included) had a lot of fun and they did sound pretty good. There was one great track near the end, which Billy Corgan lied and said was on the new album, called 'Death From Above'. It's actually on the single Tarantula as a b-side (or double a-side, whatever), and I highly recommend you check it out, it's beautiful.

--

Sorry this one's a bit late, but - hey, I've been busy :)

Microsoft Summer Picnic

It takes a dedicated soul to give up his Sunday for the good of the company, but I'm just that committed to Microsoft that I managed to drag myself (and Lucie) out of bed this morning for an all expenses paid trip to that most glamorous of destinations...Warwick Castle.

The day's entertainment was, in all fairness, actually quite fun - despite being targeted more towards the 6 year olds that had been brought along. I think guests outnumbered employees at the event, but there were still a fair few people I knew there, along with most of the interns, who - being money grubbing students like myself - were hardly likely to pass up the opportunity of a free day out.

The fighting knights, jousting knights and trebuchet team all tried to add a little learning into the day as well, but with my vast experience in the world of warfare - from Diablo II through to Medieval: Total War, I was already completely familiar with all the terms.

I won't go into painful detail, as it was a fairly relaxed day and I don't have any photos, but one thing that did quite amuse me was all of the graffiti on various walls with dates attached. Normally it's quite interesting to see a short message that has survived over ten years, but given that some of the inscriptions run to hundreds of years old...Just me here I think.



Also faintly amusing were the 'No Entry' signs pointing at closed off walkways and ceilings (videoed partly for ease of showing you, and partly to try out Blogger's new Video Upload feature...)

Well, that doesn't work on my browser. How 'bout you?

Xx