Archive for the “Amusing” CategoryiTricks ran a post yesterday about a debate that was running over on the View Askew message boards; a battle between the home-site favorites Jay and Bob and the Bad Boys of Magic Penn and Teller. Today iTricks picked up my comic run of exactly how a Penn and Teller Vs Jay and Silent Bob run in would turn out…
I quite often get emails at home, the classic 419 type Nigerian scam, trying to get your details or money in a scam to defraud you.. A while back I was a little shocked to find that I actually got a letter at home, telling me of a large lottery win.. Maybe it wasn’t the best day to send me a letter like this, I had a cold, combined with headache from hell, so maybe wasn’t in the most understanding mood… however… My hand addressed letter clearly stated;
and all I need to do is contact mr Stanley Moya (that well known spanish name) at the ocaso security company SA to claim my winnings…. Thankfully… He’d put his telephone number and fax number on the letter.. I obviously had some questions about the 10% fund that they will take from my bank on the winnings.. and just how lucky I was to win this lottery I’ve never heard of….So I thought.. best give them a ring then!! bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (the sound of spanish telephones…) I’m ringing (I assume) the office of Mr Stanley Moya, the forgein service manager of OCASO Security Company SA Stanley: ‘Undefinable mumbling (Possibly I woke him up..) hello..’ Drew: ‘e’karo (couldnt resist that.. its nigerian for good morning.. I thought he’d not notice!).. you sent me a letter saying I’ve won some lottery?’ Stanley: ‘Ah.. yes you get confirmation of winnings?’ Drew: ‘Apparently… apparently I’ve wone almost 616 thousand euros…’ Stanley: ‘Ah yes. you have congratulations from <undefinable mumblings..> you fill in fax and send us.. and we can send you bank money for the winnings.. congratulations yes’ (I’m actually thinking he needs to improve the script here.. he’s not sounding overly spanish) Drew: ‘Well thats great, I’m just not quite sure on something… I didn’t actually buy a ticket…’ Stanley: ‘yes yes yes.. you send the form we send the money..’ Drew: ‘no no no… how did you get my address and the ticket.. I mean I havent played the loteria primitiva bonus bonus bouns clap hands (which I think was a little lost on him…)’ Stanley: ‘Yes you play with the ticket, you name, was selected from (what sounds like..) the address errors !??!’ Drew: ‘But.. well.. ok.. but I need to pay you money to get my winnings…’ Stanley: ‘we. as your acting agent will use 10% of your winnings but not until the money is with your’ Drew: ‘But under lottery laws.. thats illegal.. and besides.. I need a physical ticket to claim my winnings…’ Stanley now starts to become a little hot under the collar.. even for a possible nigerian spanish madrid dweller… in fact stanley, far from the cosey view i’d have of a ’stanley’ having a nice thick yorkshire accent.. has one muther of a nigerian slant to his voice… Stanley: ‘you win, you take money, congratulations, you fax us your bank details..’ Drew:’well personally I think this is a scam.. in fact.. i know it is.. your listed as a scam, and theres over 28 identical serial numbers on the internet the same as mine for my winnings, and apparently, theres only 17 winners worldwide… So can I ask where you got my details..?’ Stanley seems to be getting a bit annoyed now.. not sure why… I’ve not even started yet… Stanley:’if you think this is scam then you dont take money, you dont talk to me again.. I have nothing to tell you on this..’ Drew: ‘well look. I’m only asking.. dont get upset…’ Stanley: ‘I no talk with you further on this…’ Clunk… seemed stanley got a bit miffed and might have accidently dropped the phone… So I decided to give stanley some cooling off time… ooh about a minute… and rang him back.. Brrrrrrrr Stanley: ‘mumblings…’ Drew: ‘Hiya.. i think we got cut off.. we were talking about how you got my address….’ Stanley: ‘I dont know what you are wanting me for…’ Drew: ‘Oh just would like to udnerstand the whole processes here.. how did you get my address..?’ Stanley: ‘we get address from (and I swear he said it again..) address errors and flight plan..’ Drew: ‘address errors?’ Stanley: ‘no… address erros..’ Drew: ‘yes thats what i said.. you got my address from address errors..’ Stanley: ‘no… address errors..’ Drew: ‘look stanley.. can call you stanley… ? I’m not good on these spanish names and mr stanley moya is a bit hard to pronounce, and I’m just worried I’ll get it wrong…’ Stanley: ‘you can call me what you wish…’ Drew: ‘ Excellent.. can i call you bert? or ernie ? e’jo? ‘ (again nigerian for please.. but he didnt pick up on it again… Stanley: ‘I dont know what you are wanting from me…’ Drew: ‘Your the company that told me I’ve won almost 617 thousand euros right ?’ Stanley: ‘we have your ticket, you have to give us bank details to be have the money..’ Drew: ‘but how did I get a ticket… I didnt buy one..’ Stanley: ‘we have brought one for you as your agents and you have won the funds congratulations..’ Drew: ‘you brought me a ticket, without me even asking you? wow thats really nice of you.. hey bert… sorry stanley.. you sound a really nice bloke.. ‘ Stanley: ‘You have to send us your details so we can put the money into your bank please..’ clink… I think he accidently dropped the phone again… brrrrrr….. Drew: ‘Stanley..?’ Click….. It seemed that stanley started to get a bit annoyed with me.. not sure why, I only called him 28 times.. a few times during the day.. and rang him a few time at about 3am his time, just to make sure my new friend was ok.. Sadly thought me and stanley didn’t work out.. I didn’t get my money.. and Stanley didn’t get my bank account details.. Michael Berry has a great book called Greetings in Jesus Name!: The Scambaiter Letters. It covers the conversations and letter to and from the Nigerian 419 scammers, which is a thought.. I dont think anyone yet has written a book about slightly amusing telephone conversations…
Technorati Tags: Technorati Tags: consumer monkey, consumer revenge, time wasting Todays historic telephone conversation investigation involves the legend of the bouncing camera from Sweden, and its whereabouts today.. and the fact that insurance companies really are a bit pants.. and santa and his reindeer really cant be blamed for everything…. Theres a little history to this one… This all happened a few months back when I headed out to Sweden, to FISM.. the said camera, went on a kinda of ‘trip’ in that involved it boucing on the pavement, although it worked for a while after, it soon got a little bit ill and died… It was an IXUS 700, which aren’t made anymore, and I love the size and weight, and really dislike the replacements in the IXUS line, so I really wanted it repaired rather than replaced with another model. Luckily the camera was covered under my house insurance.. so it started it’s epic trip around the world… Almost two months ago it headed on with its suitcases packed on its trip to direct line the insurers.. the camera had booked a driver (citylink) to take it on its travels, however it was firstly pretty narked to find out it didnt get any sort of bag or travel case to start its journey;
I kinda worked out on the assumption that he 1. had a citylink van and 2. he had a city link uniform on, he was either a pretty enthuiastic thief with bad dress sense, or he was in fact a citylink driver… So I thought what the hell and gave him the camera… Overnight I kind of started to think that maybe I’d not been as clever as I could have been, and started to wonder if I’d actually been taken in by a good thief with bad dress sense…
A few days pass… a few phone calls to jessops and direct line… a month passes and eventually the camera sends back a postcard saying its having a lovely time, and it should get repaired within the next few days… I then get a letter saying I need to pay the £50 excess… excess gets settled.. Still no sign of camera… Yesterday I finally get a call from PJCameras;
So.. Thursday came… banners are out for the expectant return of the camera.. sit in… nothing.. no citylink lookalike guy.. no van, no box, no bag, nothing… So I ring Direct Line;
much discussions about cameras and drivers and insurance… and Pjcameras then say they have shipped it… and best talk to citylink… So I ring CityLink..
