Bzzzzzzzz
September 30th, 2009

Titanic 2: The Revenge! This time it’s impersonal…

So, today, I happened upon this…
http://www.titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/
At first glance, it’s a bit of a harmless trip to the scene where the famous Titanic (and most of it’s passengers) met an untimely end at the hands of Mother bastard Nature and one of her giant ice-rocks of death. Sort of like visiting ‘ground zero’ to pay your respects. Except, they’re doing it on a similar sort of luxury cruise ship and almost inviting some sort of vengeful-fate inspired lightning-strikes-twice scenario which results in the deaths of 1000’s. They are, effectively, re-enacting a huge tragedy. You wouldn’t visit the site of the 9/11 attacks by flying a plane into it, would you? For one, it’d be a logistical nightmare, and two, it’d be asking for trouble.
People visit the Auschwitz concentration camps as a tourist attraction, but at least they don’t do it accompanied by a masochistic SS guard with a machine gun. They don’t do it in huge groups, separated into male/female and then get beaten because of their faith. If the organisers of the Titanic trip have any sense of humour, they’ll announce an imminent collision, work every idiot on-board into a frenzy, put the whole thing down to irony and wheel out the brass band. And hide the lifeboats. And drown an effigy of Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, that’ll show all the weirdo’s who think a nice trip to the scene of a cruise liner disaster on a cruise liner is a jolly fucking good idea. Film it, and we can all have a good laugh at their stupid, panicky expense.
The PR spiel on the homepage should read:
“The voyage will then continue to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the final resting place of many who were on board, before sailing on to New York, the Titanic’s ultimate planned destination. MAYBE.” That’d be a laugh. They’re already turning the anniversary of the damn thing into a horrible money-spinning scheme, so why not go the extra mile and do a full re-enactment? Hire in James Cameron to direct from behind the scenes, once he’s finished dicking about with those blue alien things. After all, at least 95% of the over-paid morons on board will only be there because they like the movie; they’ll shit when they find out it was real.
At the very least, they should kneecap any couple (of which there will be many) who stand at the bow, arms outstretched, spouting gibberish.
Anyone who smiles whilst on the ship should be fined £500. There will be no fun had here. You’re on a historical tour of the scene of a tragedy. You wouldn’t giggle in a gas chamber. Wipe that smirk off your face. You prick.
Or something like that.

So, today, I happened upon this…

http://www.titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/

At first glance, it’s a bit of a harmless trip to the scene where the famous Titanic (and most of it’s passengers) met an untimely end at the hands of Mother bastard Nature and one of her giant ice-rocks of death. Sort of like visiting ‘ground zero’ to pay your respects. Except, they’re doing it on a similar sort of luxury cruise ship and almost inviting some sort of vengeful-fate inspired lightning-strikes-twice scenario which results in the deaths of 1000’s. They are, effectively, re-enacting a huge tragedy. You wouldn’t visit the site of the 9/11 attacks by flying a plane into it, would you? For one, it’d be a logistical nightmare, and two, it’d be asking for trouble.

People visit the Auschwitz concentration camps as a tourist attraction, but at least they don’t do it accompanied by a masochistic SS guard with a machine gun. They don’t do it in huge groups, separated into male/female and then get beaten because of their faith. If the organisers of the Titanic trip have any sense of humour, they’ll announce an imminent collision, work every idiot on-board into a frenzy, put the whole thing down to irony and wheel out the brass band. And hide the lifeboats. And drown an effigy of Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, that’ll show all the weirdo’s who think a nice trip to the scene of a cruise liner disaster on a cruise liner is a jolly fucking good idea. Film it, and we can all have a good laugh at their stupid, panicky expense.

The PR spiel on the homepage should read:

“The voyage will then continue to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the final resting place of many who were on board, before sailing on to New York, the Titanic’s ultimate planned destination. MAYBE.” That’d be a laugh. They’re already turning the anniversary of the damn thing into a horrible money-spinning scheme, so why not go the extra mile and do a full re-enactment? Hire in James Cameron to direct from behind the scenes, once he’s finished dicking about with those blue alien things. After all, at least 95% of the over-paid morons on board will only be there because they like the movie; they’ll shit when they find out it was real.

