Category Archives: Rants

Rants

Road Tax for caravans

8 Comments

This may be contentious (like I care about that) but I’ve been giving this some thought lately; often while stuck behind a caravan on the motorway or stuck in a queue caused by a caravan that’s toppled over. Why aren’t caravans subject to road tax?

They’re huge things and they cause more obstruction on the roads than any other vehicle. Furthermore, most caravaners have no idea how to actually tow a caravan, swerving out without looking in their oversized mirrors and hogging the middle lane. They’re a danger on the roads and should be either taxed, or made illegal.

caravan_crash

Now I realise a lot of people wouldn’t want caravans to be made illegal, but the caravans of today are so large that when they’re towed by most cars they’re snaking all over the road; they shouldn’t be on the road at all. Older caravans that are fairly small aren’t so much of a problem, but 25 ft plus caravans are just downright dangerous.

The least the government could do is to make caravans subject to road tax. It would generate more revenue for the UK and if it got one, just one, caravan off the road it would be worth it.

Road tax for caravans; the campaign starts here!

Internet, Rants

Virgin Media directs customers to spoof website

1 Comment

I recently discovered that with my Virgin Media package that I have for TV and Internet that I get free photos printed with Snapfish, which is great because now that I’ve made the transition to a digital camera I rarely get photos printed anymore.

Now, I phoned Virgin Media to find out how this worked and a very helpful woman explained it and said she’d send me an email with full instructions, which she promptly did.

All sounds great so far yeah? Well, this is a section of the email she sent. Bear in mind that she didn’t write this email just for me, it was a standard Virgin Media template email sent to potentially hundreds, maybe thousands of customers.

Spot the deliberate mistake…

If you’ve not been to My Virgin Media <http://myvirginmedia.com/dashboard/start>, you’ll need to log in with your main Virgin Media username and password, and go to My Stuff <http://myvirginmedia.com/vstuff/activate>  to activate it on your account. You can also download the software you’ll need here. You need to install it on your computer, and follow the on-screen instructions to choose which files you want to have backed up.

Did you notice it? No, I’m not alluding to the ‘and’ following the comma; I’m referring to a more dangerous mistake. The URL is wrong. To log in to Virgin Media you don’t visit http://myvirginmedia.com, you visit http://my.virginmedia.com – a subtle difference perhaps, but an entirely different website.

Virgin has been sending people to the wrong URL to login. Anyone who has followed their instructions and ‘logged’ in will have given over their username and passwords to a fake site, all because of Virgin Media’s own stupidity.

I did reply to them about this but received no response, so I’m afraid I have to out them here and let the world know. Virgin Media has been sending its customers to a spoof site in its own emails.

Pretty poor show wouldn’t you say?

Guest Posts, Rants

Tesco’s in Congleton can’t be arsed to open checkouts

2 Comments

This guest post was written by Simon

I general, I abhor shopping in supermarkets. It is a fairly dull, dreary task, that doesn’t get anymore exciting the more you do it. Shopping when they are busy is even more upsetting. To avoid this scenario, I tend to go into supermarkets, specifically Tesco’s in Congleton, before I get to work, around 7 – 7.20 am. Unsurprisingly, the store is very quiet at this time in the morning, which is exactly how I like it.

However, it is still open for business, at least that was the impression I got from the fact that the store has “24 hour opening”. So I was rather disappointed to find when I got the checkouts this morning, they were all closed. This wasn’t due to the lack of staff available, just an unwillingness to do any work. I was then directed to the “self serve” checkouts by what looked like a checkout supervisor (the supermarket equivalent of a Russian mafia boss).

I hate the self-service checkouts. My objection to self-service checkouts is pretty straightforward. I work a considerable number of hours a week, so I do not want to put in another 10 minutes at Tesco’s grappling with a machine that doesn’t know what a banana is. What annoyed me even more is that there was a checkout assistant on an actual checkout. Instead of being available for customers, she was wiping it down with a cloth, presumably on the off chance that she might have the ingenuity to open it and serve customers in the store.

As if this wasn’t enough, whilst using the self-service checkout, I had another (slightly obese) member of staff point out that my “satsuma’s were not oranges”. Thanks for that information you moron! She then carefully watched me toil with the self-service checkout until the transaction was complete. Instead of watching customers process their own shopping, would it not be more courteous to open a checkout?

