The Ranting Room

I just received a text from Vodafone which says "Congratulations, to say thank you for being a Vodafone customer we are giving £1 free credit. Just text "REWARD to this number".

chopper wrote: Just had a third text saying I shouldn't have got the second text saying I'm not eligible and I will receive the £1 after all.   In February.

Took the day off work to sort our car out (someone crashed into the back of us last week in the snow). The insurance broker had arranged for a garage to collect the car and a hire company to provide a hire car.

Despite me checking with the garage two days ago when they said they would collect the car in the morning, they hadn't turned up by 12. When I called they couldn't find any trace of it on their collection sheets and so had to arrange a special collection. They eventually turned up at 3.

The car hire company phoned us on Monday and said they would phone this morning to arrange a time to collect me and take me to their place to pick a car. Of course nobody phoned. When I phoned them, it turns out they don't have a car to hire me as they're all out.

I phone the company whose job it is to arrange all this and I can't get through as their phone lines are "exceptionally busy".

I know they're busy because of the snow and resulting accidents, but why can't they phone me to tell me they don't have a car?

Jim Garten wrote: Neil wrote: I'm all for the welfare state as a catch net to prevent people starving or being homeless but new labour and the left wing do gooders have taken things too far.  I'll happily vote Tory as I'm fed up of having to scrimp and save to get by whilst my taxes get some local workshy layabout the latest Nike Mugger trainers. Not just trainers either, neil - Radio 4 reported yesterday our esteemed Prime Minister intended to give away half a million laptops with full broadband access to lower income families... WHY?!? Since when has internet access been an essential of life? Who is going to pay for the laptops? Us. Who is going to pay the ISP fees? Us. What are a lot of these people going to do with them (gross generalisation coming up)? Take them to Cash Converters & sell them.

Quite.  The simple message that this sends to all in this country is that the way to get all you want is to do no work, earn no money, pay no taxes and have no savings.  If Mr Brown gets another tennancy in number ten then I'm fairly sure that this country will be completely both morally and finacially bankrupt before the end of the decade; and to think that we once ran the largest and most successful empire the world has ever seen.

Dean wrote: chopper wrote: Took the day off work to sort our car out (someone crashed into the back of us last week in the snow). The insurance broker had arranged for a garage to collect the car and a hire company to provide a hire car. Despite me checking with the garage two days ago when they said they would collect the car in the morning, they hadn't turned up by 12. When I called they couldn't find any trace of it on their collection sheets and so had to arrange a special collection. They eventually turned up at 3. The car hire company phoned us on Monday and said they would phone this morning to arrange a time to collect me and take me to their place to pick a car. Of course nobody phoned. When I phoned them, it turns out they don't have a car to hire me as they're all out. I phone the company whose job it is to arrange all this and I can't get through as their phone lines are "exceptionally busy". I know they're busy because of the snow and resulting accidents, but why can't they phone me to tell me they don't have a car? Do you sometimes get the feeling that "these people" have never dealt with an accident claim before?   The hire company my insurance people used expected me to pick the car up from their depot 12 miles away and then return it back to them when mine had been repaired... "Can't you bring it to me?" I said .... "Sorry, we can't do that, you need to come to the office." ... "But as of this morning I haven't got any transport so I can't get there." ... "Well, we're not supposed to, but we can come and pick you up" ... "Then why can't you use the hire car to pick me up?" ... "But then we would have to use two cars and two drivers and it would leave the office short staffed"... "Okay, fair enough - I finish work at 5:30" .... "Erm, sorry, we close at 5"  .... "Okay, pick me up at 4 then".   When the car arrived to pick me up (at 4:45 because somehow it got lost somewhere on the 12 mile direct route between the two towns), there were two people in it  We drove over to their office in Basingstoke, filled out some exceedingly unnecessary forms and paperwork and they showed me the hire car - "Oh, great - same make, model and colour as the car that hit me - and it's only a 1.6 - hardly an equivalent replacement for mine." Back into the office, some um-ing and arr-ing and I finally drove off in a 2 ltr Astra VXR coupe   When mine was fixed I phoned them up and said "Finshed with the car, you can come & pick it up now" ... and they did.