At the very least, they should kneecap any couple (of which there will be many) who stand at the bow, arms outstretched, spouting gibberish.

Anyone who smiles whilst on the ship should be fined £500. There will be no fun had here. You’re on a historical tour of the scene of a tragedy. You wouldn’t giggle in a gas chamber. Wipe that smirk off your face. You prick.

Or something like that.

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September 28th, 2009

Read a fucking book

Dear Idiots of Earth:
Please stop doing everything you’re doing, and listen.

I’m about to start complaining directly at you. It’s to do with writing; grammar, spelling, using the correct words etc.

Any user of the internet in general will see, on a daily basis, examples of absolutely terrible writing. Whether or not it’s comments on YouTube, full of misguided aggression and nonsensical insults, or a status update so totally devoid of structure or intelligence that it becomes almost impossible to read, or screaming angry blogs about nothing. (Hello).

A new, common example of idiocy that’s rapidly infecting the likes of Facebook, is people who Write Every Word In A Sentence With A Capital Letter At The Start. Get the fuck off the shift key, you retard. Or, which would be even worse, do these morons use the Caps Lock key each time?

*caps lock*F*caps lock*uck *caps lock*O*capslock*ff.

Either way it’s madness. There isn’t a need for it, and they are only following the example set by others who do the same. I’m sure not even the lowest of the low gossip magazines does this, so where have they picked it up from? Do they not read, at all, not even other peoples updates? If they did this in school, a teacher wouldn’t even read it, and would probably slap you in your stupid face for it. A job application wouldn’t make it past a first glance. How did they survive this long? They should still be repeating high school, over an over again, until they manage to grasp the very absolute basics of writing or their teeth fall out and they die of old age. It’s hard to read, too, because your brain sees each word as the start of a new sentence. By the end of it, you don’t care if the sentence is outlining a cure for cancer, because it’s clearly written by an idiot who is going out of their way to make things irritating for you. Fuck them, and their fool-proof plan for world peace. Luckily, the people who do this typically have nothing worth saying, so skipping their mutterings is safe. You’ll miss nothing.

Another common, yet ’classic’ example of non-thinking stupidity is the whole their/they’re/there or you’re/your mix-up thing. I know some people genuinely don’t care, so it doesn’t matter to them, but I personally got my head around this very simple concept in primary school. By the time I was 12 years old, I don’t remember anyone in my class having a problem with it. I could do it unthinkingly 99% of the time, as could every else around me. So why, when even the most lame education can enable these skills in people, are there still so many fuck ups? It doesn’t take any thought – it should be programmed into your brain, like 2+2=4 or ‘don’t shove your face in a fire’.

They’re in there with their bear. There. If you can’t make sense of that, get the fuck out.

(Also worth noting: swearing is perfectly acceptable and anyone who complains about it is a cunt).

So-called ‘Text language’ is another one: It was almost understandable back in the days when each individual text cost 12p, and the need to say a lot in a limited number of characters gave you an excuse ‘2 tlk lk dis’ in an effort to fit more of your pointless babble onto a message – but the internet typically has no such limitations (ignoring Twitter, whose users tend to manage without resorting to idiotic shortening by simply saying less). You can say what you like, and take your sweet time about it. Hell, set up a website and really stretch your fingers. We did. It’s easy. No one will read it, but atleast you don’t have to spend fifteen minutes taking out 90% of the vowels and stripping your words bare before saying something that wasn’t worth saying in the first place.

This is similar, but not quite as bad as intentionally mis-spelling words. ‘Creem’, ‘Myt’, ‘Anooo’, etc. It takes more time to consider the correct spelling and change it than it does to just write ‘Cream’, ‘Might’ and ‘I know’, surely? It’s not like they’re even just speaking phonetically…they’re intentionally r*ping and degrading the words. Leaving a dictionary in a bloody puddle in an alley-way, taking away it’s innocence.

