Lizze bitches about...

Leaving …

2006-06-06T19:58:00.000+01:00

… Blogger now and going on to my own website and will continue to blog from there.

INVITE:

PLEASE JOIN ME OVER AT

WWW.AKALIZZE.COM/BLOG

Blogger is ok – it is free after all – but it certainly has a lot irritating issues around when it works and when it is sluggish as hell.

One really really annoying FACT is that is virtually impossible to export your blog from Blogger. BF tried lots of different ways and actually gave up … he never gives in when it comes to computer stuff. BUT I have had an ongoing problems with my blog with some sort of formatting problem, so readers didn’t get updated with new posts.

I would miss you lots and lots if you don’t come and visit!! Come by and say Hi :)

No Happy cont

2006-06-05T22:59:00.000+01:00

*hmpf*

So Mr Keke "slag off Michael Schumacher at anytime any place" Rosberg now am sorry for slagging Michael off. How fucking convenient of him to do this a week or so after the Monaco F1 and not being a race weekend.

The man is an idiot.

From Fox (!!) Sport News:

Rosberg admits that he may have gone too far in slamming Schumacher following the controversy surrounding the German in Monaco.

MAY, ?? MAY gone to far ... talk about saying more because he has to rather then mean it.

Then he says:
"I didn't think Michael should drag our sport into the dirt," added Rosberg.

Idiot ... you are the one dragging down the sport.

Lizze bitches about...: Not happy

The Pirate Bay: part 4

2006-06-02T17:26:00.000+01:00

Now the stories of the involved are being told and thanks to the internet, we can all ready it ... directly from the source. No mainstream media involved, directly from 'blogs mouth' :)

Mikael Viborg, the guy who gave legal advise to The Pirate Bay, tell his side - in English.

Here is his blog: The take down of The Pirate Bay

This whole story is going to have long term effects and the line has been drawn. Thanks to these ballsy ... well balls and cool attitude - it is going to help us all. So we need to help these guys in any way we can.

The Pirate Bay: part 3

2006-06-01T13:49:00.000+01:00

Excellent News:

"SITE DOWN - WILL BE UP AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITHIN A DAY OR TWO"

From Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay: part 2

2006-05-31T18:15:00.000+01:00

Some interesting blogs about what is happening:

The Piratpartiet with Press release

The Alternative site of The Pirate Bay; in English and Swedish version with some English comments.

Go and give these guys your support!

Info + Graph that the internet traffic in Sweden is/was 20% less after Pirate Bay was forced to close down = popular site. I guess it has picked up a bit when users being up-in-arms with this.

And some more info.

The Pirate Bay

2006-05-31T14:26:00.000+01:00

3 people with connection to The Pirate Bay have been CORR: taken in for interegation (not arrested) and about 10 or more Servers has been confiscated by the Swedish Police. They are suspected to have “Offence against Copyright” and/or “Assistance of Offence against Copyright”

I hope these three guys or girls keep their ballsy attitude and give the Police a hard time. 50 (!) police officers have been involved in this operation.

I bet ya that MPAA and their Swedish branch is behind this.

Even more wrong – unbelievable wrong

2006-05-31T11:53:00.000+01:00

In The Netherlands, a new party has been formed, for Paedophiles. The prime objective of the party is to lower the age from 16 to 12 years old and then to scrap it all together.

The name of the Party is “The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD)” – now how is that for spin? They are cunning bastards, aren’t they?

“One of the NVD's founders, Ad van den Berg, said: "A ban just makes children curious. We want to make paedophilia the subject of discussion.”

Yeah right – it all about kids best interest …
A child is not interested of having sex with an adult and these sick exuse of human beings just don’t get it.

“Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals.” YOU ARE CRIMINALS – end of

“The NVD says toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in porn films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, it said.”

This is so sick!! It is so important that the Dutch puts end to this now!!

They also say that “They are what they are” and compare themselves to hetro- and homosexuals. I get it that is something they cannot control - SO NOT CHEMICAL CASTRATION BUT PERMENTANLY REMOVE ALL OF IT. All of it – they have no rights, remember that.

The Netherlands – you need stop this now otherwise it will tarnish your county’s name. Forget the queue of all druggies coming over for a weekend, they are going to run over by all pedos coming to your country for nice, long weekend.

Your country is going get filled with kids from the poor Eastern European countries, especially if they already are in the EU and then get topped up by kids from Asia. The pedos won’t fly to Thailand when they can jump on EasyJet/Ryanair to go to your country instead.

It is not right what happening in Thailand, but that is a poor country with a lot of issues so the weakest is being prayed upon.

Read more about it here.

Still getting it wrong

2006-05-31T10:33:00.000+01:00

From The Economist:
“Hollywood studios have a justifiable fear of piracy: a new report by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says that illegal copying of films cost studios $6.1 billion last year, including $2.3 billion from internet downloads. …
BitTorrent has agreed to build strong anti-copy protections in its software and remove links to illicit copies of Warner Brothers’ content. Still, those hoping that the deal will guarantee cheap downloads of the studio’s hits may be disappointed: a downloaded film will cost the same as buying the DVD.”

Firstly, I do not believe the $6.1 billion figure. MPAA is a lobby group and not an independent organisation. There is no way to check their calculations and I am certainly not taking their word for it! It is in their interest to spin the information to their needs.

I assume that BitTorrent is a website and not the actual software. There is plenty of good bit torrent software like uTorrent, BitComet, Azureus and these software will not include the “strong anti-copy protections”.

Secondly, Warner Brothers are getting it wrong by charging the downloads at the same price as the DVD. To state the obvious, with a download there is no distribution costs, no packing, no storage and no manufacturing costs. The extra cost for Sever capacity can’t be significant compared against the savings. WB profit margin will be even bigger with downloads and continue ripping their customer off.

There is absolutely no incentive to going down the road of legal downloads. Let face it, if you have set up the bit torrent and all that goes with it, you are not the average computer user and you will always have more options.

These movie & music companies do not get that their previous behaviour towards their customer have been outrageous. This is the first time the power pendulum is going towards the customers.

I see no reason why I should continue to pay for Stars & executive’s private jets, super high salaries and other perks as assistants, drug habits and other ego boast antics.

Not happy

2006-05-28T15:31:00.000+01:00

Michael would have won if none of this mess had happened - deliberate or not.

I reluctant accept the Stewards decision but the rest of the comments – especially from Keke Rosberg, “Mr McLaren ally, former Mika H manager and I have my son in the Williams team” is way off base – are from Michael competitor and they have an agenda to smear him.

"Schumacher set to back of the grid"

2006-05-28T03:25:00.000+01:00

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG VERY DAMN WRONG decision of the Stewards.

To delete ALL (!!) of his quali laps are so very wrong. Talk about caving from pressure - the Stewards have no balls what so ever.

It is 3.29 am now - I have been sorting out some papers and stufff (found two old gift vouchers £20 Debenhamns and £25 from Burberry). I sincerely hope that when I wake up at 11.55 to start watching ITV F1 at 12.00 this wrong decision has been over turned.

I don't even like the Monaco GP ... it is even more boring the Spanish SG *aaarrrrggghhh*

I will be v. pissed off this Michael will start at the back for the grid. And the grief I will get from BF will be unbearable *sigh*

I am off to bed now ... in a not so good mood.

2006-05-27T19:16:00.000+01:00

The trend in ads these days is to lie a full 100%. The companies take their weakness and in their ads they say that they are the exact opposite.

Like the sleazy, lying bastards at Carphone Warehose, sponsors of Big Brother, and their catch phrases are “you get star treatment at CW” and “you get independent advice from CW”

Well, the star treatment - thing is a complete lie. I know this from personal experience. Independent advice, yeah right – it all depends on how the commission structure is for their sales people.

I am more and more inclined to think the opposite to whatever companies say they are. Most ads bore me almost to death – how many times do we have to see the same diapers, shampoos, supermarket, mobile networks ads?

This bank holiday weekend we should, according to the ads, hurry up to buy a sofa, bathroom and garden furniture. Argos has got it dead wrong this bank holiday weekend, they are selling off BBQs and it is pissing down with rain … for the whole long weekend HA!

I got out of my way NOT to buy what the ads are telling me to buy.

What is your pet hate when it comes to ads??

Mine are Carphone Warehouse and I *tut* every single time I see it on Big Brother. On second place is that annoying T-Mobile ad with fabric coming out the peoples mouths and they make an odd sound.

F1 is not dull

2006-05-27T17:39:00.000+01:00

Now everybody is slagging Michael Schumacher off (again). In the second last corner in the last seconds if the qualifying, Michael got out of shape and ended up stalling the car - read more about it.

If this had been any other driver, none of this ‘outrage’ would have happened. But any change of attacking Michael is jump upon gladly.

They can’t just make a complaint to the Stewards/Charlie Whiting and let them check the telemetry data. Noooo, a lot of moaning and accusation comes with it.

BUT F1 is never dull …

Let’s see if Michael gets to start on Pole tomorrow. I think so

Um-ing and ah-ing

2006-05-24T23:38:00.000+01:00

I have been um-ing and ah-ing if I should blog these pics or not since lunch time today. This morning was again full on and when I saw these pics - it had me in fits of laughter and the stress slipped away. The first thing I did after I stopped laughing was to fwd the email to some friends ... why not show them on my blog?

Anyway, here are a few of the "best" ones:

Gee, I hope the velcro holds
mom got discount prices on the material if bought in bulk!!

am I showing enough cleavage?

Speeed part 3: it took less then a minute to upload these pics :)

Speeeeeeeeed part 2

2006-05-24T23:32:00.000+01:00

Downloaded a 450 MB torrent from UKNOVA in 42 min

Nice, veeeery nice.

