| livejournal |
[Jan. 11th, 2008|11:19 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | bOffice | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Co&Ca – No world for tomorrow | ] |
Slurping and drooling and hurrrr. |
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| Ebay is a fucking waste of time |
[Jul. 8th, 2007|10:20 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | bedroom | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | none | ] |
In some ways, this week has been productive. Boring ways: I strimmed, that was awesome; I got some things done at work; I stayed as dry as I could. In other ways, this week has been a fucking waste of time. Like, trying to use eBay to sell my old mobile phone. Allow me to elaborate. Light yourself a cigarette whilst I list all of the things which are wrong with ebAy... Thanks.
I've always hated eBay. I hate the nature of the beast. All these clandestine, underhand auctions going on. What's wrong with good, honest, open business? "I want to earn myself 'x' pounds from the sale of item 'y', if you offer me 'z' pounds, where 'z' is greater than or equal to 'x', you will recieve the item in exchange for reciept of said remuneration." What's so hard about that? We can possibly even tag the caveat of "...will also consider offers of 'p', where 'p' is a quantity of money, less than z and x, but above a threshold, 't', which represents the absolute minimum I am willing to accept?"
That's business! The auction model vastly favours the seller. Which is fine - if there's a market, you should take advantage of it and set prices that people are willing to pay - that's capitalism! However, the way in which eBay markets itself as 'fun', and a 'place to find bargains' sticks in my throat. Ebay is only 'fun' if you're a cynical marketeer or salesperson, and only a 'place to find bargains' if you're gormless and easily led by cynical salespeople.
So shouldn't I be pleased? Ebay favours the seller... I was selling, and capitalism's good. What's the beef?
Where to begin? Ebay gives the impression of being full of idiots. Is this the company I want to dwell in? Illiterate morons? If Ebay were a bar, and people who spoke like this: "AAAA++++++!~@+!#@!$#@!$ MEGA SUPER DUEPR ebAYer!!!!!seven!!!as@!#%" were the clientele, would I stay? It feels cheap, dirty and badly educated.
Next, Ebay is FULL of SCAM ARTISTS. Like me, you're clever enough to be reading/writing your thoughts in a journal. Also, like me, I assume you have an email address. I assume that you've been in receipt of spam email of the 'phishing' genre. And, because, you're an intelligent individual (see previous...), you delete it. This may lull you into the false sense of security that other people are as clever as us, dear reader, and that they don't fall for phishing scams...
...you'd be wrong. The users of ebAy aren't as intelligent as you or I. And thus, ebaY is full of hijacked accounts. Thusly thusly, I recieved 6 emails last week from Nigerians (I assume. Or their friends) trying to steal my credit card details. They didn't get anywhere. Towards the end of my auction, I received two bids well over the asking price for my 'phone. The first (with one day remaining) screwed up everything, putting the auction out of the reach of genuine bidders, the second (with a few hours remaning) was a classic "Nigerian" scam. "HELolzo PLz SEND PHONEZ to me the NOW pleaszE for my Sick wiFE, he is DYING in iraq? SEND TODAY\\\"
What a waste of my time!
EbAy. Full of illiterate morons and scam artists. Not a good place to buy, not a good place to sell. Old news, I know, but I have to get it off my chest. Now, would anyone like to buy my phone? |
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| suckonthat oli... |
[Jun. 11th, 2007|05:23 pm] |
So, skipchris, your LiveJournal reveals...
You are... 33% unique (blame, for example, your interest in not whoring myself) and 0% herdlike. When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are wary of trusting strangers. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is absurdly obscure.
Your overall weirdness is: 142(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 100% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is! |
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| Long time / no me |
[Jun. 4th, 2007|04:52 pm] |
Edit: Someone at the beeb noticed and has pulled the image. Here it is, before it was removed!
And I pop up again just to share the fact that some clever soul has slipped a goatse.cz joke onto the bbc site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6719747.stm
^ ^ Image 5.
I've screenshotted it just in case someone notices! |
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| ATP vs the Fans Ticket for sale! |
[Apr. 30th, 2007|02:07 pm] |
Hello hello!
One place in my chalet has came free, for this, the most awesome festival that's going to happen this year. Dates are 18th-20th May. That's right, 3 weeks time!
Lineup here
It's going to be brill
We're going to have a chalet, not a scummy tent
There's a water park on site
Ticket available at face value: About £140 or something like that.
It's going to be brill.
Get in touch if you want the ticket, ASAP please! |
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| Pipex/123-Reg Customer Support |
[Apr. 23rd, 2007|10:07 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Deep Dish | ] |
You've got to laugh.
I sent them an "urgent" customer support query.
8 days later they deigned to reply. 8 days.
The answer?
"Nah, sorry mate, can't help" (* I paraphrase.) |
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| Will sell kidney for leeds weekend ticket. |
[Mar. 21st, 2007|08:00 pm] |
Well no. But I will pay you face value + booking fee + love and affection.