Stupidity/ignorance like this fills me with a murderous rage, and I firmly believe there should be a test everyone should have to pass before they’re allowed on to the internet. It should involve basic spelling and grammar tests, and maybe a lesson on how to formulate an argument so it doesn’t devolve into a pointless back-and-forth about who sucks the most donkey cocks. Anyone who fails should be given restricted access to only the cbeebies website, and encouraged to read a book instead of…whatever the hell it is they do instead. Or at the very least a man should stand behind them, screaming insults down their ears until they start to show a bit of intelligence. Retests can be once every two years and the punishment for failing two on the run is to revoke their membership to the Human race, and keep them in a Zoo where normal, not-stupid people can walk past and hurl complex insults at them, then laugh as the cretins sit with a look of puzzlement on their excrement-smeared face, banging a stick with another stick.

For the rest of their lives.

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September 23rd, 2009

The Magician – A Very Short Story

The Magician was a bad magician.

He’d never been told this directly, but he could tell from the death-toll of his animal helpers and the occasional one-star review his few early stage shows had received. He’d had to give up doing children’s parties because he was tired of seeing the horrified look on the faces of parents when the corpse of a recently deceased Dove flew from his sleeve to hit little Billy in the face. Parents don’t like that, though they’ve never actually complained, preferring to shove his payment into his hand and usher him out quickly to a chorus of screaming adolescents.He rarely got the dead Doves back.
 
Mistakes like that happened so much, he changed his act. The Magician now advertised a dark humour with his shows, used prop stuffed animals and performed mainly to students or at corporate events, who lapped up his act of Bad Magician. 
 
Every dead rabbit has a silver lining.
 
His change in direction disgusted his peers almost as much as himself. By taking the step, he was able to make just as much money as before but skipped the years of training and the need for any talent. His natural awkward comic-timing endeared him to his new crowds, to whom the bumbling mistakes looked intentional.
 
The Magician was a good comedian.
 
Except comedy isn’t where his passion lay. He couldn’t remember a time in his life where he had wanted to be laughed at on stage, yet from a very early age he had wanted to entertain and amaze. Every Christmas and birthday he asked for a Magic Set, disregarded the instructions and ruined the whole thing in less than a week. It didn’t dull his enthusiasm.
 
When he was asked what he did for a living during his adult life, he would lie, for fear of being harangued into performing a trick. You would be surprised how many members of the general public happen to carry a pack of cards.  Once, out of blind panic and peer pressure, he set fire to a £20 note at a party, despite knowing absolutely zero tricks to back up the stunt. He had no fake £20 note to hand, wasn’t adept at sleight of hand, and ended up taking a trip to a cash machine very shortly after with a terribly bruised ego.
 
The Magician was a bad magician.

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September 21st, 2009

Motherfucking PC World – The Experience

My first mistake, I fully acknowledge, was buying a PC from PC World. The only chain of computer-based shops with a bigger selection of HDTV’s than wireless cards (The the ratio about 30-1 in favour of the TVs), and around12 member of staff wearing a selection of ugly-coloured slave outfits than they actually need. First off, very few of the display PC’s matched the specs laid out on the price tags, making most of them largely useless to a consumer What you could see was not what you would get. The layout seems designed to confuse, as if forcing you to speak to the largely under trained and indifferent staff to figure out exactly what the hell you’d be getting if you spent the money. Until recently, it had at least a little jumble sale-vibe going for it, as if a rabble of cloying nerd’s had recently been through. They’ve change it now, though – everything is on pristine-white shelves, in boxes, and the nerds are nowhere to be seen. They even have a fucking specialized Apple centre right in the middle of the store, and a sign that says printers are ‘ideal for business people’, with a picture of a tie. It’s gone from a slightly haphazard yet approachable place to a sterile, fuck-you centre for idiots and Mac lovers.