The peak was aover 310 kbps for active torrents

May this speed last :)

Non-PC vs PC

2006-05-24T12:52:00.000+01:00

Absolutely no fucking chance

I’m fairly sure that’s not feasible

You lying shit

Are you quite sure about that?

Tell someone who gives a fuck

Have you informed the management about that?

It’s got fuck all to do with me

I don’t think I was involved in that project

Shove a brush up my arse and I’ll sweep the fucking floor as well

Would you like me to do that for you as well?

You haven’t got a fucking clue

Perhaps you need a little more training in this

Fuck off smart arse

Well-done

She’s a ball-busting bitch

She’s a full time career woman

Get out of my face, dog breath

I don’t think I require your assistance

Boy, are you in the shit

Does the boss know about this?

Kiss my fucking arse

I’d rather not if you don’t mind

Who the fuck are you?

Are you new here?

No fucker told me

I wasn’t given that piece of information

What sort of clueless fuck wit are you?

You haven’t done this before, have you?

You’ve made a right cock-up of that

It’s the sort of mistake anyone could make

It’s fucked

It’s broken but I think I can fix it

It’s completely fucked

It’s broken beyond repair

Fuck off

I’d like to be alone for a while if you don’t mind

Fuck off you twat

You are a very rude man

Speeeeeeeeed

2006-05-24T00:34:00.000+01:00

Our internet is speedy again

*yaaaay*

We changed to Be today and BF is now sorting stuff out .... so it looks like it will improve.

It can be up to 24MB down and 1.3 MB up

Da Da Vinci Code

2006-05-24T00:18:00.000+01:00

... as it it said in East London :)

But I saw the film in West London, actually - Shepard's Bush

I am one of the few (million) that has not read the book so I really enjoyed the film. Our neighbour came with us and she had read the book. Her comment was that there was a lot less details in the film compared with the book. I actually was most interested in the symbols mentioned n the beginning.

If there is some truth in these revelations ... big deal ... but then again, I don't get the importance of it to begin with.

Homecoming

2006-05-22T20:38:00.000+01:00

It looks like it was “we won (but you loose)” mindset in

Finland

The new square in Rovaniemi's city centre will be named Lordi's.

It is far far up north.

Sorry but I can’t stop laughing at this “Until now, Finland had one of the worst records in the history of the annual contest.” And

Finland

goes and wins this group.

Hilarious!

Congrats FINLAND!

2006-05-21T02:00:00.000+01:00

I never thought I would say this but here I go;

Congratulation Finland to the Victory of the 2006 European Song Contest.

*wow*

For you non-Europeans out there, each year every European country (and Israel for some reason) submits a song to this contest. It is always cheesy and neighbouring countries votes on each other. Read more about it here.

Finland usually ends up with humiliating 0 (zero) points. This year, Finland sends a death (?) rock bank looking like this and they go and win the contest.

*wow*

Big Brother is back

2006-05-18T22:44:00.000+01:00

The housemates have entered the house and I can sum it up like this:

They are nutters

I don’t what BB you have in your country … here in the UK, it is all about characters – not slick, not too much game planning - mainly nutters.

Other reality shows, based on talent, Pop idol, X Factor etc – the talent pool has run out, according to guru Simon Cowell.

Big Brother? No probs, here in the UK it is never ending source of good BB people. Helluva lot of Welsh people in there …

It is on for another 13 weeks ! *Wooohooo*

And has Davina had an eye job? She looked strange *oh nooooo*

http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother/

Just got one problem ... it is the sleezy fucking Carphone Warehouse that sponsor this program.

The cheques received from CW cleared my bank account this week. Never ever use these bastards!!

hehe

2006-05-17T21:15:00.000+01:00

ROMANCE MATHEMATICS

Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy
______________________________

OFFICE ARITHMETIC

Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime
_____________________________

SHOPPING MATH
A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs.
A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn't need.
_____________________________

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE

A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
_____________________________

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and
cracking, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started
doing the same thing to them at funerals.
_____________________________

Pentagon 11 Sept ‘film’ sequence

2006-05-16T23:01:00.000+01:00

I saw the realised sequence on the news today and I have to say that I am sceptical of it. It raises more questions then it answers.

I can see the plane in a very few frames – albeit that plane is going in some speed. Those frames could have been manipulated.

How can a plane fly so low and crash into a building on the ground floor? How high is the Pentagon? 4 or 5 stores high above the ground? I don’t know how the terrain around the Pentagon looks like, but can one really fly a 747 so low without anyone taken notice?

Have a look at this satellite image from Google Map over Pentagon – it isn’t exactly empty terrain around it. How can anyone fly a plane just above ground, and with a levelled out plane, into the Ground floor at Pentagon?

A 747 (or whatever the model it was) is a massive object and take some manoeuvring to get it to fly at ground level. The crash is exactly at the building, not meters or so before. All the instruments in a plane are on a sea bearing level, right? This is seems a lot for some terrorist who took some flying lesson in a prop plane and the rest in simulators.

The plane flew in from the West, if I understand it correctly. I see motorway, trees and some buildings west/south of Pentagon. It is all very strange.

The one fact that I do not (and can not) dispute is that there are relatives missing their loved ones that was on that plane.

Bad news

2006-05-16T22:16:00.000+01:00

Today was the opposite of yesterday. A lot of work to be done and it didn’t go very well – at all. So I will start tomorrow morning with the same shit. It didn’t help that the information that I need to base the calculation was not 100% correct. And who is responsible for that … my boss. He said some snidely comments about me while I was away so the there is a high alert to watch my back – probably to late.

The joy of work, eh?

Good news

2006-05-15T10:15:00.000+01:00

When I came into work this Monday morning, I received the good news that my boss is off sick today. *yay*

Reading the comments from Dustin & Twinkie cheered me up too – even though D is trying to wind me up...

I cannot wait until 23 May – that is the date when we will change ISP at home. The current connection is so slow that a Dial-up is a better option. A page can take 30-45 seconds to load … if it works. But until then we have changed the setting so that we upload and download torrents unlimited – might as well give more back when we can.

During the weekend, I was watching American Inventor and I cannot decide who I want to will. Well, it is not up to me … it is up the American people … or TV viewers, I should say. It is either the guy from Detroit with that “how to catch a football better” cos I like the guy but the better invention is from the Polish immigrant and his new “very safe – if it works” child cars seat.

And who is gonna win the next Apprentice? I don’t really think any of them is all that. I certainly don’t want Lee to get it.

I should really get back to work now, shouldn’t I?

MI:III

2006-05-13T14:53:00.000+01:00

The main reason why I wanted to see Mission Impossible 3 was that it had been filmed in Shanghai.

But this is a really GOOD action film and definite worth seeing. It is much better the MI2, which I didn’t like that much. Like most people I have found Tom Cruise both annoying & off-putting lately but the guy has done a good action film so credit to him for that.

And yes, the Shanghai scenes are absolutely fab!

I like Poland

2006-05-09T20:03:00.000+01:00

I am bit surprised of this myself. Last time when I + family went to an Eastern European country (Yugoslavia in the 80s) involved queue jumping German woman, step-dad that twisted her nose, police with machine guns, a judge, an apology from the judge and then a quick exit from the country with the vow never to return to an Eastern European country.

The Ryanair flight was so uncomfortable with their new ‘minimum requirement seats’ and totally impossible to sleep on the plane. This despite 3 hour sleep at home, have to get up at 3.45am to be on Stanstedt around 7am.

Poland is a very clean country and people have bigger, detached (British thing where a majority of houses share a wall with another house = semi-detached) houses compared to London living standard (why do we live in this city again??). Where we were, they are not so open-minded and we got told not to leave the old town after dark. It was kind of the talk of this small town of the Brits (10-15 people) that had descended on the town. Sorry – I still don’t know what the town is called.

Poland is a ‘good value for money’-country. We spent and spent and at the end of the weekend the bill was £30 each (excl hotel)

The wedding was fun and interesting to see the Polish traditions. Did you know that the bride threw her veil instead of the bouquet and the groom through his tie to the single men to see who will be married within a year. Great way to find out who is single and who is not.

I hope I can tag along with our Polish neighbour sometime when she goes to Poland. I want to go back!

Things were not so good between me and BF and it was difficult to sort of switch between being alone and then with the wedding party. It has slightly improved since we came back home but patience is short from both parties.

We meet some nice people, one of the girls does her own handbags and have a small business. She does them by hand and also to customs design. I am thinking of ordering one – email has been sent.

Our internet connection is real slow (damn our ISP that cap our speed!!) – more pics later.

Guess what airliner is doing the major, mad sponsor routine??

I hit my head on that wall twice - both times with a not so lovely headaches (nooo - I don't not get those from vodka). It is my Cola Light :)

The town square

Off to Poland for the weekend

2006-05-04T21:03:00.000+01:00

This is the first time I am going to Poland. BF’s friend is getting married to a Polish girl (... in Poland).

My hunch is that this will be something like I have never seen before. It is in the country side, South East Poland, towards the Ukraine border. From little info I have is that the Polish family & friends don’t speak much English and for the English … well, they don’t have a second language, do they??

The plane leaves really early, minicab is picking us up at 4.30 am (!!) …. So much for my day off but that will mean that will get the most of the day in Poland.

I have got my camera with me and hope to take some good pictures. I don’t think there will be internet access (BF is gonna get withdrawal symptoms by Friday pm) so any posting will be next week.

Carphone Warehouse – almost there

2006-05-03T21:14:00.000+01:00

I took Carphone Warehouse to the UK’s Small Claim Court to get my money back awhile ago. After the claim there was another email conversation with another CW department, they promised to pay. But in their normal style, they got the amount wrong so they will pay me with two cheques.

