Thursday, August 21, 2008

Recent letter to Admiral Car Insurance

I'm contacting you to send some well deserved praise for the member of staff that dealt with me when I phoned up to renew my insurance. I believe his name was Chris, he was professional, well informed and a pleasure to deal with.
On the other hand I received a call today from a salesman trying to get me to take out extra cover for a hire car in the event of mine being written off. This guy was unbelievable. I made it plain I didn't want to pay this extra £30 and he wouldn't take no for an answer, not letting me get a word in edge ways. The technique of putting me on hold while he 'spoke to a supervisor' - to make me think he was striving to get me a better deal when I was showing disinterest in what he was shoveling - was particularly devious.
Frankly it has soured my view of Admiral Insurance which is a real shame considering the exemplary service shown by the renewals employee.
Let me make it plain. I don't want this extra on my policy, I have no need for it. I realise this new guy was just trying to make a living but giving the hard sell so vociferously to a current customer could jeopordise future business between us - a bad idea considering other members of my family also currently hold a policies with you. That could change.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Olympics

Again no posts for a while but I saw something today that made me chuckle.

Exhibits 1 + 2: Olympic medal table from the BBC and the Official Olympics site.




















Exhibit 3: Olympic medal table from the NBC (American) Olympics site.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

back I suppose

Regular readers might note that I haven't posted to this blog since last August.  Sorry.
A few things going on in my life:
I'm in a newly formed band.  Rehearsals are going well but we still need a bassist.  Hopefully more news on this soon, possibly gigs will start late August / early September.  The band is tentatively called Lode Runner after the retro video game of the same name.
I've been waiting out the last year of my contact with Vodafone, a company I found to be pretty deficient.   Hopefully on Friday it will happen - I'm off to O2, iPhone 3G will be mine.  I sit in my workplace in the centre of Manchester with my K800i and can't get a signal on Vodafone while colleagues sit there with full signal (as I used to get on Orange).  They've phoned me several times this week to talk me out of leaving and can't seem to grasp that if I'm slap bang in the middle of a city I expect to have more that just 'no network coverage' on my phone's display.
My sister bought a house with her boyfriend.
I'm getting that 'I'm going to sell stuff' feeling again..  the Wii is going to go, along with some sets of books I think.
I'll probably have to view Dark Knight in the IMAX this weekend.  Life is tough.
Went to see Armrug again this week, they've gone kind of electronic/gameboy keyboardy style and one less guitar.  It's still fun to listen to but in my opinion one less guitar gets you a -1 on the awesomeness scale.
The problem I noted in this post has actually been considered as worthy of dealing with if they spend the 300 proposed bajillion pounds on the Manchester transport network.  In this new pdf of the proposed tram network (see picture) it includes a second route for trams through the city centre.  Unfortunately part of the deal includes the dreaded congestion charge.  This probably won't affect me too badly though... 
 if I read this map correctly I mostly travel within the inner zone, so won't pass over any of the charging lines.  On the other hand the map is pretty non specific - perhaps 
on a map proposing road charging they should include, you know, some roads?  Fair enough the outer ring follows the M60 but the inner one..  are we supposed to use ESP to figure out where they want the boundary to be?  
The website, which seems basically designed to talk you into supporting the plans, by being dead slick and all that, seems to gloss over the details at times.  Statements such as 'Train stations will be more welcoming' appear, but without any specific details.  In order to come to a properly informed decision you need all the hard facts, not just pretty flash animations for morons paid for with my taxes.  
Perhaps I'm just kidding myself - don't these things tend to just happen anyway, consultation or not?  Seems to me these consultations are generally there to placate the people who might want to actually question the common sense of the proposals rather than to listen to their concerns.  I can't say I'd be surprised if in 10 years the plan has been executed 99% the same as proposed.

So I'm back..  cynical to the extreme as always.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

ichat


Today Dan was over with his macbook pro and we decided mario and luigi needed to have an ichat with each other over the wifi. This is what happens when you put two geeks in a room together with too much time on their hands.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Possibly the worst DVD boxset ever?



The first in a new series of photos from the aisles of HMV. The worst DVDs I can find. Think I'd honestly rather buy the Bill Cosby DVD in the background.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Moon Timelapse

Pointed the camera in the other direction for this timelapse of the moon passing the CIS tower.

Timelapse Sunrise

Shot this from the balcony on the new flat for fun. Camera was pointed too far to the left so may try this again sometime, but wasn't exactly sure where the sun was going to come up!

recap

Yo.
It was good to get away for a bit and visit the family. My sister has just graduated (something I never got as far as) and we are all suitably proud. Twas a relaxing few days but not the cheapest trip ever. My plan was to get the car's MOT done while I was up there and that all happened as expected but cost more than I'd have liked. Primarily for one reason.. the night before I drove up I was going round a corner and heard a smash. I stopped the car, got out to investigate thinking I'd driven over a glass bottle. The tyres looked fine so I carried on and went north the next day. It was only when I went to pick up the car from the garage when I found out that it was actually the glass falling out of the right hand headlight! which was expensive.

Occasional showers were had, as a result I saw several of these:



The move went well although next time I will definitely hire a van. It took 10 car loads to move all of our stuff after the additional assistance that was expected failed to appear. The new building is awesome, the parking garage aka 'Batcave' with automatic door being a particular favourite of mine. Unfortunately there is a small flight of stairs between the garage and the lift resulting in more work for our intripid removal man (me).

I could go on for a while about the new apartment. I'm loving the 7 minute walk to work and the extra time in bed it affords me - heck it's an extra 14 minutes exercise.. never mind the fact that it saves me 6 or 7 quid a day on petrol and parking. Admittedly you have to put up with drunken shennanigans when returning late at night but this comes as second nature from the olden days of taking the bus home from work at 3am on a Saturday night.

Life with a balcony is great. Don't know what I ever did without one. Could stand out there for hours watching the world go by all I need now is a rocking chair. We have a reasonable view back over the city from the north and while there is construction work going on immediately adjacent to the flat it isn't bothering me in the slightest.

I have yet to use the dishwasher in the lovely new kitchen:
So far I've preferred to try and use one plate at a time thusly negating it's use. Somehow in this wonderful new living environment it seems like one indulgence too far, not being an appliance I have ever had in my life nor one you should consider necessary to your existence.


I'll never get over how *nice* this place looks - as a direct result I often find myself feeling unworthy of the place. I mean this is me, a perennial resident of shithole student houses and what would be 'unique fixer upper opportunities' were the landlords ever to sell to anyone who gave a flying rat's ass. It is through time served in these places that I justify the quality of the residence I now occupy - I've been paroled to a higher standard of accommodation.
Behold:

Doesn't the big TV look so much happier in these surroundings? *sniff* oh and the view.. the view! (South facing, sunshine all day!)