Internet, Rants, Transformers

Sycophantic people on Facebook

3 Comments

You’ll be pleased to know that we’re back on form here with a rant right out of the top drawer of pointless rants, so sit back and relax.

Now, just what is it with sycophants? If you’re unfamiliar with the word, it means someone who hangs on every word someone else says and no matter how meaningless or stupid what they say might be, congratulates them on their genius. People who follow someone around like sheep constantly saying how great they are, feeding their ego, that’s a sycophant.

Now we’ve cleared that up, why am I so bothered? Well, when someone posts a status update on Facebook you don’t expect to have a series of people all ‘thumbing up’ your status update and commenting on it, telling you how awesome you are, unless you have just said something truly wonderful.

For example, I had a few comments on my status update last week when I made a comment to the tune of how “the BNP think that indigenous to Britain means your family have lived here since the 1960’s, and I thought Creationists were stupid”.

Fair enough, that was quite funny and offensive to Creationists and racists. Worth a few comments.

However, when people post how they’ve just been to a barbeque, you don’t expect loads of thumbs up and cries of ‘way to go Don’… yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s our old friend Don Murphy, producer of Transformers.

Some years ago Don Murphy said he’d shut my website down over on his forum, and his sycophantic followers all cackled with delight at his wielding of his mighty powers. Of course nothing happened, Don did sod all, and he promptly banned me from his forum so that his imps didn’t know the truth of his inability to act.

Not content with clogging up his own forum with his mindless comments, followed by dozens of ‘way to go Dons’, he’s now on Facebook. This wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that every status update is followed by the same procession of mindless imbeciles all falling over themselves to pamper to his ego, no matter what he writes, as the screenshot shows.

don-murphy

This isn’t an isolated update either. It doesn’t matter how mundane or irrelevant his comments, they’re all treated the same way as his army of sycophantic followers pander to him as though he were Dionysus and he were about to open an evening’s entertainment at the theatre.

Too highbrow a metaphor? Yeah, probably, but I’m too angry to stop now.

People, you don’t have to sell your soul to pander to this moron. Just because he says he’s had a barbeque, or he’s got some new socks, or he’s going to the cinema, you don’t have to follow it up with ‘way to go Don’. He’s not going to reward you with a moment of his time, or become your best friend forever.

Get some self respect.

General, Humour, Rants

Revels chocolates features two typos on its packaging

2 Comments

I’ve already posted on this website about my annoyance of people who can’t tell the difference between ‘loose’ and ‘lose’, but I didn’t think a professional company such as Mars would make that mistake on the packet of one of its chocolates.

I was wrong, and Mars really needs to proof read its products more carefully.

revels-sweets

A recent promotion on Revels asked people not to ‘loose hope’ when it came to the coffee flavour being replaced for a limited time only… except it wasn’t for a limited time only, it was for a ‘lmited time only’.

revels-typo

Not one, but two typos in one sentence. That’s pretty damn poor and the sort of errors you’d expect from a primary school kid rather than a major confectionery giant such as Mars.

Internet, Rants

Why do people use religion as an excuse for hatred?

3 Comments

I’m not a religious person. I believe that far too many wars have been caused because of religions, the differences between religions and the intolerance of people towards other religions. Without religion there would have been far fewer wars throughout history. I’m sorry if you’re religious and that offends you, but it’s true.

However, as much as I don’t believe in god, I do believe that the idea of religion is a good one. The basic principles revolve around being nice to other people, not killing people and generally making the world a better place. Despite this basic ideology, religion is rarely used in this way, instead it is used a banner of racism, intolerance, ignorance and hatred.

I do have a point, I promise.

This week the news broke about Korean scientists meddling with the genetics on dogs to create glow in the dark dogs. Whatever your feelings on this, and I’m personally against it, religion shouldn’t really come into it. Yet, despite that, some of the comments posted on the website went down the road of the experiments being against god’s wishes, which then created retaliatory posts about god not existing, and a religious war broke out… on a website about dogs.

