So long then poor dead white Michael Jackson.
No doubt a very talented man, but with major, major mental issues and the social ineptness of a 6 year old.

It’s good to know you had some equally sane friends, such as Uri Geller, who the BBC had on the phone at midnight during the breaking news. He said very little, but he did say:

“I don’t know what to say right now, it’s too surreal to absorb what has happened to michael! I’m sorry I have to go”.

Too surreal?
Death, for someone in that state was too surreal?

I would have thought him walking around in that state doing 50 major concerts across the entire world was somewhat too fucken surreal but there we go!

Another man babbling on right now is commenting on… how … er… how tall Michael was, taller than Dermot O’leary no less! Welcome to american style 24/7 news where they tell you a piece of news once per day then chat about random bollocks with the loosest connections to it for the rest of it. Rag summed it up the best,

[00:04] (Ragnarok) I can’t believe he is dead…. he was so tall

Previously when the death was unconfirmed we had some girl on the phone urging us to “light a candle and prey for him in this hour”. Now this confused me a little as I wasn’t aware that by doing this, we would actually be helping old MJ in a medical fashion. Especially not enough to bring someone out of a coma, regardless of the fact the mere notion of a supernatural God offends me deeply, but hey, I’m not a doctor so I could be totally wrong??

The medical profession surely took special note,

Candles + Prayer to God (whatever one you may / may not happen to believe in folks!) = healing of coma state.

She did this whilst behaving in a spectacularly zealot fashion of constantly reminding us how talented he was. It might have been true, but it echos continously of the whole “dead kid” situation, the kid that gets killed and is automatically granted saint like status across the board from everyone who knew him, even if he was a little shit. It’s just not something you NEED to hear, you can make your own fucking mind up if someone was talented or not, it’s called forming an opinion.

Yeah the guy was a great musical talent in his prime, but obviously wasn’t a saint. He was previously on trial for sexual acts involving children more than once, dangled his own kids off balconies… that sort of thing. The sort of thing most people need to grow out of when they actually have kids of their own and take responsibility for them; no amount of great music makes up for the fact that he should have been there for his own kids and left other people’s alone.

Ah well, lets look on the bright side, another angle at least. Someone that apparently raised so much attention/pride for black people by becomming a child/teen/adult performer ultimately goes out with the ultimate insult of turning themselves white before they passed away. Born a black man, died a white man. The strangest thing.

Now all there is left to do is batten down the hatches, avoid social networking sites, the media in general, tv, newspapers etc for 2 weeks until no one cares anymore. I’ll be waiting for that time. The reason being this is going to no doubt get worse and worse, until it spirals well out of control. Saying that, by far the most incredible thing I’ve seen so far is a group on facebook with 10k users in it’s first 25 minutes with this as a thread of discussion in the forum:

So yes, well done “Nick McQueen” from Newcastle, I’d be prepaired to give you the benefit of the doubt in calling your post “ironically funny” except coming from Newcastle I simply wont. What an absolute prick comparing the fear and deaths of thousands of people to a mentally ill allbeit talented popstar’s death. Seriously some people really should be “stress tested” at birth and then just plain electrocuted in the face if this is the sort of shit that comes out of their pathetic little minds.

I’d like to see this prick electrocuted right now, ideally infront of his family so they can watch the complete cunt spasming around on the floor as the electricity forces his boiling blood to bubble up through his nostrils and stain their living room carpet.

Hrm… I’m fairly sure Rag has made a post or two about Royal Mail in the past. One fairly recently and one a while back, in his unique and very blunt way. I’ll be a little more descriptive rather than leaving it at “Royal Mail are arseholes” but that in essense is what is going on here.

I’m moving house soon, I wanted to setup a mail forwarder.
I’ve done this before when moving from another location a couple of years ago and it was fairly easy, fill out a form, show some ID, Fanny’s yo’ aunt, Bob, indeed your uncle.

However, my situation at this rented accomodation is slightly different in the way that I don’t cover utilities or council tax, it’s an “all in” package, one lump sum a month with no other worries. So I go along to the bank and the post office, get a form and sit down to fill it out, no issues. I had a look at the lists they had compiled on what I could use for ID.

The first section very thin on the ground is “Proof of name”. A passport is enough for proof of name, ok I can accept that, however a driving license is not, even a photocard license with my name on it next to my fucking picture is not good enough. I didn’t have my passport on me but apparently me purely handing over a credit card will be fine. So lets get this right, me handing over a credit card that I could have picked up in the street qualifies as “proof of name” and yet a driving license with my face on it, does not. Ok whatever, lets go on, what else can I have … an EU member of state ID card will do the job, don’t have one of those either so I guess the Credit Card will have to do.