To my surprise, I got one cheque today. I will not cash it until I receive the other one. I still won’t believe until I see it.

One thing I would like to warn anyone in the UK … CW’s offer of free broadband is shit cos they don’t allow p2p even though the contract say so. The get out price is £70.00 plus a month subscription.

The one good thing with all of the Carphone Warehouse mess… is the Court system. The website that you register the claim is easy to use and I can check any progress (y’know, it is Carphone Warehouse I am talking about after all). The site was a pleasant surprise. Here it is – just in case you need to make a claim:

www.moneyclaim.gov.uk

Loser .. or not?

2006-05-02T19:20:00.000+01:00

I am normal.

There were some fun & odd questions.

Prep for the Olympics in Beijing 2008

2006-05-01T15:47:00.000+01:00

All in the name for things to look good.

Such a awful thing to do but maybe China is not the only one doing this?

Lock Pete Doherty up now

2006-04-29T01:04:00.000+01:00

The Sun has a picture & story where Pete Doherty injects heroine in an unconscious girl’s arm. She is lying on his kitchen floor. The picture is horrific.

Why is he not in custody? What kind of example does it set when the Police and Courts let him walk away every single time after he has been arrested?

I think it is because he now has this coolness factor and the tabloids love to write about him and Kate Moss. Why should he be allowed this special treatment? Surly not every junkie gets away with this as much as he does. Well, I bloody hope not.

Lock him up now!

HSBC

2006-04-28T23:38:00.000+01:00

They messed … no fucked up big time today, well technically they did it on Wednesday.

All bacs payments received on Wednesday to be paid today had not been processed due to “a corrupted file”. Like how many millions in the UK should have received their salary today?? Answer: everybody who either gets paid on the 28 or 29 or 30 of April, and then there is all the Purchase ledger payments.

Fancy working in a Finance dept when people have not been paid??

My line manager and I arrived at exactly the same this morning. He told me that the txt from the bank did not include his salary. I checked my bank, nope no salary in my account either. In the meantime, he checks the company bank account and no payment has been deducted and there is no pending payment either.

Panic … until I verified that I had used the right value date on the payment and that the bank had received the payment.

Next step, kick some arse at the bank to find out what has gone wrong. I’d have to say that my line manager is great of kickin’ arse *hehe*.

First call to our branch managerbut he had not arrived yet at work. Next call he did went to a (Indian/ Pakistani/ Bangalore) call centre and he got the reply “Technical issues so sorry”. Well, we all know that call centres are there to fob off customers not to give service. And frankly it doesn’t help to come to an Indian (or similar) call centre where they read a scrip and don’t know about anything of the UK bank system.

My manager shouted down the phone “It is not a technical issue - it is people’s salaries” He might even used the work fuck in there too. In the meantime, the staff is just dropping by (yeah right) the Finance office with the sentence “I don’t know if you know but ...” We were like “Don’t say it, we know and trying to find out what has happened”

Next call and he got hold of our branch manager and my manager had to tell him the good news. With the questions, what are you going to do? At the end, we faxed over the bank details and amount and some poor staff had to manually input the into the swift system (my guess) and after a few hours the money appeared in my bank account *woooohooo*

My guess is that thousands or maybe millions of people did not get paid today and this is a bank holiday weekend so the payment will come in people’s bank account on Tuesday. HSBC issued a silly statement in the lines of “don’t worry the other banks have been told about the problems and the payment date will be 2 May. Do not use any other system to get the payments done today”

Yeah right, tell that to the people who can’t get out any money from the cash point or default on a mortgage payment.

I had a couple of conversations like “my mortgage goes out today”, “I am £1000 overdrawn without the payment” etc and of course the smart arse of our IT manager comes up to me and asks “What is going on in finance dept? What did you guys do wrong?” Jokes are mostly ok but trust me there are sometimes when it is not appropriate and this was one of them. I snapped back to him and said Not our fault (silent: you idiot).

Anyway it had a happy ending for our part and my line manager saved the day for a lot of people.

BBC reboot

2006-04-28T00:40:00.000+01:00

BBC is finally doing something about their lame main site www.bbc.co.uk

Their news site has always been the main site for me. I have never understood why such a big name and presence on the internet would not do more with their main site. Now they do and they are doing in a very cool way.

They are opening the doors to their readers, users and creative people to come up with ideas. And what happened? They get mostly slagged off for this initiative. Just don’t get it. I don't see any other main corporation daring to do this.

Anyway, if you are in to designing and / or creative stuff – click here

First time

2006-04-28T00:29:00.000+01:00

I meet up my neighbour yesterday evening, just for a chat. I started to chat about work and she interrupts me and says “Yeah, I know. I read your blog” and stopped me in my tracks. What could I say?

She is one the few that knows who I am and that I have a blog.

Anyway, we could get on to her and what she needed to talk about. She lives a much more fun & happening life and I think that she should have a blog too. Or would that make me the very nosey neighbour? LOL C’mon K get a blog going!!

She did think that one of my post when I was writing about people watch TV in the morning (what is wrong with you????) was a reference to her. I can vaguely hear it but that doesn’t bother me.

At the end of the evening, we played PS2 game Buzz and I won twice *hehe* Re match perhaps?

Sleaze week

2006-04-28T00:14:00.000+01:00

It has been a proper sleaze week with Labour and all sorts of scandals like releasing 1000-odd foreign prisoners without deporting them. They are roaming around in the country cos the authorities cannot find them. IDIOTS!!

The deputy PM has been shagging a women then wasn’t his wife – and I am being cynical here because I think these stories had a managed timing when realised. Another wife gets screwed (pun intended) and I would enjoy if the role had been reversed, the wife hooks up with somebody and leaves the politician to be the injured party.

Would you do this guy? Probably not … power must be a real strong aphrodisiac

Labour is going down, down and the next election is ages away so most people will have forgotten all this sleaze.

Annoyed

2006-04-26T22:22:00.000+01:00

I like surfing the random blogs. That is how I found most blogs that I am currently reading.

CoffeeandCigs

seriously wtf.

elderrant

Drinking From Home

Sam - Thoughts, photos and pie

There is one main reoccurring theme – just realised.

But there are two very annoying things – it is those blogs with “Let make poverty history” banner.

1. I can’t use the next blog button.

2. The banner is just so damn wrong!!! People, let’s make CORRUPTION history then the poverty will disappear too. The correlation is 1 between them. I have never given any money for the Africa causes and I can’t see me doing it in the future either. Clothes, sure no probs but anything else? Nope

Some people seem to have the idea if there was oil resources then this level of corruption would not have happened. I thought so too but then when I thought about it some more, I don’t think it holds anymore.

Africa has many resource, minerals, diamonds, gold etc. The different governments could have made sure that the multi-national companies would not be able to corrupt as much as they have done. Y’ know public outcry, get the UN and similar involved, apply diplomatic pressure – still think the public outcry would have been the best alternative just in case any Western government was pulling any strings for these companies to be able to get away with what they have done.

Time instead of money?

2006-04-26T21:06:00.000+01:00

I took the chance today to voice my disappointment over my new salary – just in between whatever correction of the payroll and another directors decision of handing out a bonus (bigger then my salary increase btw) to somebody that didn’t get a pay raise – and that was not meet with a great deal of understanding.

Firstly, I think he was surprised that I raised it at all, secondly he defended it and thirdly I was told it was a reasonable raise. I didn’t agree but what could I do? At least I said something so they know about it.

I am very tempted to take it in time what I could not get in money instead. But I have to fight with my conscience first.

Information

2006-04-25T23:06:00.000+01:00

Information can be a bitch sometimes. The salaries for the next year were uploaded on to the payroll today. And I am not happy. I got a £1k increase and this is the salary that I have been on since I started about 17 months ago. That is ‘increase’ is less then inflation so my employer is basically stating that I am worth less then the day I was signed.

When I had a look at what the rest of our dept had received, then I saw that I got the lowest increase in £ terms. The two junior co-workers got more then me. Fav girl got about 50% more then me, £1.5k – this is a person that comes in late, goes early, unpleasant to work with but has some hold of our line manager. I think the line manager had said that her salary needs to be in line with the other junior staff.

I have a meeting with our director tomorrow morning to sign off the payroll and I am going to bring up that I am disappointed with my new salary.

Then for the sales staff, some of them got major increases like £20k and £15k. The girl that our MD is shagging or at least had an affair with got £20k increase. She has brought in money and clients but is a huge jump.

I wish

2006-04-24T23:30:00.000+01:00

I wish I was a model human being suitable for our society. I’d like to naturally wake up at 7am, eat when one is suppose to do and NOT being tired when I come home from work, be able to eat dinner at suitable time for my body and then be able to go to sleep immediately.

Instead, I am like this:

Do not f*cking talk to me in the morning after the alarm clock has rudely interrupted my sleep.

I sleep as long as possible so any breakfast before I leave is out the question. Not to mention watching morning tv – are you people nuts watch that in the morning? If you not have notice, the tv make noise and people are talking. *tsk*

Around 10am I have my second Diet coke and some breakfast bars.

I never ever go on lunch before 13.00 – no matter what my stomach or blood suger is telling me.

When I come home, I am energetic for about 30-60 min then I am chilling and getting tired. I am kind of hungry but can’t be arsed to do anything about so I nibble and/or eat sweets.

Around 19.00 BF comes home and ask what I want for dinner which I never ever know. Sometimes he calls before leaving work and ask the same question but the answer is almost always the same – Don’t know or Not hungry. But bless him for his patience when it comes to this.

Then around 22.00 – the magic hour – when I get energetic (and hungry) again. I find it t is so difficult falling asleep when I go to bed around 23.30-00.30. Once I am sleeping then I stay asleep but it is a bitch falling asleep. I am a night person, always have and always will be.

