One Born Every Minute
Posted: Fri 19 August, 2005 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News 3 Comments »Sometimes you just have to wonder about people, don’t you? Today’s Barnum moment comes courtesy of Cornwall’s Trading Standards (although how they got involved, I’m not quite sure) and the story in the BBC today about a letter scam that’s been doing the rounds.
Basically, the letter comes with an enclosed Jack of Spades playing card, and tells the gullible fuckwit, sorry, recipient that they’ve been cursed, and that in order to rescind the curse they need to rip the card into quarters, and send it back to the sender wrapped in a £10 note. Now, duh, I’m sorry but send that to me, the fucker’s going in the bin.
Cursed? By post? Excuse me while I fall off my chair with laughter.
Quite honestly, anyone who does send the card and £10 back bloody well deserves to be fleeced. Call it a stupidity/gullibility tax and be done with it.
Courses
Posted: Fri 19 August, 2005 Filed under: Resolutions 2 Comments »It’s taken a long time to get round to happening, but I’ve finally signed myself on for a course or two from September at the local FE college. I’ve been banging on for a long time about OU stuff and the like, but well, I can’t deny it, I’ve just never really found a course that interests me that much – particularly if it’s going to be something I’ve got to keep on doing for five or six years, one way or another.
On an introspective front, I know I’m far too flighty, and my interests range too far, for sticking with one subject to be of much use or long-term benefit for me. That’s just being brutally honest – by the time I’ve studied something intensively for six years, I’m not likely to want to look at that subject again for at least a similar stretch of time.
So as a kind of halfway house, I’ve gone for a shorter course. The entire thing will take the best part of a year, but it’s in three modules of about 10 or 12 weeks at a time, which should help a lot on that score.
And the subject? Well, in line with a few plans we’ve got for the next year or so – of which more at a later date – I’m going to be starting off with a course on Book-keeping and business finances. Kind of scary, kind of grown-up, but also most definitely something that should come in useful what with one thing and another…
Hotel Chocolat
Posted: Thu 18 August, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions 1 Comment »I know I mention this company on a semi-regular basis, but I still think that the stuff Hotel Chocolat do is – in general – bloody fantastic.
Herself got me one of their “Ultimate Chocolate Dipping Experience” boxes as a thing for me for passing that bloody driving test, and we opened it tonight. Wow.
The dried strawberries aren’t up to much – they rarely are – but the rest is fantastic so far. And of course if we really push it we’ll just get some small fresh strawbs when we have the rest of it over the weekend. Maybe even go to the local pick-your-own place. Hmm, now there’s an idea…
Posting the Changes
Posted: Thu 18 August, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts 1 Comment »So, Royal mail are planning on changing the way posted items are charged for in one years time, and basing it on size and weight. This could be quite interesting – a small heavy parcel will cost more to send than a large light one, for example.
Of course, it’ll also be a thousand times more confusing. If there’s no simple rule ( i.e. First Class items under 60g cost 28p, or whatever ) then most people simply won’t know what to pay for postage. I suspect Royal Mail are hoping that either they’ll just pay over the odds “to make sure it gets there”, or that they’ll use Post Offices more.
The second option is more likely to be the one that people go for, but there’s a problem with it – Post Offices are fucked up, with normally huge queues already. So how will this scheme make them any better?
Showing Restraint
Posted: Thu 18 August, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 3 Comments »Last weekend while I was in Manchester I made a very bad move. We went in to the Jessops camera store, and I had a serious look at the three main contenders on my Digital-SLR list. For those with a short memory span, the list is
The main thing I’m still unsure about is whether I should go for a more “entry level” SLR like the 350d or the slightly more advanced/complicated 20d. The 350d is currently running at about £650 including a lens, and the 20d is about £1200. Oh, and the Fuji is closer to the £2000 mark, which is the main thing that puts it out of the running in my estimation.
Anyway, I looked at all three, and I think I’m most likely coming down in favour of the 20d. But we’ll see.
And in the meantime, I did manage to show some restraint, and actually not just buy one and the hell with it. This may be more of a problem next month, when I’ve been paid an obscene amount again…
Cashing In
Posted: Wed 17 August, 2005 Filed under: General 1 Comment »I see that the government is already trying to help party contributors advertisers and corporate entities by introducing the ‘2012 Act’ or (more properly) the Olympics Bill, which (among other things) would “make it illegal to combine words like “games”, “medals”, “gold”, “2012”, “sponsor” or “summer” in any form of advertising”.
Technically, this would also mean that you could get fined for using the sentence “We do not sponsor any of the medals in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games”.
Again, I wittled on about this last year for the 2004 Athens Games, where they had a very specific and detailed policy for ‘all’ hyperlinks relating to the games. But this legislation is whole orders of magnitude worse. With luck, it’ll get changed and amended in the meantime.