The second section, the kicker… “Proof of address”

“A Driving license with paper counterpart” - Oh so apparently this doesn’t prove my name but will prove my address… sigh, I would have thought that when applying for the license the first thing they’d check is your FUCKING NAME as you can register a car to practically any address you want.
Didn’t have the counterpart anyway, so no go. ME = LOSE

“Council tax payment book” - I don’t pay council tax, I pay a lump sum as mentioned before, ME = LOSE

“Credit Card Statement” - Not registered to my current address, move around quite a lot so left it to my parents address. ME = LOSE

“Original Mortgage Statement” - Rented… sigh, ME = LOSE

“Recent Bank or Building Society Statement” - The credit card is with the bank, the bank isn’t registered to my address… again, sigh. ME = LOSE

“Two different utility bills” - Hrm, well as said before, complete lump sum so I don’t pay any utilities but I put in a seperate phone line so I have a BT bill with the address clearly printed on. But why do I need 2 anyway? The rest of the items on the list only require one document, so why do I need two utility bills? I don’t have a second ulility bill I can present… ME = LOSE

So I’m sat there with a form filled in, a credit card with my name on it, my driving license with my fucking photo on it, a utility bill from BT with my address on it and I even was able to present a prescription note from my doctor I had on with… with my address plainly written on it and oh… my name at the top of the form.

Wasn’t good enough. I’m unable to get a mail forwarder from Royal Mail because I physically can not provide the documents that they ask for even though I have 2 proof of ID of name and 2 Proof of ID of address… just not in the forms they ask for.

Bunch of pricks.

I saw an advert on TV tonight for a weight loss aide.

Now these things are obviously aimed at fat lazy shite’s that can’t be fucked to do much for themselves, offering the sort of way out only a fat lazy shite would take. Stuffing a pill down their throat to lose 3lbs in the time it would take them to lose 2lbs.

Now in principal I don’t actually mind this, as long as the information is made available to the fat lazy shite’s about just what they are putting into their body and what side effects it may have. I noticed in the advert it mentioned NOTHING scientific at all, so they’ve got their thick-as-pig-shit tv target audience smack on anyway, and it was clearly focusing on mid thirty something ladies. Admittedly the marketing department should be paid a bonus for sighting the obvious on this one but hey, it’s their jobs, it’s a shame they exist at all but there we go.

So anyway, the advert lists a website you can visit. So I visited it.

My main aim was to find out what was in the product and why it works. It is claimed on the site that the pill “blocks the body from absorbing fat”. It doesn’t say how, it doesn’t say what compound or active ingredient does this, it just asks you to believe that is what it does and then you can hand over your money.

But er, hang on a second…
Before stuffing something like that down your throat which causes unnatural results, shouldn’t you really, and I mean really, understand what you putting into yourself? Read a case study? Do some research? Find out about long term side effects, 3rd arm growth, painfully thick vaginal hairs erupting from your already portly lahbia? Ladies? No?

So anyway I browse the site a bit more and I’m trawling link after link of useless information, theoretical questions being answered and flakey explanations of nothingness so I decide to contact them. A page comes up which tells me to read the FAQ before contacting them, and prompts me with a link. Bit suspect, I’m getting into danger territory now, I’m questioning their product, questions are evidently dangerous things towards someone who doesn’t want to share information about an expensive product.

So I read the FAQ, a whole host of categories come up which really should have been made available as a FAQ on the main page before having to elect to contact the manufacturer. The ability and audacity to hide information in this way is quite sickening. Eventually I spot a menu down the left hand side called ta daaa “Ingredients”. Brilliant I think, so I hit the button…

…

… … and I’m presented with more “What if” questions, or captions like “does this product contain nuts?”

JUST TELL ME WHAT FUCKING *IS* IN IT, not hypothetical drivel that the mere minority might come up with.

Frustrated at this point I look at my options. I spot mention of a forum, hurrah maybe some progress, I can have a browse and see if anyone else has asked the same thing on their travels. The page that mentions the forum says it’s really easy to access. You visit alli.co.uk and see if you can see it, because I fucking couldnt. It says “It’s really easy! Just click on the forum link at the top of every page to access the content”. I couldnt spot ONE forum link on any fucking menu of the site.