So I then ring back to Jessops…
The camera did finally turn up, and touch wood it’s been fine since, dispite it’s travelling ordeal.. the moral is.. always never use citylink, and dont drop your camera, and its normally the couriers fault..
Technorati Tags: consumer monkey, consumer revenge, time wasting
The thinking behind this is ok, we have to reduce the amount of land fill rubbish then we dump, and try and recycle more of our rubbish, something I wholeheartedly agree with. However the whole process of the bins seems a bit confusing… I’m planning another call to them about what exactly can be recycled, just because it says recycling on it, doesn’t mean Reading Borough Council deem it or indeed want it to be recycled.. My problem here was the fact that they wanted me to buy another wheelie bin;
I decided as a consumer monkey I needed to ring Reading Borough Council (RBC) and investigate exactly why I needed to pay for a bin to put something in I was already putting into another bin…
So it seems Green bins, and bags, are completely optional.. although you cant paint your bin green and put garden rubbish in it, as someone tried!!
Technorati Tags: consumer Monkey, consumer revenge, time wasting A few months back, well last year a large group of us headed up to Birmingham for a party in a certain large hotel, we were having lamb and keep in mind that there were well over 800 of us.. We got the wine list from the hotel a week or so before we went up, and it seemed quite expensive. A bottle of Casa La Joya chardonnay, which you can get from Oddbins, or Sainsburys for about £7-£9 was £23.50 a bottle at this hotel.. I decided to check up on the facts…
So I had a long chat with the beverages manager at the hotel Mr lina, tommy or tom to his friends.. funnily he wanted me to call him Mr Lina… and I also asked in the customer services could ring me about my issues with their hotel, namely the car parking fee and the wine…. It seems that Kathy Vinton (or Bathy Winter as the somewhat disgruntled receptionist at hotel’s head office pronounced her name) is the responsible adult in charge of keeping customers happy in the uk… Unfortunately, Kathy was on holiday the day I rang.. so I decided to talk with the lady that works with her.. jenny…. It seems that this hotel group run a lovely strange world of hotels, somehow involving cows, grass, tarmac, and seem very concerned about preserving the state of carparks around the uk… Keep in mind.. we’re eating lamb for the main course..
I did actually enjoy the hotel experience from that particular chain of hotels, especially the two glasses and candelabra form our table, and the two sets of slippers from the hotel room.. we now make good use of them at home… moooooo!
Technorati Tags: consumer Monkey, consumer revenge, time wasting It annoys me how us consumers sometime get the dirty end of the stick from companies and services, and its always brightened my day to pass back to certain companies a bit of their own medicine. I’ve written up calls I’ve had previously for a friends to read via email, and I thought it would slightly childish to repost them here.. we’ll start with this mornings.. A major bank sent me another letter today asking if I wanted their classic visa credit card, I assumed that given I’ve asked them 4 times to stop sending me letters asking, that they were really keen to have me as a customer.. so i thought.. well. if they can hassle me…
Now there is a work wise moral to this story.. it seems one of the reasons I keep getting letters is that they don’t have any matching software.. i.e. I’m on their system under various different names and variants of my name. So when they remove one… they don’t remove others.. Maybe I’ll let them cool off a bit and suggest they look at some matching cleansing and de-duplication software…
Technorati Tags: consumer revenge, consumer Monkey, time wasting
Incorporating a nightlight, visual targeting system, and “Put the damned seat down!” reminder technology, the LavNav is a practical solution to those familiar issues. The LavNav turns on when you approach in the dark, and turns off after you leave, shining gentle yet sufficient light where you need it, when you need it. When the seat is down, the LavNav shines a gentle green light across the seat. When the seat is up, the LavNav’s shines a red light directly into the bowl. Already receiving great acclaim in the USA, LavNav is now available in the U.K. “Missed targets at the toilet in the middle of the night may well be a perennial problem, but [LavNav] aims to ease the crisis with the latest in sensory technology.” - Elisa Batista, Wired.com “For every problem in this world I’m convinced that there’s someone out there working on a solution. I’m happy to announce that one of those problems has been solved. No longer does anyone have to fumble in the dark to find … the toilet.” - Gary Krakow, Columnist, NBC Seems FISM is a while ago now, and I’ve been hard at work playing with all the stuff I brought out there, Coin through Glass, ‘Bruised’ and some other bits and pieces. Bruised I think might make an outing this weekend for a wedding reception, but Melting Point (coin through glass table) needs some more work.. I’ve also been working on some other web projects the last week which has kept me away from here.. but yesterday was a bit weird.. Everyone has bad days, and worse days, bad days normally start off bad, and get progressively worse, probably something like the feeling a hamster gets in one of those clear plastic balls at it teeters at the top the stairs; its bad.. and its going to get worse as I go down… Bad days could also be described as the type of days when you drop your keys down the drain as your unlocking your car, worse days, would be when you running late as well.. My day wasn’t bad, it wasn’t worse, it was weird.. weird in the same that things happen that really defy explanation, defy the underlying principals that make normal.. well.. normal. Weird can be described as the sort of thing you don’t hear someone say very often, weird can be the one line you hear from someone else’s conversation in a crowded coffee shop.. the ‘..and then he said he was pregnant..’ line, when everyone looks round and immediately becomes interested in the rest of the quite probably totally uninteresting conversation. So.. Weird.. was, probably for me, the thing that questioned the whole reality of my day happened at the Heathrow roundabout under the M4, and could serve as a warning to anyone else in that area about the whole essence of normal.. When heading round a round about, its not considered normal to be almost run off the road by a VW Beetle, its also not really normal for that VW Beetle to be driven by Elvis, and not just someone that looks like Elvis, we’re talking glasses, hair, full white ‘getting slightly podgy’ suite and rings Elvis look alike.. Now its acceptable that this Elvis didn’t see me.. possibly due to the cherry on the cake weirdness of the fact that the back of the VW was stuffed full of luggage, including what looked like a I’m been to Spain and couldn’t find anything to buy straw donkey (with sombrero).. So possibly the definition of weird is being almost run off the road by a Elvis running late in his VW Beetle, with a stuffed donkey on the way to the airport.. As you might know, I love Apple stuff.. Its simple.. I know how it works without wading through masses and masses of manuals and reference materials. I can turn it on, or plug it in, or insert the CD, and it just works. Its intuitive, doesn’t pretend to be something its not, does exactly what it says on the tin. Apple don’t need to put masses of bullet points on the box to describe what the iPod (or whatever it happens to be) does. In fact, unless you look really closely at the underside of the iPod box at the ‘what’s included’, the only words you’ll find on the iPod packaging is iPod and 60GB 15,000 songs PC + Mac. The point is with Apple is that they actually care about the packaging, an Apple PowerBook comes in this really quite beautiful sleek black box with small elegant typeface and gorgeous subtle graphics and a strange and obvious attention to detail. Lifting the gorgeous black box, allows you to lift the white cardboard inside flap, itself adorned with clean offset typeface declaring it’s Designed by Apple in California. Inside is what could quite possibly be the most thoughtfully designed and pleasing packaging you’re ever likely to see. Am I quite perverse and geeky for thinking this stuff is actually quite sexy?!?! As I can relate to what Askpang says, since I’ve done this with my (numerous) iPods; “When I got my iPod, I hesistated for a moment to open it up and take it out, because the packaging was so elegant. Then I just ripped into it like a Labrador going at a wounded bag of kibble.” ..the packaging is almost as exciting as the content!!
‘There are two types of magicians, professional and amateur. |
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Reading borough council, have decided to introduce more wheelie bins than you know what to do with.. Originally we had Grey bins, when Red bins, and boxes, and then we get Green bins and bags no less..
I was sent 
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