When is Tefal head going to tell us the Tory policies he is going to the nation with in the hop eof blinding us with some great wisdom? Apart from helping the rich, and if you're stupid enough to buy a one bedroom flat in the most overrated city in the world then hell mend you. I keep reading all the negative stuff about Labour, and yes they have made a bollocks of it, but does anyone really want Cameron the worst pm in waiting ever. Still lots of xenophobia from the right and whingeing about immigration, most peculiar is the EU, wasn't it the fantastic tory party who led us into it..................?

alphawave10 wrote: When is Tefal head going to tell us the Tory policies he is going to the nation with in the hop eof blinding us with some great wisdom? Apart from helping the rich, and if you're stupid enough to buy a one bedroom flat in the most overrated city in the world then hell mend you. I keep reading all the negative stuff about Labour, and yes they have made a bollocks of it, but does anyone really want Cameron the worst pm in waiting ever. Still lots of xenophobia from the right and whingeing about immigration, most peculiar is the EU, wasn't it the fantastic tory party who led us into it..................? Soi we once had the greatest empire ever, ruled over by an iron fist and stripped more than a few countries naked....whooppee.   Also who wants a chancellor who needed elocution lessons....and why did he change his name?

So, basically you're saying 'better the devil you know' with regard to NuLab vs Tories..

Well, I have some sympathy for that view, but our democratic electoral system allows us to vote out one shower when they cock up, and vote in another bunch of clowns. I think there is a bigger picture. Many think that by voting for Cameron, they will be kicking Nulab in the nuts and teaching them a jolly good lesson, for having messed the country up so much. But, I believe that all of these crooks are part of the same club, and deep down it doesn't really matter that much to Brown if he loses the next election. His Knighthood is secure, as is the publication of his memoirs. He got the PM job after Bliar, which was his ultimate ambition. The country can now go and hang. Long gone are the days when Labour MP's climbed out of coal mines, and factories and nobely struck political blows for the common man. All of these self serving &rseholes went to same schools, drink in the same big boys clubs, share the same beds with Russian billionaires and bent bankers. Their foreign policy is determined in Washington and Tel Aviv, and between them they dont possess a single pair of bollox.

I used to think that hell would freeze over before I voted conservative, but that was when Labour were to the left and the Tories were to the right. Both parties now occupy an ill defined murky middle ground; charcterised by an apparent need to please everyone, while really just feathering their own nests, and actually p!ssing everyone off.

I'll wager that the turn out at the next election will be the lowest in British political history. People are waking up to the fact that their elected leaders dont understand them or care about them. In return voters dont care about politics. Sounds like a fair deal, until you consider the reality, that voter apathy is good news for any governing party. They can bulldoze through the most horrible legislation, and their alienated electorate will not even so much as look up from 'Strictly come dancing' or X Factor.

OK, my turn now if I may:

I hate certain parts of internet culture. You know, lolcats (most of them) are good, owl with shocking stare and all caps saying: O RLY is funny too, but overusing it is terrible.

And even worse, some of things that one can found on 4chan or encyclopediadramatica, well, I'm exploring it right now and have to say that I'm shocked, pleasantly (ranting on emo kids, stupid people, trolls), but confused and disgusted (majority of things).

Went there by accident, it changed my point of view. Internet can be sinister place.

And I'm glad I know about them. It's like some epic journey, you have to be strong to withstand all dangers that you may encounter to get some gold as a result.

Not sure it's worth of it.

However, comics like

TheNoobComic
Ctrl+Alt+Delete
Penny Arcade
Duelling Analogs (some of it)
VG Cats (also, some of it)
8bit Theatre

aren't so bad.

Damn, I feel like frightened parent trying to understand the fact that his kids are actually watching porn.

chopper wrote: I just received a text from Vodafone which says "Congratulations, to say thank you for being a Vodafone customer we are giving £1 free credit. Just text "REWARD to this number".   Well, not overly generous but a pound is a pound so I did as they said and got a text back -   "Sorry you are not eligible for this offer"   WTF?

I haven't recharged my credit in almost a 1.5 years, I use mobile phone just for receiving sms's and calls (I send sms's from internet), BUT guess what was in message I get on 24.12.2009 (Christmas Eve, giving presents in Czech Republic, carp and potato salad, customs etc, simply for many the best day).

SMS from Vodafone:

Dear customer, you have to recharge your credit till 31.12.2009, or your account will be blocked.

I took this as an Gift + Happy New Year from Vodafone