Stress test

2006-04-24T23:11:00.000+01:00

Look at the pictures to see if you see movement?

The pictures are used to test the level of stress a person can handle.

The slower the pictures move, the better your ability of handling stress.

Alleged criminals that were tested see them spinning around madly; However, senior citizens and kids see them standing still.

None of these images are animated - they are perfectly still.

For me, they are slowly moving but not all at one go.

New Beach in Japan

2006-04-24T11:04:00.000+01:00

I want to go ... don't you???

Things that make you go MMMM

2006-04-24T00:27:00.000+01:00

The shower scene in Get richer or die trying – what can I say? There is a lot for a girl to look at. In general in this film, it is more for the girls then for the boys (in this kind of area) which is surprising.

Things make me go *argh*

Downstairs neighbours shagging again – at least I have not gone to bed yet, still in the living room and I can hear the banging on the wall.

Monday again and I have to go to work

Things that I am not too sure about

This weekend we switched bit torrent client from BitComet to uTorrent and I am not sure I like uTorrent’s layout and controls of managing the torrents. But the advantage is that uTorrent is encrypting the files which make it more difficult for our ISP to see what is being done.

Sweet

2006-04-24T00:14:00.000+01:00

Michael Schumacher won at Imola today.

SWEET ! ! !

I want more and more and more

Being managed

2006-04-22T00:35:00.000+01:00

I think my line manager was printing out the impersonal “you have done a good job and this is the “raise”” – letter this afternoon. The treat, as I have been told, is that the MD actually signs each letter. Me … personally I don’t give a shit about that, only thing that counts is my salary for the coming year. Normally, it is his gossip bitch that does that job but for some reason she didn’t do it this year.

One speculation is that she should not know what people is earning but that is not plausible. Firstly, what my line manager knows she knows and vice versa. Secondly, she has access to the Payroll program so she can find out anyway.

My line manager has been grumpy and damn outright rude to me and my co-worker (fav-girl has of course escaped this) and been trying to put us down. It has not gone that well cos both of us have answered back which obviously he didn’t like so more grumpiness was produced.

Possibly we are being managed for the non-existent pay raise or he is simply pissed off that he is not getting enough. The answer is in the post … and me checking the info when I am doing payroll on Monday.

There was this weird moment today when he came into our office and ask if we had noticed that our dept had been ignored and side stepped. Well, yeah cos nobody wants to deal with him. He went on and on (my co-worker ignored him totally since had been very rude to her earlier in the day) but at the end I turned around to him and said:

We are being ignored because we have isolated ourselves. Sure, we deal with a lot of confidential information but it is not helping us being away from everybody. Of course that don’t know what we are doing. The only important thing that we are doing is paying these people’s salary.

But the penny didn’t drop and I don’t expect it ever will.

Anyway, I am not completely bothered because of this. There is a possible way out and let see what happens in the future.

Unofficial rules …. well rules

2006-04-22T00:08:00.000+01:00

It works but it looks like a mess from my way of dealing with traffic. It just goes to show that there are loads of unofficial rules everywhere.

Check out the Gas truck or the guy getting properly squeezed

Buzz ... or the lack of it today

2006-04-18T19:58:00.000+01:00

BF bought this game yesterday. We had played the Music quiz game before with friends and that was v fun.

It is a cool game but I have one problem with it. I didn't win. Lost three times in a row. I had real problems with the section of Hitman, where I got the damn questions right but ended up shooting myself.

Now this causes problem in a relationship and I did sulk.

Otherwise I am tired today. Getting back to work was difficult, my body was in a semi-chock of being up at an early hour (07.50) and that stayed with me all day. It is busy at work and I managed to put in a decent day work. But I got even more stuff to do tomorrow.

I walked home from work today and it was a very nice evening. Got home, turned on the computer and did some things that I HAD to do. I have finally registered my claim with the Court re CW. And now I have some more important, but not in the right mood for it, things to do. So I thought I do this blog post first. I am rambling on here.

I saw the film Millions yesterday and I thought it was brilliant. The acting was stunning and I can recommend this film.

wtf??

2006-04-16T23:18:00.000+01:00

*hmpf*

How evil are you?

From the Good Twinkie

A nice birthday

2006-04-14T23:17:00.000+01:00

I have had a nice & fun birthday. The best bits were to speak to friends & family.

Many thanks for the wishes on this blog :)

The weather was sunny which made it extra nice to walk around in London. There were loads of people in Central London, but I didn’t get too stressed out. I can just take Oxford St in small doses cos quite frankly tourists walk in a different pace and rightly so.

The first stop was at the Apple Store on Regent St. I didn’t like the layout of the San Francisco store and this store was basically the same. There is a manic feel in the store. I wanted to get a new remote control to my iPod (1^st generation) and a firewire cable to be able to recharge it at work. Neither is sold in the store and the guy told me that I needed to upgrade my iPod. BF then interrupts him and says that Apple sells both these items on the website and the guy looks at him with a blank expression. Anyway, the online order is now done.

After that we stopped by at Starbucks and then sat in Hanover Sq to drink it. It was nice & sunny. It was too many pigeons around – basically if there is one pigeon then there is one too many. I am (not so) secretly hoping if the bird flu becomes an epidemic that all pigeons will be exterminated. In the City, they have hawks that kill the pigeons and I think that Westminster Council should do the same.

After Oxford St, we went to Shepard Bush and saw Scary Movie 4. It was funny and not bad considering it is the forth film. The previous ones were better. Then we went back to Central London – getting to the restaurant, Bodens, just in time. I had a nice sirloin steak – as raw as possible.

Before we went back on the Tube, we stopped by the bookshop Borders and had a long wonder around and came out with a few books.

5 Manias

2006-04-14T01:38:00.000+01:00

This is from Bentes. Long time, no see my friend. Great ‘seeing’ you again, it put a smile on face when I saw that you had made a comment.

The challenge is to describe yourself with 5 characteristics of you or 5 habits. Then ask another blogger to do the same.

1. Strange mix of being cynical of today but also have a strong feeling that tomorrow will bring something better.

2. Starting to realise that I might just have a tendency to compulsiveness – like small & large things done my way and get annoyed/disturb when they are not.

3. I should be more assertive … I have lost some of it a long the way

4. Enjoy the silence

5. I have a Diet Coke every morning after my shower

I guess I should add that I have a childish delight to see my birthday date on the blog post ;)

Plans for Easter

2006-04-13T22:23:00.000+01:00

There is one good thing with the religion – it is the bases for the Bank holidays.

I am not complaining about having tomorrow (Friday) and Monday off. Especially when it is a bank holiday is on my birthday – extra sweet :)

Friday:

Have a sleep in (niiiice)

Go to cinema - Scary Movie 4

Go and do some birthday shopping

Then Dinner at American Steakhouse.

Saturday:

At my BF’s parents place

Sunday:

Meet up with one of my oldest friend that is in London for the Easter weekend

Monday:

No plans yet

Religion divides ... again

2006-04-10T21:49:00.000+01:00

This is another example where Religion / Religious people want to impose their belief onto others.

Mohamad (my apologies, I spelt your name wrong!)– this one is for you, just to show you that I am not just aiming against Islam.

One the island Harris –Google map-, 90% of the population do not what to have a Ferry service on Sunday because “the Sabbath must be strictly observed as a day of rest.”

On a side note – I thought the Sabbath was a term that only the Jews used and that was for Friday only but clearly it is used in Christianity. And oh – tonight on telly there was a program called “Jews for Jesus” – it is all very weird.

I respect their values that they do not want use the ferry on a Sunday. What I can never agree to is their “right” of imposing their way of life for the 10% of the island population that want to have a Ferry service on a Sunday.

The Reverend is quoted in this article to say that they are "trampled over the democratic will of the people".

I find this statement incredible despicable. Its spin and is also saying that their religious belief should apply for all. What right do they have to constrain for the other inhabitant of the island? Absolutely NONE.

Fine … rest on your Sunday, it is your choice but do not tell or restrict what other people what they can or can’t do. Why is this so difficult for religious people to respect other people not from their own religion?

The phrase “it is their God given right” swivels around in my mind when I am writing this and I think is the problem with all religion.

This time around it is Roman Catholic vs Presbyterian (whatever the difference is more then the Pope – non-Pope issue – I am not quite clear). Religion is so messy and manages to divide people more often then not.

Local Elections on 4 May 06

2006-04-10T20:29:00.000+01:00

I am going to use the voting strategy, vote against something rather then for.

I will be voting against Respect & Gorgeous George and put my vote where it is the most effective. Despite this is not in line with my values or political stance.

I will vote and I cannot stand people that don’t vote. There is no excuse – and you bloody well know it. Nothing to vote for … at least spoil your vote.

Lizze bitches about...: My MP in red (fr BB House)

Scary

2006-04-07T20:10:00.000+01:00

Not in the funny "Maze Kid"-way
It took a bit before I picked it up but this woman is returning to her own home. To me it looked like – from the family faces – that a complete stranger had walked through their door.

This is the Christian equivalent of a Muslim fundamentalist. I dislike both equally much.

Good strips

2006-04-07T18:15:00.000+01:00

Mindless Reaction: Horrible..... but funny

Our dear guest

2006-04-06T20:31:00.000+01:00

We have the immense honour to have this distinguish guest. I call her Lucy and she is the sweetest thing. I don’t think it is suitable to have a cat in the area I live in but as always people have different values.

Lucy doesn’t seem to be allowed to be home very often so she comes to us and our neighbour. With Lucy’s charm – I am guessing she has a few honey pots around this area.