In the end, I settled on a rather sexy, Mick(Nerd)-approved ‘rig’ (sorry). I am happy with it and it does everything. It was either that or build one, and I couldn’t be arsed. PC World didn’t have all the parts anyway, and succumbing to Maplin is like taking a step too far in the other direction. To even get into Maplin you need a hardcore WoW addiction and a propensity to buy stupid disco lights with your VGA cables. The ‘puter I went for is pretty and shiny and hums along in a satisfying manner. The most advanced game I play is Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, so I’ve probably spent way too much for what I need, but I’m stupid like that. However, my decision to spend the money had fuck-all to do with PC World and much more to do with my laziness and lust for shiny gadgets.

The process of actually buying one of their computers gets difficult very quickly. I stopped a man in a dull pink shirt and tie, and informed him politely that I would like to buy one of the computers behind me. I even tried to point in it’s general direction, to indicate that he had an almost definite sale with zero work needed. He said he would send over a member of his ‘team’ to help me, because he was too senior/lazy to help a tattooed young un’ like me. He then went and stood by the door for a minute or so, before waddling off to the printer cartridge section to help someone read the side of a box.

For 5 minutes.

Abandoning the idea of any further help from that useless fuck, I collared a young girl with a very quiet voice and a nervous demeanour. After a short amount of whispering, I persuaded her I wished to exchange money for the product and she agreed that she could facilitate this. She was the most useful part of my experience and for that I love her dearly.

Now, PC World offer many useless offers and add-ons when you buy a new PC with them. I’ll start with the least rubbish: Money off the Student Edition of Microsoft Office – Not bad, if you’re after a copy of Office and have never heard of OpenOffice.org, but ultimately useless as the majority of ’students’ will be relatively poor and would rather steal the damn thing off the internet rather than spend money on it. Also, OPENOFFICE.ORG. The offer still doesn’t bring it down to an affordable, reasonable price though, when considering you’re just paying for a bit of software to write on or make powerpoints with AND OPENOFFICE.ORG IS FREE. AND WORKS FINE. AND IS FREE. Start charging more around the price of, oh I don’t know…FREE…and I might consider MS Office. Maybe. That might be just a personal thing though.

The second worthless piece of software they had on offer was Norton Anti-Virus. Which no one ever wants; and even if you do, you should never ever pay for.

Lastly, they offered a deal to all new PC-buyers that basically entailed a PC World man coming to your house in a PC World van and setting it all up for you, for less than £30! Bargain! Or not! For £30, a bored minion will turn up at your house, plug your PC in, and turn the power on. Then look at you as if you are stupid, because you are. Everything about this ’service’ is useless. If you’re genuinely unsure on how to do it (if you’re a layman, elderly, or stupid) just ask a member of your family, or a neighbour. Anything. Under no circumstances give PC World any more of your money to perform a menial task at a greatly inflated price. Again, this is something completely aimed at splitting morons from their money. Any self respecting member of PC World staff should talk you out of it if you’re dumb enough to even enquire. Part of the fun is jamming everything in and making it go. It’s even more fun if you have to crawl around under a desk, swearing. That’s the joy of buying a new PC! Sort of. At least now it’s coupled with the joy of saving yourself £30. There are more things like this, ‘offers’ that will take a stack of money from you in exchange for plugging in a TV, sorting you out with a wireless network or sitting you down and telling you to just fucking kill yourself before you somehow manage to have kids. Ugh.

Back to the process of actually getting the desired piece of equipment out of the shop…The shy girl had gone to get it out of the back for me. Except…she hadn’t. She located the useless disappearing man from earlier and was trying to talk him into doing something. I assume this is protocol, because they don’t trust their lesser members of staff to fetch items from the back or something. He was still taking his time though, and it took another ten minutes just to get it down to the front till where 3 separate members of staff counted through the stack of £20’s I gave them. I got it home fine, and managed to set it up in about 15 minutes, handily saving me that £30 and a handful of dignity.

PC World seem to want to make it as annoying as possible to simply buy a PC. Which is fucked, considering it’s a shop that should really be promoting such behaviour. They seem set-up towards exploiting the members of the public who might not know exactly what they’re looking for. They have ‘Tech Guys’ who helpfully approach each situation with a surly ‘better than you’ attitude, but get flummoxed if you ask them any question more technical than where a USB stick goes. There was a man walking around with cheap shirt on, with ‘Windows Guru’ sewn into the back as a shining example to child labour, whose job surely can’t be more than pointing out where the Help section is on Windows. As an OS, Windows is fairly idiot proof in itself. I really can’t think what else he would have to do, except instil the fear of Gates into customers who think to even understand one of these infernal machines you have to be a ‘guru’.

