IBM pt. 2
Didn’t get the IBM placement. Kind of fluffed the interview a bit, which was very annoying to say the least.
So anyway I heard IBM abused small children with Hungarian prosthetic arms and do sexual favours to Hungarians - probably a good job I didn’t get the placement I guess.
Buying broadband
A lot harder than you think. I already have broadband at the family home, but since I have my own house I figured should probably get some sort of Internet for it before I move back up on Sunday. The good news is that I am near the exchange so should get ever so slightly faster Internet, the bad news - Internet is hard to buy.
The first major problem is that to get a good Internet deal is that you have to access to the Internet. Here lies the first major problem as if you don’t have the Internet and are trying to order broadband you might struggle slightly. Luckily I had this ingenious idea of buying before I move, you can thank me later.
The next problem (for me) is finding a company which offers a contract for under 12 months; me tenancy is for 12 months but I have been a tenant for like 2 months now so don’t want a 12 month contract. This is quite hard to find these days, especially with Internet prices being driven down by competitors. A provider has to attract you with a deal but still make money, so don’t offer anything less than a 12 month contract on anything semi-good.
From what was left from this 1 search criteria was not a lot, and from these all the ones which limited my download limit were ignored as well - don’t like being limited. I was basically left with 2 plans, one based on a 3 month contract and the other on a 1 month contract. The 3 month had the better speed, price and set-up cost but took longer to actually be activated. The latter was just quicker to be activated, also turned out they had a download limit during 6pm-12pm so they were out the window anyway.
So tomorrow I will be ordering the Be Value package from Be Broadband and I will also have to activate our phone line with BT so that it actually works. Will cost £24.50/month, which will do me nicely.
And the moral to this story is….BUYING BROADBAND IS SHIT
Do people understand flashmobs?
This is a question I have been considering since the release of the plans for the second flashmob in Newcastle. I am making a presumption here that you all know what one is, but if you don’t check out Wiki. The point is that whoever has drawn up the plans for this event does not seem to have a great understanding of the whole concept. I mean it sounds fine at the start where we all have to curl up in a ball at the sound of a whistle. But after this has been done we are expected to do some random dancing before a “mystery” event occurs which is all due to last around 10 minutes (in total) before the crowd is due to disburse.
Now to me that doesn’t seem much like a flashmob, more of a meeting. I might be being a bit pedantic here but flashmob does contain the word “flash” which would imply that a mob of people suddenly appear do something then bugger off again. No suddenly appear, wait around for 10 minutes before buggering off. To me this is too long and is actually getting on my nerves.
What’s also annoying about all of this is that the idea is not original. This flashmob event is merely made up of 2 different flashmobs stuck together with a “mystery” event included to mix it up a bit. If I had my way I would get everyone to just turn up and get into a ball or for everyone to know a certain dance routine then when the mob meets everyone just does this mini dance routine before buggering off (the dancing part of the mob tomorrow, 15th, does not include a prepared dance routine or anything of the like).
Rant over.
The “hidden costs” of University
You’re a student about to head off to University, possibly leaving your family for the first time and possibly going to a new location which you do not know very well and may not know anybody there. Now this is a daunting prospect watever you might think and you have costs to think about as well. Sure you could have a student loan but how far is that actually going to get you?
You may not be aware of this but to go to a decent University in the UK you have a mandatory fee of £3000 a year which you have to get a seperate loan to pay for and you have to pay back in the long run on top of your standard student loan to pay for accommodation and basic living. I will point out now that neither of these have to be payed back until you have graduated and are earning £15000 a year or over.
Standard student loan is something in the region of £1000 a term depending on the term length (usually works out at about £100 a week). Think you can live off that? Not a chance. I thought I could and I was being extra safe by keeping track of all my cash flow using a spreadsheet. This was until the book list hit me. I didn’t know this, don’t know if you do, but books are pretty expensive. I have been basically been given a list of books I need and 9 of them are recommended to buy and another 17 or so should be read for background reading.
Sure, books get them off ebay nice and cheap second hand. Again, not the case. I will take an example - Big Java (Second Edition) by Cay Hastmann. Selling from £30 to £50 depending on where you look. Admittedly it is a about 1200 pages long but then times that amount by 9 and you will see my problem.
This wouldn’t bother me so much if this wasn’t that these are books for just 1 semester, so I am going to have to fork out this amount of money twice (well, probably a bit less actually due to some courses ending and some starting and with some just continuing covering both semesters).