If only I had the extra dosh ... and car

2006-04-06T00:05:00.000+01:00

Oh shit

2006-04-05T23:22:00.000+01:00

Bird flu has reached UK - read more about it.

Carphone Warehouse; part ... whatever

2006-04-05T23:19:00.000+01:00

Todays emails after being totally ignored yesterday;

Me:
?

CW:

Apologies for the long delay, Im waiting on the handsets to be available in our warehouse to order, They should be updated with stock every few days, but for some reason are taking longer with this model.

I'll keep a constant check on the availability and keep you posted.

Me:
It is time for Carphone Warehouse give me a credit so I can go and get my handset elsewhere. Retail price is £180, I believe. It is not acceptable that I have to wait any longer, I handed in the phone 17 Feb and it is now 5 April (48 days!).

Otherwise, I have no other alternative to seek recompense in Small Claim Court.

CW:
*silence*

They are fucking wankers ...

Good use of Google maps

2006-04-04T12:12:00.000+01:00

Check it out: http://www.gawker.com/stalker/

April’s fool, eh?

2006-04-01T14:49:00.000+01:00

*sigh* yup, I am an April’s fool and I bought it fully. I didn’t even stop to think or was slightly suspicion. Nope, I read it twice and then WTF??

One of the torrent sites that I use had put on a spoof BBC news story stating that the MPAA and BBC had closed this site. Since I think that MPAA is a very vile organisation and I was kind of surprised that the BBC had jumped on the same bandwagon, I bought the story.

I have a few excuses if you are interested, if not, time move on to the next blog. I had just slept for a few hours, gone up 3.20 am to watch the qualifying for the Australian F1 – I was tired ok? I was focus to find the torrent for Hustle and I didn’t appreciate to find a news story that the site was closed. Did I mention it was 3.20 on Saturday morning??

Da dragon in the stationery cupboard

2006-03-30T23:22:00.000+01:00

More or less, every workplace has a dragon, and if you can’t name the one in your office is because you have not realised who is yet (don’t worry – it is still your first week there)

My dragon is a 62 year old creature and among a few things is responsible for stationary … nooooo she freaks out if you spell it with an a – it should with an e.

Since I am doing the payroll, I know this is not true but otherwise you would have been forgiven for thinking that the correlation between her bonus and pennies saved on stationery is 1.

Very unfortunate for me, the dragon’s gossip bitch is my line manager (male but behaves like an old dear when it comes to gossip) so I have to be careful what I say – not here though :)

Both of them have been with the company since like it started and one of the reason, I think, why we had move into a smaller office, one floor up, was to separate these two.

Today, I was doing the P60s + covering letter. (For you non-UK readers & actually the for UK readers too, P60 is the employee copy of the taxed earnings. The UK tax year goes from 6 April to 5 April). In total I printed around 130 returns and did a mail merger for the covering letter. When I was about half way through stuffing the letter + P60 in the A4 envelope, I saw that the address field was wrong.

I, ahem, had missed out the first line of the address and now I was kind of in the shit. I had reprint the letters, on (soo expensive) headed paper and tear up a lot of envelopes.

I kept quiet and took a stack of headed paper and reprinted the letters and sorted them in with the P60. Now I had go down to the dragon get a box of A4 envelopes. Immediate when I took out the box, the dragon questioned me. Could I not take the smaller sized envelope? Me thinking: There is no fucking way I am sitting folding the 130 letters & forms (2 folds for each letter) – the job was boring enough as it was. So I had to take a stand and the dragon winced – LITERALLY when she realised that I had to use the bigger sized envelopes. This is the stingiest company I have ever worked for.

Under my desk was all those opened envelopes and when my manager (he sides with the dragon when it comes to this issue “What do you mean you want to order new stationery for the new employee? Use the stationery that the employee that left had”) was in the loo, I rolled them up and put them in my bin and also managed to shred all those letters with the wrong address without being found out. Ah – it was a great feeling – job satisfaction *hehe*

Dog

2006-03-28T22:32:00.000+01:00

Just saw the first episode of season 3: Dog The Bounty Hunter

*yeah*

Liked it a lot & can't wait until the next episode.

Noted

2006-03-27T21:51:00.000+01:00

The Danish Iman Ahmed Akkari, who went on the road trip to the Middle East and stirred up a lot of trouble, has now been dismissed from his position as spoke person for The Islamic Faith Community in

Denmark

Ahmed Akkari made the following statement on a hidden camera: "If he (me: the Danish politician Naser Khader of the Democratic Muslims) becomes minister for foreigners or integration shouldn't one then send two men to blow him and his ministry up?"

Ahmed Akkari claims it was a joke.

OH I GET IT NOW … if it is a joke then it is ok … if the jokes comes from the Muslim community then it is ok to say…

Ahmed Akkari's comment is the definition of being two-faced.

And where is all the indignation, the world media etc that was around when the 12 Cartoons news story ruled the world??

This is a statement, after all, from the man that created the foundation for it.

No, when it goes the other way around where one has to criticize a Muslim Leader then nothing. The silence speaks volume to me.

And after thinking of this a bit more ... this is a Muslim leader suggesting to blow up a member of the Danish parliament - that sounds like a terrorist to me. Hey - what was those cartoons all about again?

Yup - that is right ... they hit a sore (true) spot, didn't they?

Spectacular pictures

2006-03-27T20:54:00.000+01:00

Faith

2006-03-27T20:24:00.000+01:00

Either you have it or you don’t.

I don’t.

In one of the emails doing it rounds today, one picture bothered me so much that I brought up for conversation in our office. This picture disturbs & angers me.

How can poor people in a relative poor country give food to rats? I know the answer is "this is sacred to them".

But how of about stop and THINK of what you are actually doing? Don’t tell me that this drink or food can be used better on a hungry family which would make them less depended on handouts and be able to support themselves better?

I simply c a n n o t understand this picture.

The conversation in our office was that the two with faith defended this picture and whereas the two who don’t have faith stuck to the logic and argue against this waste.

No, no, no

2006-03-27T20:16:00.000+01:00

Noooooooo – I did NOT get my phone today. Today’s offer was a black handset with a silver battery cover. I declined.

And the sly fucker … oh sorry … advisor … sorry again “Sales”person tried to hide the battery cover from me. After my comment “This is not acceptable” he mustered the comments “Oh I don’t know. I have never seen this phone (think he meant model) before” and then turns to his colleague.

Then I got to see one of the most despicable British traits; A Brit can’t commit to anything. They can never for sure say that 1+1=2

The colleague (who had dealt with me a week or so ago) answered back uncomfortable “I would have thought that the whole handset should be one colour” That guy knew that it was wrong and that I knew that I would not accept it – but can he say it? NO

No Brit can’t straight forward say yes, no or I don’t know - there is always a back door out of if so that no mud can stick on them.

Well, at least I have got the email address to the branch manager so there will be a follow up on that. Ah – I remember that I meant to blog about another dig on Carphone Warehouse).

Just maybe ....

2006-03-27T15:02:00.000+01:00

... I will get my phone back today.

I received a phone call from Carphone Warehouse and the person said that the battery AND the cover have arrived.

But as always when dealing with these fu*kers - I believe it when I see it ... and when I see that the phone works.

Nice night in

2006-03-23T23:53:00.000Z

My next door neighbour popped in (like I had a choice LOL) and we have a proper good girly chat.

I guess this sums it up:

Good site

2006-03-23T14:17:00.000Z

I like this site. http://tubejp.co.uk/

Easy to use - what more should a website be?

Next episode of Prison Break (15)

2006-03-22T23:38:00.000Z

...is already here and I am downloading it (it says internal screener). It should be down when I come home from tomorrow – something to look forward to!

Our ISP doesn’t really like us … we (I) download too much according to them. But we have an unlimited account so what do they do? They cut our speed. We have 2mb for the first 20 gig, then it goes down to 1mb between 20-40 gig and after that it is .512 ... possible lower

Currently since 28 Feb we have down/uploaded 58.65gig

What is your monthly usage?

This is us(me really) cutting back, we were between 80-100 gig with a peak of 120gig.

Better day today

2006-03-21T22:56:00.000Z

Today was better, thankfully.

I don’t know why but it was. I guess the day started out well by seeing the Prison Break was back, (oh either I am shallow or I can use the mantra “be happy for the small things in life”).

At work, my manager was changing up the Appraisal notes. I did my changes, like changing “reasonable well” to well. To me, “reasonable well” means that I just about do my job and believe it or not, I do a good job. I am too damn conscientious, if you ask me. Another change was about the “problems and no communication” in payroll. My manager wrote it as it was my fault and covering the back for his pals *tsk*

Anyway, don’t know why I bother cos it will not add anything extra on my salary. The MD has put in his wish list for his people (y’know the girls that he is shagging and the mates that don’t question his supreme brilliance). That is going take the most of the pot and leave less to the rest of us. One quite ironic thing is about one of MDs fav sales person, he agreed to change the sales bonus calc to favour him but it turn out the other way so no bonuses have been paid. But I have to say if you bring the sales then you should receive a good bonus.

And I stopped by at Carphone Warehouse and no I have still not got my phone. They are now ordering a new case. I didn’t have the energy to cause up a fuss and that was weak of me. Last time I was there, I was told that the Nokia 6260 was discontinued and today I called up Nokia to confirm. The women at Nokia got a great laugh at that “fact” and she told me in no uncertain terms that the phone is still being produced. It just goes to show that Carphone Warehouse is nothing more the lying conmen and should not be trusted at all.

Boyfriend called during the evening but we didn’t have that much to say to each other. For my part nothing special had happened and he is still on this tech Microsoft conference.