Well fuck you, PC World. You are shit.

(I realise the hypocrisy of this whole thing, because I still gave them my money…but hopefully one of the board members might one day read this, have an attack of conscious and leave a note for his Secretary detailing how to fix things before diving out of the window of his 12th-floor executive office. Note: Not an actual suggestion)

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September 19th, 2009

I don’t understand.

Twitter.

I’ve been using Twitter for a little while now, and I still don’t know what to make of it. On the face of it, it’s a bit useless, but addictive. As a social networking thing, it doesn’t work for me because I’m not that social and the ‘network’ is almost 100% one-sided. I have only 18 followers and I’m not famous enough to have any more. I wouldn’t even know how to whore myself out to get more. I don’t even really want any more.

(@ChrisDWelsh by the way)

I ‘follow’ (which sounds very stalkerish) quite a few people, but most aren’t interesting. There are only a handful of people who actually make it worth your time. Yet I follow more than that because otherwise it would be very boring. To make Twitter worth your time, you have to spam yourself with shit you don’t care about. I follow Hugh Hefner for fucks sake, who gets creepier and creepier with every missive. He can just say something along the lines of ‘I am watching a movie’, and it’s suddenly creepy because you know he’s sat watching it whilst surrounded by identikit ‘bunnies’ who are there out of some misguided attempt to become famous. You know that, after watching the film, this very old man will be fucking the brains out of at least one 18 year old. Or so I assume. It’s creepy, yet I can’t unfollow him for some reason. It’s like a horrific train wreck that I just can’t tear my eyes away from. Maybe I find it all life affirming – proof that just being rich, famous and very lucky with women does not make you any less of a terrifying person when you hit 80.

Occasionally, I update my own Twitter. I send a ‘tweet’ out to the 18 people who follow me, saying something like ‘Oh shit, I forgot I could update this thing…’. I have nothing interesting to say on there, that wouldn’t be put to better use on Facebook where some other bored nerd might pick up on it. The people who follow me on Twitter don’t do so because they give a shit about what I have to say – they do it because they too want to think that it isn’t just a useless way of stalking celebrities that you have almost no interest in stalking. Or because I know them in real life and they’d rather follow me than have to deal with me screaming WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? at them every time I see them in real life.

Which I would.

I know that I’m probably using it wrong, or I’ve missed the point of it, but to me it’s just like an RSS Feed that’s a bit easier to manage, and a little bit more personal. Facebook is where I keep the friends I actually talk to – Twitter is where I keep a list of the people I sort-of like enough to bother following, but will never ever be in a position to know.

Some of them, like I said, are worth following. Peter Serafinowicz almost makes the whole thing worth while on his own. Graham Linehan puts in a hefty amount of time to it and justifies the really-very-small amount of effort that people put into following what he has to say. There are more, but listing them here is pointless. I’m not trying to namedrop. If I was, I’d be writing this in 140 character sentences on Twitter and @’ing everyone.

This is getting a bit long now, which isn’t in the spirit of the piece, so I’ll wrap it up…basically, I like Twitter, use it daily…I just don’t know why. I don’t understand it and feel I never will.

At least until I’m famous and strangers start to follow me just to tell me I’m pretty.

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September 15th, 2009

SHFTW&D – So you’re scared of public speaking?

The classic piece of advice for people who are terrified of speaking aloud in public is to imagine your audience naked. I suggest we go one further, and really shove your audience into depraved situations. What’s so unnerving about speaking to a group of people when one of them, in your head, is being forced to fellate a goat at gunpoint. An ugly goat too. One with bad hygiene. Even for a goat.

Visualising such atrocities should clear any anxiety you’re feeling, helping you get over your fear and deliver the best possible talk on road safety to those kids.