So as you can probably guess I won’t be buying many if any of these books unless it is an absolute necessity to try and save money.
Next point, anyone want to donate some money to the “Tom McKee is a poor student and would like lots of your money” fund? It’s a worthy cause, trust me.
UPDATE: I almost forgot. Another hidden cost of University life is the price you have to pay to joining the socities. I mean I am not too fussed to pay out a couple of quid for the Indie society or watever but £130 to join the boat club!!!!! You must be mad my friend.
Bit of a dilemma
Currently having my laptop fixed by a couple of dodgy guys in Bradford (the only place to get deals on electrical goods) so I don’t have a computer at the moment. I am currently using the “family” computer but it has such a facist regime attached to it that I can only use it when my brother and sister give me “there permission” to use it - tossers.
Anyway I had a lovely blog saved on that computer about Foil Man but as I do not have the laptop I cannot post it on here so people you are going to have to wait a few days for that one (but trust me it’s good). Don’t know why I am saying this as I don’t think this blog has many readers, oh well.
Just got back from seeing The Datsuns. It was mint, crowd were shit and not up for going mental but the band were great and freakin awesome live. Also ticket was cheap so bargain. Go see them if you can, they’re like the decent version of Wolfmother with good back catalogue and mint guitar solo action going on.
Until I have the energy and the resources to produce the Foil Man and an amazing Datsuns review, good night.
Bad weekend
Yes that’s right people, I have had a bad weekend. I do believe that bad is a bit of an underestimate to what it actually was. It all started on friday at work (I work in a brewery) where I was asked to clean out the kettle. I start to do this and wondered why it was still so hot. As I was scooping the hops into a bag I accidentally touched the metal wall of the kettle and burnt my elbow- thought nothing of it at the time. Once I had cleaned it all off I went and asked the boss if he ahd something I could put on the burn. He sort of freaked out and made me put my elbow under the cold water tap for about 20 minutes before bandaging it up. Apparently if you take several layers of skin off on a burn it is quite serious. The reason he freaked out was that they had not closed the steam valve properly which had meant the kettle had not cooled and I got burnt.
On saturday my family went away on holiday (back in 2 weeks) which is fine. However, saturday was quite a hot day and I accidentally fell asleep in the sun. Not surprisingly I got sun burnt which hurt quite a lot and my friends found it quite funny to laugh at me and make fun when they cam round for a BBQ that evening.
Sunday seemed to be going quite well and indeed it was. However when I went for a run that night I fell over and it was quite a spectacular one at that. I managed to cut my kneed and shoulder and also hurt my wrist. But the worst bit of it was that sprained my ankle. I didn’t think it was that bad until I got home and got my trainer off. My ankle was about the size of a tennis ball and I could not put any weight on it. This is when you start to panic slightly as I am at home by myself due to go to work the next day and I have injured myself. I put some ice on it which didn’t seem to do much goo dnad went to bed.
I am now here typing this instead of being at work earning money. I am some what bored and cannot really move (walking is hard when you had badly sprained your ankle). The doctor has said it may take a week or 2 for my ankle to of recovered which basically means I am going to be a complete recluse until my family gets back or unless my ankle recovers before this.
Now thats what I call a bad weekend.
Is it illegal to download an album for free?
You’ll probably be thinking “yes” straight away when reading the title of this entry but there is just a slight catch. I think I am going to rephrase the question:
“Is it illegal to download an album for free if you already own it but cannot put it onto your mp3 player because of copy protection?”
You see this is a bit of a dilema in my eyes as I do not know how legal this is. I mean I already own the CD so therefore as part of my consumer rights be allowed to do what I want with it as long as it doesn’t break the terms of the record company or watever it is. So putting copy protection on a CD is validating my consumer rights, right? Wrong in the Governments eyes. Big companies = big profits = donations to the government or something meaning consumer rights go out the window.
But I still haven’t got anywhere closer to answer this question. I mean in my view I should be allowed to download the album for free because the record company has put unfair locks on something which I own and therefore I should be allowed to do what I want with. I have no intention on sharing this album but I want to be able to listen to it without having to install software which could potentially fuck up my computer (this album is from Sony BMG and we all know their DRM protection has been bought into question recently).
I mean I don’t think I can answer this question so if someone can actually enlighten me that would be great. I shouldn’t even have to be in the position of having to download the album but apparently I am, not good Sony BMG- hang your head in shame.
