Monthly Archives: March 2008

CSA

CSA threaten someone else

10 Comments

I just had an email from a guy who says the CSA have threatened him to take down content from his website here.

This is absolutely disgusting. The CSA are a bunch of freelance mercenaries profiting from the break up of relationships where children are affected and then stealing money from the children. They claim they’re only trying to get money to children but they’re not, they’re after their commission for the money they steal. Rather than actually try to improve their service and their image by talking to both parents with care and non resident parents they hide behind their own omnipotent bureaucracy and issue cease and desist notices to websites like mine and this guy.

Of course, they have no leg to stand on. The truth can be told, and will be told. Not only by me, but by the thousands of people they have stepped on, lied to and stolen from.

Their time is coming to an end and they know it. This is just the beginning. The children of the UK deserve to get the money they are owed, in full. They don’t deserve to have this self important agency stealing from them.

The CSA are thieving scum who rob money from our children.

Humour

Shall we do it then

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As someone who has supposedly used the chat up line ‘shall we do it then’ while drunk (though I personally don’t remember that) I thought this old Victoria Wood song was amusing, seeing as she sings about a woman using the line ‘Let’s do it’ – which is close. I remember watching this when I was a kid, which was a long time ago. The line ‘come and melt the buttons on me flameproof nightie’ is a classic.

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Humour

More than one way to skin a cat, 7 in fact

3 Comments

I hate cats. I hate them with a burning passion. They’re selfish, pointless creatures that are not so much pets, as lodgers who turn up when they’re hungry. They have no love for their owners, only for themselves.

People who say their cat is different, their cat is affectionate are stupid. Cats have no interest in you whatsoever, save for the fact that your opposable thumbs can work the tin opener for them.

Last week a colleague came into work and said he’d ran over a cat on the weekend in his new Audi, obliterating the fat cat into his front grill. I laughed so much I think I burst my liver.

That made me think though, what are the best ways to kill a cat? Here are seven for your perusal.

  1. Wrap it’s kittens up in a sack and beat it to death with them
  2. Obliterate it in your Audi (this works, we have proof)
  3. Take it to Manchester airport, sneak onto the runway and launch it into the engine of a 747
  4. Shoot it in the face
  5. Tie it to a table, legs spread and on its back while a laser moves slowly towards its crotch and you’re expecting it to talk
  6. Give it 3 minutes in the microwave, stir, then back in for another 2 minutes… then serve
  7. Take a bag of kittens to the driving range, then practice your swing by pelting them a good 300 yards towards the pin with a nine iron

All great ways to kill a cat. How many have you tried? Do you have any more?

Affiliate Marketing, Google, Internet

StumbleUpon taffic and Adsense

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Last week I had one of my blog posts stumbled, resulting in an extra 10,000 page impressions in one day. The post in question was for a funny IT video, which as luck would have it was pay-per-watch. I didn’t stumble it, it never pays to stumble your own posts. It’s always better when that happens naturally.

What is interesting though is how an extra 10,000 page impressions in a single day affected my Adsense on this site. You’d think that more traffic means more impressions, means more clicks thus more revenue. In truth, it’s quite the opposite.

One week later, when I had 10,000 less ad impressions, my Adsense ads tracked more clicks and more earnings. So an extra 10,000 impressions through StumbleUpon had no impact whatsoever on my Adsense revenue, other than drastically reducing my eCPM.

Of course the Stumble traffic did have an affect on my pay-per-watch video earnings 😉

Rants

DFS Furniture Store

8 Comments

It’s payback time for DFS furniture store. I swore blind after I bought a sofa from them in 2001 that I’d never use them again, and sure enough I haven’t. The problem was when they ripped me off back then I didn’t have this blog so had no way to voice my discontent at their wrong doings.

Now however, things are slightly different. So, DFS Furniture Store. Here is my story for the UK consumer market to read.

I ordered an Italian leather 3 seater sofa and an armchair from DFS back in 2001, but pointed out to them at the time that I lived in a first floor flat which may be difficult for them to access. The salesman, in true DFS ‘we don’t care’ style promised there would be no problems and they’d sort something out.

I also said I’d need the sofa before March 20th as my first child was due and we’d obviously require seats before he was born. No problems again.

3 months later the sofa arrived, and surprise surprise it didn’t fit through the door. I phoned DFS about this only to be told that I could order a 2 seater to replace it but I would have to wait a further 3 months for it to be delivered from Italy. In addition I would have to still pay for the 3 seater!!!

Say what now?

That’s right, despite the promises from DFS I would now have the PAY for the 3 seater that they couldn’t get into my flat, instead receiving the 2 seater 3 months later. I’d already signed for the sofa so couldn’t cancel the order completely.

They lied to me in the sales room then ripped me off over the phone, forcing me to pay above the odds for an item I didn’t receive and wait twice the delivery time for it anyway.

DFS are thieving scum bags and I implore everyone to avoid them like the plague. Don’t believe Linda Barker and Martin Kemp, DFS are not be trusted.

Has anyone else had any bad experiences with them?

Internet, SEO

Tracy Evans from vectorplacement.net spams me up

2 Comments

You may remember a while back had an email from Nick Slevin offering to SEO my website. It was an unsolicited spam email that lead to a website that was under construction, as you see from the original post here.

Well, I’ve had another one today. This time the made up name on the email is Tracy Evans, but the message is the same, the URL is different, but the website is the same, hosted in China. See vectorplacement.net for evidence. Similar eh?

I can get your site to the top of a search engines listings.
If you’re interested, reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.

Thanks in advance,

Tracy Evans

This is SPAM. Tracy Evans, like Nick Slevin, does not exist. The website isn’t real, the company is just a spam merchant looking to steal from you.

If you’ve had an email from Tracy Evans today, from a company called VectorPlacement.net, delete it.

Cheeky bastards.

Make Money

Kitchens Direct

34 Comments

As you know I’m renting my house out in Cwmbran. I’m looking to make some alterations to the house to maximise its rental potential (been watching too much Sarah Beeny) and one of the things I’m hoping to do is to fit a new kitchen. The current one was there when I bought the house in 2003.

For this I was looking at the kitchen company Kitchens Direct. The problem is that I’ve done a little reading up on Kitchens Direct and they seem to have some bad press online. Websites such as ciao.co.uk seem to be brimming with negative comments from customers who have had awful experiences with Kitchens Direct.

Now I know that reviews online can be somewhat biased one way or the other, so I’m not sure whether to believe any of the comments posted online about them. Kitchens Direct either have awful reviews from supposed dissatisfied customers, or they have glowing reviews which look like they may be a little too glowing.

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with Kitchens Direct? If you’ve used them I’d like to know about it, whether I should get my kitchen from Kitchens Direct or not?