The Ranting Room

Like it's really like annoying like when people like punctuate like y'know sentences with random like words y'know and then like turn like the statement into a like y'know question?

Geck0 wrote: The raising of the voice at the end of each senTENCE is really annoying and it has a name, which I've annoyingly forgotten.

It's also called "High Rising Intonation (HRI) or High Rising Terminal (HRT - I thought was Hormone Replacement Therapy?).

Australians are prone to speaking in that fashion, apparently.

It's Sunday today. My weekend has come to an end, and I've got to be up at 5:30am tomorrow for work. I'm not happy about it, obviously..

Thats all I had to say really. I just wanted to put the Ranting Room back on the front page where it belongs..

Aye, that was a tad tepid.

Reduce the tepidity and you may pull from obscurity, a devilishly superb rant of epic proportions.

You know you want to!

^..and here it is!

British Gas!

On Monday morning I discovered that my boiler - less than three years old - had sprung a slow leak (water) from somewhere. This £3000 boiler was installed by BG back in 2004. I called BG and an engineer turned up within the hour! Brilliant, and I'm on a service agreement with them so there was no call out charge. The engineer tightend something then b*ggered off 20 mins later. No worries into work I go. I get home and the bloody thing is leaking again. I call BG, and have to take the next day off waiting for another engineer, who turns up at 1:30pm and after 2.5 hours tightens something and once again, b*ggers off.

Looks ok. Checked this morning, leaking again. They wont come out tomorrow, I'm got meetinmgs all day today, apart from now obviuosly, so I have to wait until Monday.

My problem? Whilst complaing that this will be the third call out, and I'm having to use up days of my annual leave entitlement, the harpy on the other end of the phone is trying to sell me more BG products!! I pointed out that I would be reluctant to buy anything else from BG whilist I remian 'unconfident' about their ability to fix, what look like minor problems, but she persisted 'Mr Robinson, if you upgrade to..blah blah..' so I said 'Are you able to understand my position on this at all? Can you see why I may not want to buy new products at this time' In a cheery voice she responded 'Thankyou for calling British Gas. An engineer will be with you on Monday as requested'

I would be less stressed about this, if this was not my third boiler in 8 years. They are not cheap!

Rant, rant, grumble moan...

Sh!t! Late for meeting...

Last time we called a corgi registered engineer out, he turned up on the door-step with a huge plaster on his forehead. We thought nothing of it, and showed him the fireplace where the backboiler resides and left him to it. Minutes later there was a bang and a cry of pain, so we rushed into the living room to see he clutching his head with blood streaming through the plaster and down his face. Apparently that was the second time that day he'd headbutted a mantlepiece while trying to remove a gas-fire.

Edited by darqdean - October 12 2007 at 09:34

OK folks....first the good news... I have a new computer!!!  and this is my first official PA post since its installation about an hour ago....!!

You want a rant? You really want a proper one? Then you've come to the right place...

As some of you may know, I am about to complete a PhD in Comparative Literature. Though I spent about €13,000 in three years in tuition fees, as I am a government official and I am not entitled to a scholarship (and the university is not dependent from the state), in the almost ten months I've been writing my dissertation I have received NO feedback whatsoever from the woman whom I was given as a supervisor. The main reason is, she doesn't know sweet F-all about the subject, and she hopes to LEARN from what I'm writing!

As if that wasn't enough, I don't have a deadline - I've heard somewhere that the work must be ready by December, which as you all know has 31 days, and happens to include a few holidays as well. Asking around will be of no avail, because the word at that University seems to be, "we don't know, the rector must decide". I have no idea of the standards they want me to follow as to the work's format, and I am quite sure they'll give us about two weeks in which to do everything. To say I'm furious it's an understatement... Luckily I've already written over 200 pages, so I should have no problems in completing my work by December.

Whilst we're ranting about British Gas...
we had a "premium" (ha ha) service contract with them at our old house. Our boiler broke down once in winter with snow on the ground. An engineer came soon enough, said it needed a new part and would be back on Saturday. You can see what's coming here, can't you?
Yes, you've guessed it, nobody turned up. I rang to find out what the was going on, to be told they couldn't get the part. Of course, nobody could be arsed to phone and tell me this. I opened my Yellow Pages, phoned the first supplier I found and of course they had the part in stock, but this cut no ice with dear old BG. It wasn't until I told them that my wife was pregnant and I had an 18 month old baby as well (which was true) that I got any action out of them. Meanwhile we had to freeze round a small electric fire for the best part of the week.
Needless to say, I've never had a contract with them again. Now I use a local company and get a much better service.