Why Argos is a rip off

There was just an advert on TV for the Argos end of catalogue sale. It was advertising half price on several electrical items, which at first seems great.

Thing is, prices on electricals are always coming down anyway, so when an Argos catalogue is released the prices are only reasonable very briefly, then the prices everywhere else get cheaper - but the argos catalogue stays the same - and by the end of a catalogue season their prices are way above current market value.

Cue the half price sale, which they pass off as a clearance of stock from the old catalogue, but actually all they're doing is selling stuff for what it is now worth. Then they release the new catalogue, and this is the real joke, because they sell all the same stuff, at the same prices they were on special offer at the previous week!

Rip. Off.

Directory enquiries is as dead as landlines

Who actually rings 118 118, or any similar service? Not me!

Once upon a time the directory enquiries service was a national treasure, it was the ultimate source of information! This was back in the days when, although the UK had just as many telcos as it does now, there was one that dominated massively: BT. The main reason it was so popular was to do with BT's dominance - every BT number was registered and accessible via directory enquiries which meant pretty much every single number in the country.

Nowadays since the directory services market has been privatised, the reliability of any/all of them has dwindled vastly. Largely i think (though I am, completely admittedly, an untrained outsider) it's because BT have their own privatised service, and thus are unlikely to share their database with anyone unless they get paid a lot of money to do so! This, combined with their expense has seen huge decline in directory services, to the point where I'm really not sure that we need them anymore.

You see, technology has moved past them now that we have the Internet. For example, I am typing this post on my phone via an email that will be delivered to blogger via my home wifi. Should my home wifi fail as it has had a habit of doing recently, then it will happily fall back to my 3g connection (either way it will be automagically imported to facebook). It's been quite a few years now since Internet capable phones were produced, but there's a key difference now - the new ones are actually GOOD at going online, in a way that is worth using, much more so than their predecessors.

Combine this with the advent of Web 2.0 which, is basically a complicated way of saying "give the users what they want" and we have mobile-accessible versions of FREE websites that can do the same job as 118118, and depending on how good your phone and your 3g reception is this can be almost as fast as calling a phone number, or sometimes even faster. And let's point out again that this is FREE!

I think it's a shame really, because I think that looking in the phone book or ringing the operator for a phone number is something that I regard as being quintessentially English. But the world must move forward and just as landlines were probably once regarded as new, and people probably said it was a shame we didnt send old-fashioned letters anymore, so the world continues to move forward and now their is a new old, and an even newer new.

This post consists of my uninteresting musings, and was brought to you by the letters G, E, E and K, and the number 1337.

It's Christmas eve eve eve

That will be all

I'm excited so shut up

Where did this thing about not getting excited come from all of a sudden?

People keep saying "don't get too excited about Christmas yet!" this year, as if it's a common phrase. I never heard this last year, or any other year for that matter. I don't know how these things somehow appear in common usage, I don't know if a phrase gets passed around intentionally or if it just spreads because annoying people repeat it ad nauseum. But whichever is the cause, this is now apparently a turn of phrase.

The thing about these phrases that suddenly become a part of our vocabulary is that usually, there will always be people who claim they have been saying it for years and usually, you're pretty sure they've never ever said it before.

Oh and the other thing about this phrase - I hate it! Stop telling me not to get too excited: It's bloody Christmas and if I wanna regress to childhood and get hyper about it then let me!

Random playlist lyrics game

I pinched this from Simon. Rules of the game:

1. Set your music player on shuffle.

2. Post the first line(s) from each of the first 25 songs that play for all to guess (if the first line reveals the title, skip that song or replace the title word/phrase with [title]).

3. Strike out the lyric when someone guesses both the artist and the song title correctly, and post the name of the person who guessed it.

4. Using Google or any other search engine is, of course, SHAMELESS CHEATING!

5. If you enjoy the game, post your own.
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Here is my list:

I swear I haven't fiddled this at all, this really was the first song that played
1) Do you know this girl? Her name is Ria, she sings to Iron Maiden songs all alone in her room.

2) Human Mind, Human Soul, Human Weakness, I love you, I love you, Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

3) Simply knowing you exist aint good enough for me. But asking for your telephone number seems highly innapropriate.

4) Our generation sees the world, not the same as before, we might as well just throw it all, and live like there's no tomorrow
We are the ones who are living under the gun every day, you might be gone before you know, so live like there's no tomorrow

5) [title], and give it all you've got. My today, fell in from the top. I dream of you, and all the things you say. I wonder where you are now.

6) I've never been here before didn't know where to go, never met you before. I've never been to your home, that smell's not unknown, footsteps made of stone.

7) I've been wasting my vacation. Flipping through these hundred stations. And my body's fine but my head's seen better days

This one was a cover version that played, you get points for the original artist or for guessing the version I was listening to.
8) Drfiting into my solitude, over my head. Don't you wonder sometimes 'bout [title]
Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my room, where I will live. Blue, blue.

9) Ever see a blind man cross the road trying to make the other side? Ever see a young girl growing old, trying to make herself a bride?

10) Get away from me is all she said, you're like a social disease . I'm so tired of being afraid of you, her face all twisted he see.

11) What must I have become to deserve all the shit that you gave me? The rocks look like a body in the river, now I just wish that I could sleep to keep me from thinking but the thoughts keep me up. It's been two months since you taught me not to trust.