And the episode (14) of Prison Break was great. I also saw the new show. The new adventures of old Christine (or something like that) and it is funny. It is the Seinfield-women that got the lead.

Dull Monday

2006-03-20T19:34:00.000Z

Oh boy was this Monday dull or what??. It dragged on forever, especially up to lunch time. I had zero motivation. I guess it started with me reading the notes from the appraisal meeting … no it started when I had get up this morning.

I stopped reading the notes and I will deal with them later.

Just before I left work my boss wanted to know about Blogger and leaving comments. The blogosphere is getting further into mainstream society I didn’t want him to know about my blog or what I know about Blogger. Since I post from work, they could find it out of course, but I don’ want to give any ideas. Paranoid or what? Possibly cos I bitch about work every so often and I don’t want that outlet to be taken away from me. One (nosy) co-worker has already caught me with the website open but she aint computer savvy enough to get all of it.

When I, finally, got back home I saw that I just missed boyfriend on the skype window this morning and I typed in a message. He replied right away and he gave me the link to the stream feed to the conference he is at. Pretty good quality and I ended up looking at Bill Gates and Tim or Tom O'Reilly keynote speech.

Here is the link to Mix06

After about 2 hour of listening to the conference in the back ground and IM with boyfriend – I got bored again. Said my bye byes and writing this blog post. After this, I am going to bed and reading a book.

Tomorrow will be better yeah??

Malaysia

2006-03-20T00:06:00.000Z

The F1 race was in Malaysia this morning. I got up at 6am, watched the race to 9 and went to back to bed and slept to midday when boyfriend called from Las Vegas.

We have been to Malaysia twice to watch the F1 race. Its a great country to go to for a holiday. The people are very friendly. I will definitely go back. I could even live there for a year or so. Watching the race on TV and huge part of me wants to be there now.

This is one favourite places on earth:

The Unit

2006-03-19T16:56:00.000Z

I saw the first two episodes of this show yesterday and I think the show is damn awful. It is about special unit in the US Special Forces. Besides the bad acting and the realisation that Robert Patrick is still the best in The Terminator 2, I have two issues with show (I know, I know - I should not get this worked out but I got really annoyed).

No 1 – the women were down right awful. There is a new member joining the unit and he is married. The other men’s wives put the new wife in her ‘right’ place and basically telling her that she needs to live her life through her husband and his situation. This pissed me off big time. The pecking order was, of course, the same as their husbands rank in the military. That was is nothing more the bullying and forcing somebody to conform.

No 2 – A plane has been hijacked in the US. This unit goes in and saves the day. But they didn’t have the authorisation do this from the politicians or pentagon. They did this even though FBI or whatever civil agency was in command. Since when is it to ok for the military to do whatever they want? I don’t have problem with Special Ops being done IF they have the right authorisation.

I hope the show bombs (the pun is intended) big time.

Saturday

2006-03-18T14:15:00.000Z

I am all by myself this weekend and next week. Boyfriend has gone away again (to Las Vegas the lucky b*stard!!)

Some people don’t like being by themselves – I am not one of them.

Yesterday, after work, I did my obligatory stop at Carphone Warehouse (no, I did not get my phone) and after that I was tired when I came home. I plonked myself on the sofa and watched a lot of bit torrents. I like the show “Life on Mars” and I saw episodes 4-8.

I slept in, milled around the flat and am now sitting in front of the computer – drinking my 20 oz (591ml) Diet coke I brought back from the US. After that, the flat needs to be cleaned. I don’t mind that now when boyfriend is away cos it will stay cleaned until he comes home again J

Wohey – I just log in to blogger and I saw the missing post from yesterday

Carb lunch

2006-03-17T14:26:00.000Z

My lunch did not turn very healthy today. I had McD Fries, Pret’s baguette with tuna & cucumber and Pret’s crisp = carb lunch

I could not read one of my fav blogs this lunch hour. The last post from this blogger was really personal post so I hope that the blog has not been deleted by this person. That would be such a shame.

I also hope that this afternoon will be less stressful then what happened this morning. I got dis’d by another department cos they know more how a Finance department works then I do. Silly me for trying to do a simple improvement – I should have gone the more complicated way. But I also found out that the FD had not helped the case, in fact he made it worse. Our FD needs balls & backbone – he can’t say no to nobody except his ‘own’ department. A constant source of frustration.

What I can look forward to is another visit to the detested Carphone Warehouse. Boyfriend suggested taking them to Small Claims Court if they don’t produce a fully working handset. I like that idea.

I hate, HATE Carphone Warephone

2006-03-14T19:33:00.000Z

*sigh*

I got a called from the local branch today and they told me my phone was ready for collection. Disbelief was my reaction.

Went to the branch after work, thinking I believe it when I see it.

When the shop assistant took out my phone from the bag, it was the wrong colour. I told him that my phone was silver and not black. The reaction: Hmm, and he tapped away on the system to see if I was right. Customer is never right at Carphone Warehouse, remember that.

I said I wanted to check if the phone was working so I took out my SIM card, put in the phone and then held out my hand get to the battery from him. There was NO battery. More tapping on the computer to see if I had handed in my phone with battery – again it didn’t matter what I said.

I shouldn’t take personally, right? Guess what, I DO. I take it damn personally if I am treated like I am not telling the truth.

The system said I had handed in my phone with battery and battery cover.

So to do a quick sum, I have got a handset with a new colour but no battery or battery cover. Typical Carphone Warhouse. The action following this: to put a trace after my original battery and the cover – time frame: 1-3 days. (No batteries is in store)

I told the guy “I am not paying for this” and he has the audacity to argue back and tell me “it is not my fault.” (Remember that I am standing in their local branch with lots of customers). I raised my voice sufficiently and say “Oh it is not my fault, I am the customer here. I handed in this phone on 17 Feb and you have taken forever to fix this. And when you do, then you do not even get all the parts with it. Do not just stand there and say it is not my fault” Funnily enough, he got more co-operative after that. But very so often I humpf:ed, sighed and muttered.

He still had the intention to get the £30 of me, give me the “handset” and then I could come back and collect the battery + cover when it arrived. I told no, we are going to do the following. You are going to call me when the items have arrived, I am going to check the phone and I should not have to pay for this. The guy says I can’t take that decision regarding the payment.(which I can understand) and he referred me to the main Customer Service Centre number. Like I will deal with them, they are there to fob customer off (told him this). So what we are going to do, I have a conversation me, him + the centre all together to discuss the level of payment.

All of this took about 50-55 min to do. It is really annoying but WTF can I do?

Any suggestions?? Plz tell me.

Lizze bitches about...: I hate Carphone Warehouse

Webcams - good or bad?

2006-03-13T20:33:00.000Z

Swedes with backbone

2006-03-13T19:41:00.000Z

I loooooooooooove it!

The Swedes @ Pirate bay and the independent new political party of Pirate Party are taken a stand against MPAA and copyright organisations.

Absolutely brilliant and rather unexpected to see it coming from Sweden. But then again, Sweden has a long tradition of Freedom of Information – it is just the back bone bit that could be better.

Just maybe the little insignificant country in the North can trap up the mighty USA & MPAA. I certainly hope so!!

You have to read the responses from Pirate Bay to Microsoft, Apple etc – click here. So, so, so funny!

Wired News wrote a great article about this – click here.

Bit torrent (or what ever the future format will be) will not go away and the more to use it the stronger it will get.

There are several reasons why bit torrent is so damn good:

TV/Film On demand – you watch it when you want

No ads

The entire industry with TV, Movie, Software etc are doing the outmost to rip their customers off. For the first time the customers have leverage and are happy using it.

I am not going to pay anymore for some superstar’s coke habit/jet/entourage. Who do they think are paying for all of that? YOU do.

I can pause the film/TV program when ever I want

I can convert to my PSP and watch it @ lunch time.

I can watch it a second, third or several times before deleting the file.

I did a legal download once, never again – it is in this blog post:

Lizze bitches about...: Warning about Tesco downloads!

W/E Homework

2006-03-12T22:24:00.000Z

	05-06	06-07

Council Tax	5.37%	3.20%

Water Rates	45.45%	37.50%

Electricity	2.36%	11.54%

Season Ticket	5.94%	3.74%

House Insurance	8.95%	12.60%

Mortgage	6.52%	-2.96%

Well, this is damn depressing reading.

The only redeeming issue is that the main part of our expenses is the mortgage which has decreased in our favour. I have made sure that we have an efficient mortgage deal and it is a tracker to BoE until Dec 06.

Sunday evening

2006-03-12T21:29:00.000Z

The washing machine is fixed. The repair man was a little bit late but the call centre had identified what the problem was and he had the right spare part with him.

The season first F1 race is done and it was ever so existing even though my man didn’t win. Michael came second but at least him & Ferrari is back (last season was terrible).

After the race, I made these:

I do the best cinnamon buns …

Then I did some catching up of my bit torrents. Watched the two final episodes of Beauty&Geek (not ‘my’ team won – hmmm, a theme going on here or what?) and then it was The Apprentice. I want the Russian guy Lenny to win.

*Go Lenny Go*

And now I am about to start my little homework for the weekend. Calculate what the % increase of my main bills has been over the last couple of years. This is for my line manager to show his manager how pathetic the previous year’s salary increases have been and to put pressure that this year it will be a salary increase.

Michael Schumacher on Pole !!

2006-03-11T12:14:00.000Z

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

*gasp*

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Michael Schumacher is on par with Senna’s 65 poles.

Waiting cont.

2006-03-11T09:57:00.000Z

Nothing yet from the repair man – am still waiting for him (or her)

Boyfriend has landed and is making his way home.

In the meantime, I found one new blog. For the rest of random blog, all I can say it must be boat & motorcycle season cos there are loads of those ad/commercial blogs out there. Very dull, indeed.