Increased Police Presence
I have noticed over the past few weeks that there are a lot more police patrolling the village I live in and also the local town. This is mainly because of a UK craze known as the “Chav”. Now I can understand people who dress up in tracksuits, wear fake jewlerry, fake burberry and drink cheap cider who genuinly have little money but why oh why would you dress like this when you are minted? On top of this people seem to think this is cool but I don’t know.
Anyway there are a lot of chavs about where I live and they seem to think they can win any fight and do what they want. The police are no patrolling the local area and arresting these rich bastards and giving them asbos and rightly so.
I just felt I would mention this to people as it is something I noticed and I really noticed the police presence when my mate got stopped for having someone hanging out of his car window but that is another story and involves how this extra police presence has made the police more bored and think it’s funny to be over aggressive until it back-fires at them.
LOST
Just watched the final episode of season 1. What can I say? It was truly awesome but the cliff hanger was just..argggggggghhh. I now have to wait until Spring for the next season even though every other country seems to be about ready to start it- life is just not fair at all.
I have so many questions: what happened to the boy? is everyone who was on that boat alive? who are the others? where are the others? what’s down the hole? what do the numbers mean? whats up with the crazy lady and how did she kidnap the baby if she has been alone for 16 years (apparently) but somehow met Ethan?
There are far more and I will kill anyone who ruins it for me (I will hunt you down).
Celebrity Big Brother
Oh yes it is everybody’s favourite time of year again…celebrity big brother time. For all those unaware of this over-rated concept then have you been living under a rock for the past 5 years or so? The general rule is that a load of “celebrities” (if they are worth that term) are put into a house and filmed 24 hours a day for a certain amount of time. They have to complete tasks during their stay in the house and a celebrity is voted out every few days (or is it once a week?).
This year however it is a bit different. You could say they are not the usual suspects you’d expect to find in a glorified self-promotion show like this one. Below are the list of celebrities that have entered the house and I will share my views on a few of them.
- Chantelle- she isn’t actually a celebrity but a fake. If she is able to convince the other celebrties that she is in fact famous then she will not have to leave the house on Sunday night.
- Michael Barrymore- he use to be a game show host before a man was found dead in his swimming pool at a party. Michael was later cleared of the charges and is now a free man- getting a very good positive reaction from the crowd on entry to the house.
- Pete Burns- frontman for “Dead or Alive”. He arrived in full drag adding a slight twist to the crazy world that is Big Brother. Pete was booed slightly to which he replied with the middle finger.
- Traci Bingham- use to be in Baywatch. She is good friends with Carmen Electra and was her bridesmaid at her wedding. She also use to date Dennis Rodman…
- Maggot- member of the GLC (Goldie Lookin’ Chain)- a Welsh group who generally take the piss out of everything and dress up as chavs.
- Rula Lenska- use to be married to Dennis Waterman and seen in general as a bit of a bitch.
- Jodie Marsh- just generally a woman who likes to get her kit off for photos. She is basically a cover girl but use to be a stripper. To be fair she is pretty fit but is also surprisingly intelligent but no surprise she would be on Big Brother along with everyone who has preceeded her so far.
- Dennis Rodman- ex-NBA basketball player. He just seems to do a lot of weights these days. He use to be married to Carmen Electra and also dated Traci Bingham- should be interesting to see how these to get along. The guy also packed extra large condems thinking he is going to get some action in the house (but more likely to try and make people think he has a big penis); also packing no underwear so will be going commando for his stay in the house.
- Faria Alam- this person is not a celebrity at all. She slept with the ex FA Chief Executive Mark Palios and Sven-Goran Erkisson (England manager) then sold her story to the papers. According to her and the Big Brother producers this makes you a celebrity these days. She isn’t even good looking.
- Preston- now this was a big surprise for me. Preston is the lead singer of the Ordinary Boys (a very good band) so did not expect him to be seeing him on his show at all. Should be interesting as he appears to be the only bloke who could actually be classed as attractive (unless the girls like the battered face of Dennis Rodman).
- George Galloway- he use to be in the Labour party but was kicked out for being a rebel in the party and a general pain in the ass. You will either love this guy or hate him (Marmite effect).
Well there is the list of celebrities appearing in this years Big Brother. I may be watching it be this would only be for Jodie Marsh and Traci Bingham (can you blaim me?). I would also like to see Preston from the Ordinary Boys as I am a genuine fan of the band.
One thing is certain though: TV is going to seriously suck for the next few weeks.