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September 13th, 2009

Emotion As Renewable Energy

Much is being made of the way we as a race burn up our finite resources of fuels – oil, coal, Red Bull etc. The world as a whole is being urged to ‘go green’ by mostly-boring political types or deluded celebrities who think they can change the world because they had a starring role in a film or something.

Now, in principal, this is obviously a good idea. ‘Going green’ helps out the planet we live on, probably, and is atleast a bit more interesting than digging big holes in it to mine for stuff we’re just going to waste anyway. The problem is that current renewable energy sources are boring.

Those big, white Windmill things they’re sticking everywhere to harness wind-power look good, but they’re a bit cumbersome and probably take a few years to break-even on the amount of energy wasted to put them up in the first place. (This is said with absolutely no research, so please don’t bother correcting me; save your energy).

Solar panels are fine too, but are expensive and again just a bit of a pain in the arse.

What we need is an easily renewable source that is readily available to be harnessed. Something like, say, human emotions.

Schools and colleges could be powered by the youthful energy of their students, and top it up with the unbridled narcesscism and hatred emanating from the older teachers. Strap a modern-equivalent of a Dynamo to a kid with ADHD and load him with sugar, and use the resultant energy output to run the projectors in the science labs. You know, the ones that throw up huge, detailed diagrams of genitalia and sperm. If there was a way to then capture the stifled laughter of the class and the badly-hidden embarassment of the teacher as she loads up Penis slide (not a euphemism (or a garden toy)) then it could power the lights in the gym for that afternoons PE class, where the kinetic energy of the fat kid’s bouncing flabrolls as he runs about giving himself a hernia and hating every moment of it could be stored and used for something else.

Hospitals could run on the raw fear, pain anxiety that comes naturally to patients. The A&E department would be sorted for renewable energy if it could make use of the adrenaline of the staff and the anger of the drunken fuck-heads who came in at 3am demanding to be seen by a doctor because they’ve punched a lamp-post and shattered their wrist. Or the useless attention-seeking student drones who cracked their head on the kerb trying to do a blatently random cartwheel to impress their vapid little friends. If sources begin to run low on the wards, simply telling a select few of the less stable, resiliant patients that they’ve only got a week to live should generate a decent amount. Not to mention what could be harnessed from the anger/relief they feel when you tell them you were only joking.

Prisons could be powered by the cocktail of rage, remorse and general wrong-headedness that flows from the inmates. Fred West could have powered a whole wing with his stubborn refusal to reveal where those last bodies were buried. The chronic masturbation of violent child molesters upon showing them glimpses of the old BBC test-card might be enough to support Ian Huntley’s alledged luxury flat. Even simpler, install hamster wheels in every cell and force even the fattest inmates to do an hour a day. Kinetic energy is probably easier to create than Emotional when it comes down to it (what with it being an actual ‘thing’, and not something I’ve made up).

The only thing I can’t think of a way to power by human emotion only would be something like a Coldplay concert. I can’t imagine the feelings of 1000’s of bored, apathetic ’fans’ would result in much more than a AAA battery. Although Chris Martin’s ego might help. Infact, on a similar note, the world-wide hatred of Bono could solve all of our problems if we pooled it.

The pointless bickering and bile spat at Youtube’s comments section on even the most inane video could be useful too. If we could somehow gather the collective stupidity from Facebook groups, we’d be set for the next million years. Your fridge could be powered by bad grammar.

If only this wasn’t totally hypothetical and written just to pass some time, involving absolutely impossible concepts, I could really be on to something here. Damn.

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September 10th, 2009

Absolutely Nothing Happened At All

So…nothing happened at 09:09am on 09/09/09. Shocker. It’s almost as if it was a normal, boring day!

Personally, I’d expected the Devil to come riding in on a big Devil Bike, proclaiming that the whole ‘666′ thing was a mistake and came from a snooping journalist seeing it the wrong way up, and the real evil number was 999. Then he’d do a wheelie and set a few things on fire, because he’s the Devil and he can do stuff like that, even though he still keeps a close eye on the Gregorian calander so he knows when to time his attacks.