So back to google and I search for alli forums. Sure enough I get a page so I can finally access it. (I always seem to have this problem of finding things on websites that the “general public” take in their stride. I must be special in the brain department, it saddens me). Without bothering to actually read any of the obvious drivel I scan over the topics and find nothing interesting at all. After signing up and reading the rules I consider my options and notice there is one very special box at the bottom of the forum with a * next to it denoting that it is compulsary to check the box

“I certify that I am NOT a healthcare professional”

Does this mean no Doctors allowed? This instantly struck a mild piece of fear in my heart and was very telling to say the least. Healthcare professionals are not allowed on the forums? People who have a scientific qualification saying they are recognised as being beneficial to humankind and the human body are not allowed to read comments or question things on the site? Presumably incase it creates bad press?

Luckily enough I am not a healthcare professional, but nor am I a moron, so I craft this message:

forum picture message klik me

I wonder just how long that will stay there, or just how long their special “healthcare professional” website will actually be down for, because it didn’t work at all when I clicked it.

The product may be brilliant, it may really, really work. Seeing as it has a disclaimer about only working for people with a BMI of 28 or over however AND encourages them to eat a “low fat diet” whilst on the medication… I suspect they could fill the fucking tablets with dung and fat people eating a “low fat diet” would shock horror… lose weight.

** Update

Couple of people on the site have actually replied pretty quickly and have been able to tell me the active ingredient, but it is still public people with nothing to do with the company. Still stand by the fact the site should give clear and free information out to people to make an informed choice.

Whilst I’m at it, I bought “inFamous” for the PS3 at ASDA.
It’s a 16+
I got asked for ID, when I frowned and showed the lady my ID she read it and went all embarressed.

“Oh… I thought it was an 18, sorry”.

Yeah because that and me being 27 makes everything much better.

I’m mildly serious about getting to the point where I’m going to draft a letter to my local MP about this one… it’s getting fucking rediculous.

It’s been a while since I’ve been erked about anything, let alone raged.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me in this regard and I deeply apologise for my complete lack of regard for providing a weekly fix of disgracefully written, bile-filled annoyances.

The MP’s expenses thing, well to be honest that didn’t really bother me too much. Anyone with half a brain would have been able to see it had been going on for ages, these are the type of people that stand up regularly infront of the entire population on TV and outright lie their asses off and feel no shame at all for doing it. They’re just one one giant happy mafia type organisation that don’t seem to mind taking swipes and acecptable losses within parties, but mess with the rules of the “game” in general and they’d be up in arms and anyone making enough noise would dissapear.

I’m fairly sure the amount of corporate tax avoidance amounting to billions upon billions per year is making us slightly worse off than a few perks for the people runing the country*.

* Supposedly

Anyway, the one thing that has mildly got my back up is the coverage of the London Mayor’s expenses when Boris was an MP in the conservative party (and still is? I dont know how it works now he’s Mayor to be honest).

It was reported that Boris Johnson (aka BoJo) claimed a steady 80k a year over the period of 4 years for his second residence. 20k a year, perfectly within the rules, didn’t break any, didn’t claim for “so much as a bathplug” over the cost of the mortgage of the house.

So I’m struggling here to see the BBC’s angle of reporting this in the same format as every other MP who has outright lied and cheated the system for similar amounts. At a time where this topic is so much in the public eye and people are calling for MPs to be prosecuted (and they should be) doing another story of the same ilk, but neglecting to mention the guy hadn’t actually done anything wrong reeks to me of opposition and bias journalism.

You see, from my point of view if Boris hadn’t done anything wrong at all, why bother mentioning it in the first place? Surely the only thing you can hope to gain by reporting that he lawfully and properly claimed 20k a year for a 2nd residence at the time of all this controversy is to box him into the same group as everyone else who actually deserves to be in jail for breaking the law and/or knowling rigging the expenses system in place.

I think this is quite frankly disgusting behaviour, there didn’t seem to be mentioned in the report that the poor guy hadn’t actually done anything wrong, just a big list in big numbers of what he’d claimed and a close up of his face on the broadcast. The problem is the story also didn’t promote anything positive about the whole affair.

The fact that the system as it were, works, if the person is honest. There was no praise for Boris for not attempting to wangle benefits out of public money, nothing to suggest that the MPs were in error for using the system in an unlawful way, just the fact he’d claimed at all. At the end of the day it was just another semi-recognisable person’s face next to a huge £80,000 number on the screen, you decide why it was done that way when the guy had actually done nothing wrong.