I know coach tickets are available. I'm not getting the coach. Maybe if they knocked £50 OFF the price rather than sticking £20 on, I'd think about it. But I will buy a coach ticket and swap you for a real one. |
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| Sleeping in's giving in... |
[Mar. 21st, 2007|08:28 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | shhh no one be noisy it's nice and quiet.... | ] |
...no matter what the time is.
Plans and schemes. I've got mine, you've got yours and so have they. Some of us know we're caught up in the plans of others but don't know who the plan or planner is. Some of us have no idea. Some of us see the plan, see where it's leading, and are either ambivalent towards it or need more information to make an informed choice as to whether to support it.
My little plans at the moment are all well and cool. The only way they maybe suffer is in ambivalence from myself. But my big plans terrify me. They all end in a 'yes' or a 'no' ('maybes' may occur along the way). And, for a number of things I'm trying for, although what I think I want to end up with is a 'yes', the consequences terrify me into thinking that 'no' is the right answer.
And I don't know what's true:
* if that's because the two answers really are that close to eachother that I'm being fairly arbitrary in picking one or the other.
* 'Yes' is clearly the right option, but fear of yesses is making me give undue weight to 'no'.
* 'No' is clearly the right option, but pride and vanity are making me shoot for 'yes'.
It's funny how these things happen at once. |
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| No news, some news, good news, bad news. |
[Mar. 15th, 2007|01:14 pm] |
Yeah I'm in a rock band, we're good. Still healthy. The sadness is back at the moment. It's only really bad on a morning though. So maybe it's just tiredness. Or caffine addiction. Oheywhatthefuck.
More importantly, the BBC is putting ideas together for it's on-demand TV service. This would be quite nice. You know - watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it. You'll need a computer though, not a TV.
The initial, shocking thing about this proposal was (sorry, this is old news) that the BBC planned to launch this service relying on Windows-only DRM. So only Windows users could use it. Me being a Mac user - I couldn't u use it. Sure, I'd be paying my licence fee, the same as the Windows users, but wheras we both get the joy of funding Capita to intimidate pensioners, only they would be getting a fantastic new service, and I wouldn't.
The sheer wrongheadedness of that, at whatever level it was made, is awesome.
Anyway, the BBC Trust are the people who look after the BBC and make sure it behaves and doesn't fuck us all over. They are currently consulting on this proposal, conducting a public value test. They concluded that clearly, launching this service to only Windows users would be as wrong as launching only to people who choose to live in Carlisle, or people who choose to drive Volkswagen. So that's the good news.
The not-so-good news is that I decided to take a look at the Trust's review document - the Trust recommend that the BBC find an alternative 'within 24 months'. That's 2 years. If I'm reading it right, that's absolutely ludicrous. I don't get BBC TV on Demand until 2009?
What I haven't looked into enough is what the proposed schedule for the entire project is... I mean, if the launch date is 2009 (by which time the boat will be totally missed), the 24 months is reasonable. Everyone funding the project gets it at the same time. But we'll all be using something else by then, anyway.
If you care about the issue, Number 10's website has a petition, and you can engage with the BBC Trust.
Cheers dears! x |
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| Whoo-oo, Whee-oo! |
[Mar. 8th, 2007|12:07 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Deftones - Rapture | ] |
That's Gwen for ya.
We're going to have an elected house of lords. Call me an enemy of democracy and spit in my eye, but I don't think that's necessarily for the best. We have an elected House of Commons. I have some House of Commons whiskey. It doesn't necessarily serve the public interest, and sometimes, to me, policies seem a little rash and trend following. I haven't done any research on this, but I feel as though the Lords can sometimes act as a set of reins on the little boys in the lower house.
Maybe I'm just pandering to a stereotype, saying that...?
Even if I am, the Commons doesn't always serve the public interest. And I'm worried we're now going to have two commonses. Gash. |
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| Mega-Super important... |
[Feb. 20th, 2007|03:03 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | office | ] |
| [ | i am a kitty, and that kitty is: |
| | warm | ] |
Please sign this petition against restricting photography in public places. Do so if you believe in civil liberties, freedom of expression, creativity, stopping terrorism(*), or indeed common sense.
no photography today, no protest songs tomorrow...
(*) I'm serious about this. If we don't spend money on stuff like this which is nonsense and doesn't work, we can spend money on catching terrorists. Neat! |
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| Because They Were Squirrels. Real Squirrels... |
[Feb. 15th, 2007|06:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Radio 1 | ] |
Monday - Gash day at work. Great fugazi film. I need to buy more albums than "Repeater". But what if they're not as good as repeater? Stopped by police on way home for driving like I was confused. I was. Ben's fault, not mine.
Tuesday - Less gash day at work. I [heart] the gym. Intended to sleep early, didn't quite happen. But I did make a wicked curry.
Wednesday - St. Valentine's season. When all boys (who I swear are autistic by default) get overexcited because of all the pheromones in the air and do silly things they instantly regret.
Thursday - is today. Work has not been as gash as previous days. I'm going to the gym now.
This LJ will soon contain some interesting graphs.
1) I'm going to graph how it's still possible to build muscle mass on a vegan diet. After they electrocute me tonight, I'll have enough numbers to draw a picture.