Now, one of the comments (that wasn’t fit for publishing) harked on about how if god didn’t exist, how did we get here? It was hardly a compelling argument, but then as the poster has a personal website promoting anti-Barack Obama material and believes that Buddhism and Hinduism aren’t religions, we can’t expect a compelling argument, can we?

Anyway, here is the man’s comment in full:

Name: NObama
URL: rumblfighter.webs.com
Email: nobamaplz@yahoo.com
IP: 71.91.137.1

Submitted on 2009/04/29 at 1:43pm

*in respons to the retarded liberal comments listed above*

We Know What God Wants From The Bible/Old Testiment/Other Holy Books
Monst Religions Would Consider This Immoral.
EVEN BUDHISTS/HINDUS
(Which are not religions)

*To The Dumb-A Who Says There Is No God*

HOW DID WE GET HERE IF THERE IS NO GOD?
HMHMHMHMHMHMHMHMHMMMM?

This is where I have the whole problem with religion, or more to the point, the sort of people who attach themselves to religion and use it as an excuse for ignorance. This guy believes that anyone who doesn’t believe in god is a ‘retarded liberal’, a reference of course to Barack Obama and anyone who voted for him.

His website features many anti-Obama graphics and slogans, including one where the ludicrous idea that guns should be banned is mocked. Of course, guns are every American’s right… it’s in the Bible. Jesus was very pro-guns and a member of the NRA.

This is my point. Religion is supposed to show people a set of morals to live by, yet why do so many people think that religion gives them an excuse to spread their hatred, their racism and their ignorance to others? It’s not what religion is about.

/end rant.

Internet, Rants

Vista Print complaints

4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I needed to order some business cards. I needed them fairly quick, so decided to use the online print company Vista Print. Vista Print are one of the biggest names in print and come with a lofty reputation, I felt sure they wouldn’t let me down.

That’s where I made my first mistake. Never underestimate the ability of a company to underperform when you need them most. I paid for the seven day delivery, and waited seven days hoping they’d be here sooner.

They weren’t. They never arrived at all. I emailed Vista Print to complain and received no reply, a few more days went by. I emailed Vista Print again through their feedback form on their website, this time I received a reply ‘apologising’ for my not having received my business cards in the timescales for which I had paid.

Did they offer any compensation? Did they at least offer to knock off the postage? No, nothing of the sort. They said they’d send them again if I wanted, or refund me. Bit late as I’d needed them the week before, which was I paid for seven days delivery.

Suffice to say I won’t be using Vista Print again, they can’t be trusted to deliver an order in a timely manner.

However, it gets better. I received an email from Vista Print asking for my feedback on their service. Right, this is my chance to convey just how dissatisfied I am with them. I clicked on the feedback link, to be presented with this page.

vistaprintsurvey

Upon clicking the button, the feedback was complete.

vistaprintsurvey-result

I guess they just needed to know what language I use, rather than anything useful about their service.

Sums Vista Print up really. Their service didn’t work as it was supposed to, why would their feedback survey?

Rants

Microsoft once again displays its lunacy

4 Comments

I have to work with Microsoft products on a daily basis. It’s an unavoidable part of my job. This wouldn’t be a problem though if Microsoft products actually worked in such a way that made them useful. Yet Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, seem to go out of their way to make their products as useless and aggravating as possible.

Now, I’m not one to complain (as you know) but when I’m working I expect some basic levels of performance from my PC. One of the things I expect my PC to do is to NOT switch off while I’m using it. This is annoying, and somewhat counterproductive towards my working day.

Yet Microsoft believe that a computer that turns itself off is somehow beneficial to people. This morning I had this message on my screen while I was in the middle of a lengthy task

restartnow

Note the ‘restart later’ button is greyed out. This means I have two options. Switch the PC off now and lose everything, or try to save what I’m doing quickly while the PC counts down its ‘death clock’ before shutting itself off.

What possible use is this to anyone? Had I left the PC performing a task, such as a macro in PhotoShop or a process in Premier I would have lost the files.

How in the name of anything that’s holy can this be useful? Imagine if Microsoft made flight control systems for pilots. You’re at 20,000 feet on a flight to New York and the plane decides you’ve four minutes to get your affairs in order before it reboots.

Microsoft are idiots.

Before anyone mentions it, I can’t change this in the control panel as I don’t have Admin access.