So well done BBC, a great piece of ultra left wing journalism more or less attempting to make a villian of someone who has openly been honest and not abused anything at all. I’d point my finger back at the BBC and ask them why the fuck I’m paying a license fee for something I use about 10 minutes per year to the tune of £120 quid. So out of touch with my generation that there is NOTHING at all on aimed at people like myself and I’d call for their immediate fucking breakup and dissolvement. Absolute useless bastards, should have been put down like a lame horse and smelted into glue about 10 years ago.

…are absolute fucking shitstains.

That is all.

This time I got ID’ed for buying “Gears of War 2″ from Game.

Perhaps it’s just me, I must look like a student… no even worse, not even a student, students are 18 or over, I look like a SCHOOL CHILD at 27.

I give up, perhaps by the time I’m 30 I won’t get questioned for buying adult goods.

ID’d again… this time, glue, or solvents if you will.

I was flattered at first, “I’m going to have to ask you for ID for this one”
Weeeeeeee I look young… but hang on surely glue/solvents is classed at 18?
I look potentially under 18? Thats nearly 10 years out, so I play along.

“Sorry, which item?”
“That one” *points to the glue*
“Oh really, how old do you have to be to buy that then?”
“21″
“21? Really, oh no that could be a problem. 18 isn’t good enough then?”
“No it’s 21″
“Fairly sure the law says 18, you really think I look under 18?”
“Well we check people here who are under 21″
“Even though the law says you have to be 18?”
“Yes”
“Well.. ok then, how old do I look?”
“You look young, I don’t know how old you are”
“So what does a 21 year old look like then?”
“I’m just saying you look young, I need some ID”
“I’m 27″
“Oh… well ok then i’ll take your word for it”

!??!

Eh? So she admits that I have to appear to be 21 years old to buy the stuff, which she doesn’t think I conform to, then a simple matter of me telling her my actual age and she’s fine with it. Man, I wasn’t sure when the police handed retail outlets the rights to enforce the law via opinion of their staff, I must have missed that one?

PS - it’s a shitty day, but what is it with motorists that need to put their full beam lights on in a bit of drizzle? I tend to use mine when I can’t see where I’m going, not just because of a bit of rain. The funniest ones are people who put their lights on obviously for “safety” then have no issue at all driving right up the back of other people in conditions which makes it twice as hard to stop in time. Utter mongoloids.

What the fuck is wrong with the supermarkets at the moment?
Check 25 for alcohol?
Check 25?
How about check fucking 18 you retarded cunts.

What the FUCK does a 25 year old look like?

Describe one to me, just what does a 25 year old look like?
Clearly not me, I get ID’ed for alcohol in places that check 21 year olds let alone 25, and I’ve been over the age of 25 for quite a while now.

Also what the fuck is the idea of refusing to sell alcohol to people just because they happen to have another person who looks potentially under 18 standing with them. What business is it of theirs? I wasn’t aware the supermarkets had taken on the role of the police, but the only problem is they’re completely ignorant of the law.

I’ve checked the law, word for word on the official government site and there is NOTHING, *NOTHING* in it about refusing to sell alcohol to anyone over the age of 18 just because someone else is stood next to them who happens to look under 18, nothing referenced about providing identification or asking for intent.

If the person buying it clearly opens up and admits that they are going to give it to a minor then it is a crime by THEM, it’s still not a crime to SELL the alcohol to that person in the first place. The only required check is that someone is over the legal age to purchase the material.

Another thing that entered my mind, is where is the line drawn here?
A dad buying a 12 pack of beer with a 15 year old stood next to him, clearly his child?
Would they stop him, would they dare?

A mother buying a bottle of vodka with a baby in a child seat, would they ask her if she was intent on buying it for the child? Yeah right. So it seems it’s just people that are with friends who look near to the age of 18 that get questioned? Seems so to me, my partner is over 20 now but looks younger, I continually get stopped by people on the checkouts asking me if she has any ID.

My usual response is, what the hell has it got to do with you?
To which they try and quote me the law, which their upper management have clearly made up and spoon fed the bullshit into their minds. The law they constantly get wrong, do not understand and have no business trying to police in the first place.

Here we go again…

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ieHZRubAS3lyjn2GBiCPkXkHrXwwD97QROAG0

Muslims and Jews apparently finding the term “Swine Flu” offensive, because it references pigs.

…

I really am starting to despair, will this bullshit never cease?
I, *really* am both amazed the sheer retardedness of these religious cunts and at the same time, not actually surprised.