12) Head over heels I've fit in before. Now, I don't want to do it no more. I've held it all in with blood on my face, built it up man so bad you can taste.

13) Baby baby when we first met, I never felt something so strong. You were like my lover and my best friend all wrapped into one with a ribbon on it.

14) [unintelligible shouted intro, somethign about a motherfucker] Agony is the price that you pay in the end. [title] consumes you then calls you a friend.

15) [title] Speeding into Trumpton with a cargo of cocaine. I get high when I’m the pilot of a plane. Touching down in Camberwick and stoned out of my brain.

16) [title] in my skin. These wounds they will not heal. Fear is how I fall, confusing what is real.

17) Right here, all by myself. I aint got no one else. The situation is bleeding me. Theres no relief for a person like me.

18) Despair, emptiness. See the hatred wasted on yourself. Face down taste the dust; it's getting harder everyday, just to find a reason not to end it all yourself. Suicide on the street. Everywhere around you watch it breed. It begins to bury you in self-induced rejectio.

19) Sooooo [title], [title], but everyone would do it if they can, and everything is going down the pan, and everyone is following the craze, and [title]
Now you say it's getting better but I don't really see the signs. Said it is too different, you thought it would be suicide

20) Get some pain and I feel alive - [title]
Close my eyes overdose on hell - [title]
Get run over by no direction - [title]
Breathing dead and I'm born to end - [title]

21) I believe in miracles, where ya from, [title]? I believe in miracles, since ya came along, [title]. Where did you come from baby? How did you know I needed you? How did you know I need you so badly? How did you know I'd give my heart gladly?

22) Hi my name is Bob and I work at my job, I make forty something dollars a day.
I used to be the man in my hometown until I started to [title (almost)].
It all goes back to when I dropped out at school; Having fun, I was living the life.
But now I got a problem with that little white rock - see I can put down the pipe

23) Thinking clearly never came,
As easy as it did for you,
Driving this route out of town,
I wish you were still around,
And in the dead of night I always,
wondered whether you were true,
Someone better than myself,
An offer you just cant turn down,
A morning fight,
And a wasted night,
You crept back to your room

24) Time heals all wounds they say, but the self inflicted won't just fade away. And in these shifting tides of blame why are you suprised to see your name? It's such a drag.

25) I've had nights I will never forget. I've had nights I will always regret. But I can take it on the chin and say [title].


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'Add me on facebook'

Next time I'm at a party and I hear somebody say 'Add me on facebook' I'm going to punch them. I don't much care who it is - unless me course it's a cute girl and I'm the one she's saying it to.

Once upon a time the internet used to be an extension of real life. People spent most of their time having real interactions with people, but when they wanted to keep in touch the rest of the time they used the internet as a tool to do that. But I'm pretty sure i missed a memo or something because it seems to have swapped over nowadays. It's as if most people see their social lives as revolving around social networking websites.

To these people, my message is this: if you're a sad loser with no life, there's no shame in admitting that like i do. But pretending the internet counts as a social life is pathetic.

'Hallelujah' is the X-Factor single and certainly Christmas no. 1

It's such a shame that Simon cowell has chosen for the X-Factor winner, Alexandra Burke's first (and probably only) single to be a cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I've loved the famous jeff Buckley version for ages, it's one of my all time favourite songs.

To be honest, I've heard the X-Factor version and I can't help but admit it isn't actually bad at all. I don't dislike her version of it, I just dislike the thought of one of my favourite songs becoming an icon for pre-produced mass-marketed flash in the pan money grabbing shit like X-Factor, and I hate the thought of it making a lot of money for that twat Cowell.

Alexandra is really hot, too, apart from the fact that she looks like Count Von Count. It's the nose.

Also, even though I've had his 'Grace' album for ages I had no idea what Jeff Buckley looked like until yesterday. Turns out he's an exact prereplica of James Franco. Compare the two on the right - can you tell which is which?

An Iraqi cameraman threw a shoe at George Bush

Most people, especially Americans, think that there were no WMDs in Iraq and the invasion was all a load of bullshit propaganda to secure a permanent source of oil for the western world.

These people also seem to think that American (and British) troops have no place being there, and should be out by now, as they shouldn't have gone there in the first place.

A lot of Iraqi's apparently also think this which is why is the only reason I can guess that they have a penchant for blowing us up.

Except one particular Iraqi didn't strap a bomb to himself, rather than that he just shouted some insult at a press conference, and took off his shoe and threw it at Dubya. No it wasn't a shoe bomb, just a regular shoe. It was from Clarks.

Now here comes my point:

To all the people who think the invasion was unjust, unwarranted, and didn't achieve anything, I would like to remind you that if this cameraman had done this under the rule of Saddam Hussein he would face a long, drawn out death from extensive torture.

As this is a political subject there will no doubt be people who disagree and think I'm full of shit. I look forward to hearing your opinions, carefully considering them, and informing you that you are wrong and I am right.

Now I just have to wait :)

Look what came in the post today! So now I've got my licence back, I've got insurance on a car sorted out, all I need to do is wait for them both to come into force on January 2nd.

At last!

1 month to go

It's taken me until 4:30 in the afternoon today before I looked at a calendar and realised it's a very significant date today.

Today is the 2nd of December. And what does that mean?

It means in exactly 1 month I will be legally allowed to drive again! :D

More snow!

It's snowing again today - I love snow! Unfortunately there is no more forecast :(