I was a long time user of the Blockbuster mail order DVD service. For me, in Guernsey, it worked well enough, DVDs arrived promptly and I was pretty happy. Around the same time, I trialled the Lovefilm service (mainly, I think, due to a friend of mine doing one of those “Free iPod” style things, where you get friends to sign up for stuff, and you get a free, erm, iPod). And whilst the service was fine, I was perfectly happy with Blockbuster, so at the end of the trial I cancelled. But ever since, I have been plagued by emails from Lovefilm, begging me to rejoin the service, and chucking all sorts of carrots in my direction as incentive to do it. I never caved and simply deleted them all as they came in.
But I’ve recently been looking for a new mail order service. I’ve got a spangly new LCD tv, an a Blu-Ray capable PS3 and being a bit of videophile, I like real, actual DVDs rather than downloaded ones with people’s heads popping halfway through the important scenes, and Lovefilm does have a far superior selection than Blockbuster. So I figure fine, next time an email from Lovefilm turns up, I’ll go for it.
But, of course, after waiting a couple of weeks, no emails have arrived from Lovefilm, I had no copies of old emails from them, so I thought I’d try my luck.
What follows is a tale of woe and despair, highlights the problems of outsourcing your call / customer care center to non-English-speaking countries, but ultimately, through a little (sarcastic) persistence, has a happy ending. Kind of.
I’ve actually got a modicum of respect for Noel Gallagher – he’s not a completely talentless bastard. Unlike his brother, Liam, that is, who is, by far and a way, up there amongst all time biggest wasters in the world (amongst the likes of Pete Docherty and Amy Winehouse). So, certainly, this chap my have improved his aim by decking Liam off the stage, but nevertheless, I feel Noel has done enough in his life to deserve it. Quality.
(it gets good around 1:50)
What I find particularly amusing is Liam doing his “big hard bastard” act giving it all the “YEH mate, I’m gonna twat you yeah eh?” business after the sizeable security staff have actually grabbed the guy and there’s little danger to Liam himself. If he was truly hard, he would have nutted him off the stage. Or hit him with a guitar, Keith Richards style:
No five minute break for these guys. That’s right, guy invades stage, Keith smacks him, everyone carries on. Oasis have got a lot to learn.
Captured this beauty whilst watching finals day of the Twenty20 cup at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. Kent vs Middlesex, and one particular lad in the crowd enjoying himself a lot. Top work from the wee man.
New Star Wars kid if ever I saw him.
The long awaited, much anticipated film is now on general release. After a good reception at the Stamford Film Festival, where the critics are known to be some of the sternest and harshet in the business, I’m pleased to present: The Seven Stages of Dog.
Part 1
Part 2
Outtakes
Some special features are only available on the limited edition 7 Stages official DVD.
The Urban Dictionary is a fun website which serves as a kind-of “underground” dictionary, featuring words from everyday “street” vernacular, that you might not find in your average Collins dictionary. Certainly, most of the words would make a proponent of the Queen’s English shudder and shake in frantic disbelief. But nevertheless, it’s a great website, featuring all kinds of humourous stuff. It’s edited somewhat liberally, and resultantly some of the funniest entries are those with a genuine user-submitted definition.
Some examples:
The dictionary is made up of user submitted entries, and woop-de-doo, I’ve had one published. Based on my (now waining, thankfully) addiction to Scrabulous, I coined the term Scrabuluser – a contraction of Scrabulous and luser to mean someone who spends all their time playing Scrabulous. Go me.
If you like the site, you may consider getting their nifty word of the day email.
(This was the 600th post on this blog. Marvellous.)
One of the funniest TV shows ever: Whose Line Is It Anyway? Friday night, around 1030pm was always a humourous time if you weren’t our drinking (in which case, it was perfect hangover fodder for the morning after.)
And if you didn’t know, the (original) UK version was a lot better than the US version, despite featuring the majority of the same, predominantly American or Canadian, comedians. Richard Vranch (on the piano) was one of the smoothest men on television.
Heaps more at YouTube. What’s fantastic about the show is, because it’s all improvisation, you get genuine, fresh comedy, from genuine, fresh comedians. So rather than relying on a script as a lot of entertainers do nowadays, you get to see if people are genuinely funny.
And who better to illustrate my point, than Robin Williams:
Pure gold.