But no, nothing happened. Nothing news-worthy, anyway. There were no end-of-the-world type antics, or scary attacks or anything. Bit of a disappointment really. There was a crazed theory floating about that there’d be a terror attack, because ‘999′ is the emergency services number for the UK. You know, the way ‘911′ (9/11) is the US number. And terrorists plan like Horror movie directors. Saving up their work for Halloween, because that makes things all the more poignant.

Yeah.

I can’t wait for 2013, when this sort of nonsense can’t really happen. 13/13/13 doesn’t work. Although, according to the Mayan calendar and a few jumped-to conclusions, we’re all going to cease to exist in December of 2012. That should be interesting. It will save me having to buy Christmas presents atleast.

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September 9th, 2009

You Don’t Even Deserve Email

!!! WARNING !!!
If you receive an email titled I LIKE DOGS, please do not not not open it.
It will wipe your hard drive and send itself to everyone on your contact list.
Send this to everyone you know, so they don't have the same problem!!!
Microsoft has recently bought Yahoo and decided to start charging
for a hotmail or yahoo mail account. The only way to keep your account,
is to send this email on in the next 7 days. If you do not send this email
to at least 10 people, you will need to pay $9.95 per month to keep your email account.

Sound familiar? If you’re an email user, chances are you’ve seen something like this before. A typical fake warning email. There are many many variations, including some that suggest receiving an email or a friend request by a certain person will lead to a similar situation.

The latest one I received was with regards to a phone system. Basically, if someone calls you to tell you that your BT bill is unpaid, BEWAREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (especially if you’re not actually with BT). The email tells of how the mysterious stranger convinced the emailee that he needed to pay BT for using their service, even though he was with Virgin Media for his phone line. To prove he was official, it says, the caller disabled the customers line.

Now we all know this is complete and utter fiction. If there was a way, for an average Joe to disable peoples phone lines, there are that many mischievious people and utter cunts out there, that hardly anyone would have a phone line to use.

I can only assume this utter panic comes from peoples lack of understanding. In most cases it’s not understanding how emails or computers work well enough, to know what is suggested is impossible or perfectly easilly avoided. In other cases, it’s more specific knowledge, like how a phone system works in the example above. Now I say it’s a lack of understand that causes it, but it all boils down to a lack of common sense.

  • If whatever the email says is true, why have you only heard of it through a chain email sent to you by your friend?
  • Why are virus checker companies unaware of this new virus, leaving it up to word of mouth to avoid?
  • If you forward an email on to 10 friends, and 2 of those friends forward it on, that list of names supposedly “signing” the email gets split into two separate lists right there.
  • You’re sending an email out with maybe 200-300 email addresses in it, that it’s been forwarded to and from in the past. All it takes is for this email to be forwarded to the wrong person, and all of those addresses are in the hands of companies that make money from spam email, or phishing attacks.
  • The email is a threat. Do this or else. Fair enough the or else is “bad luck for 7 years”, or the risk that “your crush” won’t “phone you at 1 to tell you they feel the same way about you”. Stop negotiating with terrorists, and don’t send the email on!

There are so many reasons why any of these emails are both ridiculous and potentially dangerous. Forward them on if you want, but don’t fucking send them to me!

Now tweet this and send this link to everyone you know, or you will have bad luck for 7 years.

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by Mick | Posted in Misc | 1 Comment » |
September 8th, 2009

Mills and Boon Politely Declined

I sent an idea to sexy publishers Mills and Boon. It was a sure fire hit. Read all about it in my last post. Today I got a reply, this is what it said:

Dear Mr Welsh,

Thank you for sending your submission.

Harlequin Mills & Boon deal exclusively with the genre of romantic fiction for women. Since your material does not come into this category, we are unable to offer an opinion on your work.

Thank you for thinking of Harlequin Mills & Boon.

Yours sincerely,

Editorial Department
Harlequin Mills & Boon

SHAME! Don’t you just hate generic responses? Maybe it was the reference to Dog the Bounty Hunter that put them off.

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by Chris | Posted in Misc | No Comments » | Tags: , ,
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