Waiting

2006-03-11T08:10:00.000Z

Normally at 8am on Saturday morning I am deep asleep. But today I am waiting. The washing machine repair man is coming this morning. They re-scheduled from Monday morning to Saturday morning … an opportunity gladly accepted. But oh I do feel too grown up (= bad thing) to be pleased to get the washing machine repaired on Saturday.

I am also waiting for boyfriend. He is landing at Heathrow this morning - sadly, I can’t be there to meet him but his dad will pick him up. I have not seen for a week. I have enjoyed being by myself but now I am happy that he is home. Well, for now. He has another conference to go to in a week.

While waiting, I will be reading some of my fav blogs and hopefully might find some new ones through “Next Blog” button.

Post appraisal review meeting

2006-03-10T10:00:00.000Z

Lots, lots of fun, am sure of it. A meeting when all the appraisals have been done, 3 of them, and now the common goals and targets are to be set.

I hate Carphone Warehouse

2006-03-09T16:37:00.000Z

My phone was ready on Monday but has not been sent from the repair shop. In desperation I called Nokia and they said that the phone should have sent to them and it is a 10-15 min job. I handed over my phone to fucking Carphone Warehouse 17 Feb

When I call the branch nobody is answering and after 5 min the calls get cut off. I call the main phone number they do not have any “advisers” available

I fucking hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate
Carphone Warehouse.

Previous blog post:
Lizze bitches about...: 17 Feb 06 part 2 (part 1; the post below)

Update:
Before going home, I went to their branch. No, I did not get my phone. And now their system is saying that the phone is not ready and "he did not know what his co-worker was saying to me". They have no internal number where they can call up and ask what is oing on, just the same external numbers (the ones with no “advisers” available). Carphone Warehouse is a con - never ever deal with them ... ever.

Vending machines

2006-03-08T17:48:00.000Z

When I was in Japan, I thought their vending machines were cool.

Americans do things bigger and better, yeah?

Check this out:

Revenge is sweet

2006-03-08T12:44:00.000Z

A great letter of complaint; Part 2

2006-03-06T23:29:00.000Z

I received a letter from M&S while I was away.

I got another £20 in gift vouchers and a much stronger apology. This letter is personal and not a mass produced bullshit letter.

The problem was “discrepancy in the communication process between our contracted carrier company and ourselves” they basically take more responsibility of the problem and they also state in the letter that “both customer service manager and our system administration team who have assured me that the matter will be investigated fully and necessary actions will be taken to prevent any recurrence of this incident”.

Sure, I don’t believe it to 100% - am far to cynical for that – but this letter is better then previous letter received.

Part 1:
Lizze bitches about...: A great letter of complaint

Summary

2006-03-06T20:48:00.000Z

I didn’t do more blog posts in SF mainly cos boyfriend was busy using his laptop.

To continue from previous post, Best Buy was shit and found nada there. After a quick search on Google maps “Computer store SF” we went to CompUSA on Market Street. They were better stocked but I doubt that it was the best prices around. Anyway, it was cheaper the UK and I bought a digital camera. I really missed not having a camera, since my Nokia 6260 is in the Nokia repair shop. I bought a Canon CD450 and a 512 MB memory stick (or is called flashcard?). Canon was cheapskatey and did not enclosed a pouch *tsk* but I found a suitable one from Microcenter for $9.74

The days in SF went quickly. On Friday, I was by myself. I had to get up at 7.30 to drive boyfriend to SFO *yawn* and spent the rest of the daytime taking some pics.

On Friday I + friend to a Mexican place, which was fun but in the end it turned out rather expensive. $5 for nacho chips and $75 for a Parking Ticket. This explains why there was a spot to park in to begin with. Apparently, there was like a 2 foot red line that was impossible to see. Ah well, such is life, that is my contribution to SF City.

On the flight home, only 9h30min!, a nice man was sitting next to me. I got my beloved aisle seat. The guy next to me popped some pills and went to sleep - perfect. I had problem falling asleep and finally got there at Churchill, Canada, woke up briefly between Greenland and Iceland cos the guy needed a toilet break and then was awaken up at Glasgow, UK by the air stewardess handing out breakfast. I don’t know what is was, but the crew was not happy. I overheard a few comments that the stewardesses were pissed off with cockpit so the explained the wibe.

When landing, the plane flew by the London eye and I pointed it out to the guy next to me (don’t know why, just did … ok?) and we started chatting about this and that. It turned out the he knew about my boyfriends work and handed me his card.

Boyfriends’ parents came and picked my up at the airport – am ever so thankful for that – but in the car I felt sick and came close to throwing up. I never get travel sick, except on sailing boats, but this was bad. But then again, my ‘day’ had been very, very long.

Short sleep, woke up 8.30 SF time, packed, filled the car up with gas/fuel, got to the airport around 11am to get an day off in the rental price, ate breakfast at 12.30, checked in, went through a security (that is an another blog post coming up cos I was on some damn list so I had to go through extra security), got on the plane at 18, slept from 21-2am, landed 12 UK time (5am SF time), got in the car and felt really sick. I did take a nap when I came home and the manage to stay up to midnight. Today, I feel fine.

Pics from SF

2006-03-06T19:57:00.000Z

A fresh Strawberry Lemonade at the 21 Amendment - very nice :)

A chocolate fountain at a party we went too. It was very nice with fruit, marshmallows, cakes and cookies. Well anything really.

In-and-out Burger. It came recommended but I didn't think it was all that.

I drove a City jeep. I thought it was a big car until I drove on the 101 *lol* there ar emuch bigger cars around.

Krispy Kreme *Homer Simpson sound* It is yummy and much cheaper. I think the donuts were around 95 cent, in the UK we pay £1.10 or $1.91 for this pleasure. This was in a McD restaurant place with the manufacturing band behind glass wall so one could see the yummy creation being created. Just to state the obvious, I like Krispy Kreme.

"San Mateo Bridge" Click on the link to see the Google Maps satellite view of it. It just went on and on - at 70 miles/hour. This bridge is at sea level, guess there are no major storms in this area.

People having their lunch in their cars - I tried to take a pics of the woman in the black jeep in front of me but I didn't quite get the perfect pics.

A few thoughts

2006-03-01T00:30:00.000Z

Boyfriend had few things that he needed to do so I went for a walk around Market St (lots of shops etc) and had a nice lunch. I like to sit and watch people. One thing that struck me was the calmness and lack of stress.

We in Europe, I guess the rest of the world, see the Americans as the bad guys sometimes. But do you what I think? As there is in the UK, it is a distance between people and the politicians and we have not given that credit to the American people. The people that I have seen around are not bad people so we are sitting on the other side of pond and casts judgements. NO country is without fault, not even yours – remember that.

I had great fun just looking around in a huge Walhgrens store and I found a shoe shop with self-service & discount prices. After this, we are heading to Best Buy. As boyfriend has said to me that what we pay in £, it costs the same amount in $. Rip off Britain, anyone? And boyfriends' agenda seems to be to get me a laptop so that would free up the computer upstair for him to use *tsk*

Oh yeah; the weather … it was suppose to rain but guess what, it has been sunny. Wired weather :)

Storms are brewing

2006-02-28T18:44:00.000Z

There has been or still is a major damn storm in the SF area. It has been pis…… pouring down with rain. Where did the sin go??? I guess I have been gloating and this is karma. But when we woke up, started to listening to Iain Lee @ LBC and heard the London weather :) -3 with snow and sleet - oh dear. But there will not be sunny weather here either.

The other storm brewing is that we have moved of the friends flat and checked into a local Howard Johnson motel. The flat we were staying at was damn cold, had a draft and the next lodger were coming in from Germany sometime after midnight … and could we pick him up and let him in? The guy who rent this flat is staying with his girlfriend.

We are not used to sharing our living with other people. The new lodger was supposed to have our room but he was going to be put up in other (shittier) room so we decided to move out. We felt that we were in the away and didn't want to be disturbed by other people and (and ME=) live in cleaner place with working loos and plenty of hot water.

It got damn awkward the friends and they insisted that we should stay in the flat. How could we tell them that their way of living was not good enough for us? I know one should not gifted horse in the mouth. It is our holiday and we have a few things to do and we didn't want to compromise on this.

We picked up the lodger at Bart station on 7^th street around midnight. And let me tell you that was a totally different picture of SF. There were bums, druggies and all sorts of wired people. My instincts were let's get the hell out of here. I parked the car on a corner and boyfriend went out to get the guy. Locked the car and hope that nobody would approach the car … but that happened, and I shook my head, I wasn't interested to but drugs. Boyfriend was approached as well with the offer of stripped joints. The guy that we were picking up had been harassed by the locals and could not get out there fast enough.

I like it

2006-02-26T21:51:00.000Z

Day 2 in SF. Guess where I am sitting now? (rhetorical question …) I am sitting in café / laundromat with wifi. But the wifi don't belong to the café … it is somebody else. We have also had a chat with the man sitting next to us, him and boyfriend had a brief discussing about laptops. People are much open and friendlier here in SF compared to London.

Last night, at the end it was really difficult to keep awake but we managed to stay up to 23.00, got a good night sleep and I feel like I am on SF day rythem now.

Most things are bigger - bigger Diet coke bottles / can – good thing!!. The cars are very much bigger. I saw a Hummer 2 yesterday and that was like wow, it is like a damn tank.

The man sitting next to us just left his laptop on the table to go to the bathroom (or the Restroom here the US) - like toally unheard in London ;)

The weather report: it is raining but it is clearing up - still warmer then home. But I, unfortunately, have to say it is cold in door, even worse then normal British homes.