Pigs apparently dirty animals, offensive to Muslims and Jews… yeah whatever, it’s a pig mate get over it. Surely then a strain of flu originating from such beasts would surely just serve to prove that point, the idea of the disease being passed to humans is a fact, it actually relates nothing to the pig at all, it could have come from a fucking zebra for all we care, the point is it’s still a deadly form of disease if untreated.

Rebrand the flu to mexican flu? Sure why not, brand an entire strain of flu on a country and not the animal of origin, that makes perfect sense. I’m sure the Mexicans in particular would fucking appreciate that down the ground.

I tell you what, I might just start a campaign to get the word “Muslim” and “Jew” banned from being spoken in England BECAUSE THEY ARE STARTING TO FUCKING OFFEND ME.

I was using the text based chat the other day to talk to my good mate Durzel and the level of censorship imposed on us was mind boggling, infact, it actually managed to teach us a new word.

I tried to explain to a Durz that I had been playing Fallout 3, on typing this into the box however it came up *****ut3. I was perplexed, I had no idea why I wasn’t able to write Fallout, one of the most popular (albeit bugged) PS3 games around.

So I tried to retype the word but every time I hit upon “fallo” the text based chat blocked me and turned it to stars. I didn’t have a fucking clue what “fallo” meant so I went striaght to urban dictionary where I was informed that apparently a fallo is a skinny, gay, black man.

What is this complete nonsense?

I’m shocked that Sony have taken it upon themselves to censor things in this way, to the point where me, a streetwise, desensitised 27 year old male can’t actually type the name of a popular title into the chat only to be taught a new word from urban dictionary that I’ve never heard of in my life.

The funniest thing is, I opened a general thread for discussion on the PS3 uk forums, where it openly let me use the words “fuck”, “bloody” and “fallo” without an problem at all. So in the public eye on forums where anyone can view content, those words are fine; however in a private chat to my mate on my own personal games console located in our own homes, it’s not acceptable.

Sony = absolutely backwards

Samsung have fucked me off today.

I previously bought 6 branded samsung monitors a couple of years ago now, manufactured in 2005 apparently. For some reason 2 of them died on their asses after a random amount of time, the monitor would refuse to accept an input at all sitting on a black screen with a box that says “not optimum mode”.

I rang up their support in 2007 and without any issue at all got the 2 units replaced, within about 3 months of each other. The fact that both monitors did the exact same thing within a short space of time was suspect.

Then about a year ago another monitor from the pack did the same thing and only today yet another monitor that my brother was using does the exact same thing. So thats 4 out of 6 monitors displaying the exact same tendancies, dying in EXACTLY the same way. However now Samsung have changed their tune and suddenly there are “no known issues” with the monitors at all.

My fucking asshole there isn’t. I don’t give a shit if the monitors die after 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 9 years it doesn’t make any difference. The thing is certainly not fit for purpose as a monitor if it has the ability to rob itself of functionality for no reason at all on a random timescale. The problem is as a manufacturer, samsung claim that “not fit for purpose” is the responsibility of the retailer, not them, the people WHO MAKE THE PRODUCT.

Seeing as it was so long ago and any paperwork will have been utterly destroyed by now I don’t even have a clue who I bought the monitors from, so I can’t proceed in getting these monitors picked up. There is nowhere to complain on the website so I tried to sign up to their tech support online help, to see if I could potentially get the monitors repaired, obviously at a cost.

So I load the site up, using FireFox, as anyone who knows anything about the net does and go to their online page. This requires registration, so test this:

http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/onlineservice/onlineService.do

Hit up that link in FireFox and press “Register Free” under the box where it asks for login credentials and then just as a test, go to the bottom and press the “Register” button.

…

Yes thats right, it does nothing at all.
Great coding guys!

I got a mate to try this for fear of my machine being twatty, but no, you are unable at all to sign up using FireFox. Another small victory from the twat corporation, deny anyone using a decent browser any technical support at all.

Finally when I do get signed up in IE and post a message for them, I open the support ticket I’ve just made to see that it’s completely chopped off anything below where I entered the first carriage return. So they have a piece of opening information which tells them fuck all, and then a massive big gap with nothing in it.

Begars belief at how SHIT a company can be when all you’re after is a little support over something that is clearly their fuckup.

I’m off to throw my monitors in a fucking skip and then tell my brother he’s fucked and needs to buy a new one. Then I’m off to set fire to Samsung’s headquarters after superglueing up all the building’s door locks first.