2) Cheatneutral web stats. I need to stop the site emailing me everytime someone signs up, as it's totally blocking up my inbox. Goes to show what you can do if you believe in it (they do, not me, and I'm proud of them). |
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| DIY |
[Feb. 14th, 2007|08:26 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Get Up Kids - Valentine (ahahahahhaa) | ] |
a good idea +
self belief +
your own talents +
teamwork =
(The Guardian, Society Section, page 8) |
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| Cheatneutral: Unstealth! |
[Feb. 13th, 2007|09:06 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Fugazi - Repeater. | ] |
Why did chris lose sleep last week?
How can you help offset all the pain and heartbreak in the world, even when you can't help yourself?
Answer?
Cheatneutral can!
Cheatneutral is an infidelity offsetting brokerage. If you are monogamous or just hopeless in matters of the heart, you may sign up to become an offsetting project. If you're a romeo love rat or a slapper sally, you can donate the trifling sum of £2.50 which will go to one of Cheatneutral's offsetting projects to continue to sponsor them to remain faithful (or loveless).
Cheatneutral is a joke, designed to highlight concerns around the Carbon Offsetting industry. In our eyes, carbon offsetting, too, is a joke.
You are now welcome to sign up to Cheatneutral, donate money to Cheatneutral, but most importantly: tell all your friends about it, encourage them to go to the site, learn a little and equally importantly, tell all their friends.
The national press will hopefully be picking up on this tomorrow (Valentines' Day), but if you've any press contacts you'd like to inform about this, I have a press release you can send. Just drop me a line. We had 1000 visitors yesterday, and we're not even fully LAUNCHED yet...
Love and hugs.
Chris/Sebastian. |
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| Come on and give me a sign... Hit me baby one more time... |
[Feb. 9th, 2007|10:14 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home | ] |
| [ | i am a kitty, and that kitty is: |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Shellac - Crow | ] |
I'm not that morose anymore. I feel good about it all. I have regained my customary blind optimism. Everything will turn out OK in the end... It just gotta. Whichever way.
What's making me happy?
Mission Complete! - Well. Almost. I've done my bit, just hang on a few more days for the big launch. I can now sleep again.
I have drumsticks! - Bing bang bosh bish bash boom tish.
I have a drum teacher! - Thanks, matt.
Shellac! - I'm listening to Shellac. That's always good.
Driving in inclement weather - horizontal hail & snow, thick fog, black ice. It's all fun. Until I die or something... |
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| You're not that bad... But you can't tell by lookin'... |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|11:14 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | tune: |
| | Babylon Zoo - Spaceman | ] |
This “adbusting” thing…
You get an last week: “Can you make a website for fun? It’s ethical, you’ll like it”. Can we have it for Valentine’s Day?”
It’s a steep deadline considering the work involved, but I’ll do it.
But then you get a call over the weekend:
“There’s a film crew onboard”, so we’ll need it done for next Friday
“Can you still?”
… I answer in the affirmative. I’m going to loose sleep, and shorten my gym sessions, but the projects so cool it’s worth it.
And then you get an email on Tuesday, telling you that the national media are interested. No pressure, though…
This is going to be soooooo cool. Anyone reading this journal is going to be required to tell all of their friends to tell all of their friends. Fun for all, especially hippies. |
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| I asked you to go to the Green Day concert... (But you said you'd never heard of them...) |
[Feb. 6th, 2007|10:16 am] |
I give Ben a lift to work on mornings. Hopefully this is better for the planet than us going our separate ways. Some days we listen to Radio 4, some days we talk. Some days we listen to Shellac, some days we talk about Shellac. Most days we talk about Shellac, to be fair. Some days, some special treasured days we talk about other things. Unusually, this morning was one of those days.
Some thoughts from this morning:
John Reid is fucking mental. Apparently all paedos should be required to register their email addresses and screen names. That'll work. Please use the comments section for further Reidbashing where necessary.
The BBC is good and bad in equal measure. Radio 4 is brill. The bbc website (including backstage) is wicked. As are the creativity labs. The BBC publish some good books (like f'rinstance my Rose Elliot vegavegie health cookery book). I could get stoned (with stones not drugs) for admitting it, but I even like Radio One most evenings... Yes, even Zane Lowe. BBC TV on the other hand is, with very few exceptions, gash. And I resent being forced to pay my TV licence to own a TV which I use for my XBox. I resent the tactics used by Capita (targeting immigrants and single mums) to 'police' the TV licence. I love the BBC and all the good things it does, but it's funding model is a pisstake, and needs looking at.
Windows Vista is boring. It's probably perfectly capable, but it's just the equivalent of a spoiler on a Nova. Mac OS is more fun, easier to use, and (as/more) powerful (depending on what you're after). Linux is more ethically sound and (as/more) powerful (depending on what you're after). Instinctively, both of the latter are healthier and more secure, but time will tell.
But what's Chris up to this week?
It's interesting, and currently top secret. It looks a bit like this:
It's a bit Adbusters, it's a bit fun, it's going to be done by Friday, so it's going to cost me some sleep. |
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skipchris's journal