I have arrived

2006-02-26T02:18:00.000Z

The flight was fantastic, which is funny way of describing an 11 hour flight. But the thing was that it was clear sky so we were flying at 10,058 meter / 34,000 feet and you can look down and see the earth. We flew over Iceland and saw some fantastic views. I could see the mountains and valleys and it was mostly dark brown colouring. When we reached Greenland, was all white. The nature looked so untouched by humans.

I did have a 'blond moment' over Greenland. I was looking out of the window and thought "Oh – that is an Iceberg WOW". The logic kicked in … hmmm can I really see an iceberg for 10,000 meter? Answer no. Then I thought it possible could be a mountain chain in Greenland but that didn't work either since Mount Everest is 8,000 odd meters. So it has to be a cloud that I was looking to but it looked amazing.

I feel asleep between middle Greenland and end of Canada. Calgary looked like a tile layout. All grid networks and the view wasn't really ending.

For once I was in window seat, and could enjoy the view. I am aisle person and I still prefer that, I don't like to be enclosed by other people. My boyfriend wasn't sitting next to me, full flight and late booking. My luck today was to have a chatty man who needed a shower that didn't get the boundaries where his seat ended and my begun.

US customs was no problem and it all went smooth. We picked up the rental car. Got an upgrade to City Jeep from the cheapest, smallest car we could get. The kind woman behind the counter really thought that we should drive a bigger car. The car, however, smells of weed. There was a svirl incident on the high way from the airport but it was only close nothing happened.

I am now sitting in the café with wifi where everybody sits and socialise with a laptop in front of them.

I am getting knackered now but I need keep going for a few more hours.

Oh yeah … THE WEATHER. It is SUNNY (yippi) and around 17 C degrees. Niiiice.

Packing to do!

2006-02-24T18:38:00.000Z

Right, I have to start packing (well, after this blog post) since I am going to boyfriends parents tonight. They live closer to Heathrow so that will the journey to LHR much smoother.

I will not miss work and today were loads of things to do before I left. Why is it that it is more stressful before you go on hols? Well, one good thing was that I missed out on the MDs speech (5 people have been redundant this month) and there was like a goodbye thing this afternoon that MD hijacked to take what sales figure he needed before yearend. Idiot.

I am looking forward to go to San Francisco (except for the full flight going there) and just see some new stuff. Last time I went there was in the summer of ’99.

Right … packing

See ya' laters!

A great letter of complaint

2006-02-24T13:53:00.000Z

When all that bad stuff was happening with my mobile last week, I had a parallel problem with flowers being delivered on Valentines Day.

Yesterday, I took the time to write a letter of complaint of M&S. But frankly, it was bad, very bad. I asked a colleague if she would not mind having ago and she gladly typed away. This is her letter and I think it is fab.
Dear Miss X,

Thank you for your letter dated 16 February 2006 and the enclosed gift vouchers of £10.

I feel, however, that the £10 compensation is a paltry amount considering the inconvenience, delay and disappointment that I have had to endure. I feel it is necessary to write to explain the situation fully.

The first bunch of flowers was due to be delivered on Valentines Day. Delivery of these flowers was not even attempted. This was very upsetting for me and especially for my boyfriend. A replacement bunch of flowers was due to be delivered on 16 February 2006 after my boyfriend called up and complained of the non delivery.

Once again, these were not delivered. The very poor excuse this time was “because the post code was not in your system”. The post code is XX which is on the major road of X W Street in the City of London. When my boyfriend complained again, you promised to refund his credit card and send me a letter of apology with compensation. I received a brief apology letter, with the voucher. As I said above, £10 is not a satisfactory compensation for the distress and inconvenience that has been caused to me and my boyfriend. As at today the refund has still not been credited to his credit card.

On 17th February, the flowers were eventually delivered to the apparently ‘unknown’ post code. If you were able to deliver them on the 17th, then why was delivery not possible on the 14th? Marks & Spencer should not advertise a service they obviously cannot provide. My disappointment did not end there. I opened the cardboard box with dismay, for there was a complimentary box of chocolates thrown on top, which crushed the flowers that I had been waiting 3 days for. I have photographic evidence of this, should you require.

We should not have to chase delivery of a bunch of flowers that were supposed to be a Valentines surprise. I should certainly not have to chase for adequate compensation and a refund that was promised. I am at a loss to describe the inadequate customer service that I feel Marks & Spencer have provided on this occasion.

Like any dissatisfied customer, I have complained loudly to my colleagues and friends about your appalling service. One of the comments I received was that Marks & Spencer have made deliveries to this office before, so the post code obviously is in your system.

Marks & Spencer is supposed to be a quality store, providing customer service and products that are second to none. Quite frankly, receiving crushed flowers 3 days after the due delivery date, with a meagre £10 voucher, with no real explanation of why I did not recieve them on time, does not constitute good customer service. Do you treat all your customers with such contempt?

I would like confirmation in writing that the refund will go to my boyfriends credit card, and would appreciate some adequate recompense for the trouble I have encountered, and perhaps this will restore my faith in Marks & Spencer.

Yours sincerely

Enjoyed that!

2006-02-21T22:51:00.000Z

I enjoyed quite a few this today.

I enjoyed my lunch today. A few colleagues went out to celebrate a colleagues’ 40^th birthday. It was a nice and relaxed lunch with some bitching about one of the directors. He has managed to piss off a lot of people with his primadonna style. With us in Finance, it is his expenses (and the fact that his dept do not bring in the sales as they are suppose to do). He has not done for them for months and now when a PA is back from maternity leave, he has dumped them on her (she wasn't happy either to do. All his mobile and home phone calls are “business expenses, he calls home to pick up his messages” In total, it is over £1,000 and is sadly a few peoples payrises with the level of this companies profit margin .

Checked the weather forecast for SF, +15 and SUN – better then London with its winter weather.

I went shoe shopping after work today and guess what I enjoyed that too. My boyfriend was with me :)

On Monday we had a the following telephone conversation;

Him: I am going to be in a meeting in Central London tomorrow. I can meet you afterwards and we can go shoe shopping.

Me: *silence for a bit* when did I tell you that I needed to buy new shoes?

Him: You didn’t.

Me: Oh

Him: I read it on your blog.

Me: LOL

I found the shoes in one my favourite shoe store: Aldo on Oxford St and boyfriend even paid for them. Aaaaawwwwww what a good boyfriend :)

I saw a good Olympics ice hockey game tonight, enjoyed it very much. USA vs Russia. Very good stuff. The match finished USA 4 Russia 5. USA did a strong comeback and fought all the way. I am not American or Russian so I could just enjoy the game, but I can imagine anyone supporting these teams be all fired up after this game.

Boyfriend just told me - he has found a triband phone on eBay and bought. Wohooo!! It is a Nokia 3120 for £30 - it will be just fine for me in the US. ENJOYED THAT!

Ownership of Freedom of Speech

2006-02-19T14:52:00.000Z

The longer this attempt of the Islam Leaders to limit the Western’s Freedom of Speech, the more obvious their agenda is becoming.

A lot of cards have been put down on the table with all of this shit going on. Weakness and true intentions have become a lot clearer.

Yesterday, there was another demonstration by the moderate Islam community in London.

Ishmaeel Haneef, on the committee of the organisers for the demonstration said, source BBC News, the way to "get back to being a civilised world" was to "give the copyright [of the cartoons] over to the Muslim community".

The Muslim community wants to have ownership of Freedom of Speech and that anything they will find offensive, that list is getting longer and longer, shall be handed over to them. That would be living in an Islamic dictatorship.

Who should the copyright be handed over to? Is there a specific leader, organisation, country to hand these over to?

If so, I would like them to stand up and identify themselves!

One of my problems with Islam is that is so decentralised so when anything inconvenient happens, the comment “They are false Muslims and not the true followers of Islam” It is the standard get out clause and makes it difficult to make any sort of progress.

And then there is the comment of "get back to being a civilised world". Yes the world was definitely more civilised before all the Muslims started to burn down embassies, trying to bully nations into submissions, limiting the Freedom of Speech to their non-existent level, adding extra pictures to their dossier when going on the road show by the shit stirrer of a ‘Danish’ Imam.

Yes, the Muslim community should definitely apologies to the rest of the world and then we can go back to a more civilised world.

There is a lot of self-censorship going on now so we are in fact living in a partial Islamic dictatorship. The Italian Minister Robert Calderoli got fired because he had a Tshirt on with the France Soir cartoon on. Doesn’t anyone have any balls anymore? Well, at least the Danish do.

What are we so afraid of? We are letting these terrorists and other Islamic leader have too much influence and this needs to be reversed.

17 Feb 06 part 2 (part 1; the post below)

2006-02-17T18:53:00.000Z

I went to Carphone Warehouse, with low hopes, and handed over the paperwork to the guy behind the counter. He did a bit of tapping on the computer and then said “uh”. From that moment, I knew my phone was not coming back with me tonight. Just fucking knew it.

The guy went away look in his pile, couldn’t find it and went further away. He came back said “They couldn’t repair it and it had to be sent away to Nokia”. This would take 10-14 working days, counting from Tuesday.

I asked how much it will cost and he said it was under warranty. No, I told him, my warranty expired two weeks ago. He looked … no stared at me and after a while he said it would still be £30. Fine, I said, then you would not mind writing that down on the paperwork. He actually did it, to my surprised.

I told him that I was going to the States next Saturday and that I needed my phone. “Oh shit” mumbled the guy under his breath. I asked about replacement handset but all they could give me was dual and not triband, which is needed for the States.

I have no more energy to be angry or annoyed, nothing more I can do. Just need to find a phone that will work in States within a week. Ebay here I come, maybe now I actually will ‘get’ Ebay now.