Joey Nova

The 5 Most Annoying Things About Snow

2012-02-08T17:36:00.002Z

I’m aware this isn’t going to be a popular blog, because so many people do the things that irk me. But I want to rant and this is my dark recess of the interwebz where I can do it, and I’m going to. So there.

1) Status updates and tweets complaining that it is cold.
That you so much for the update, as I am made entirely of Lego and old bacon scraps with no central nervous system to speak of I honestly hadn’t noticed it was cold. Tip of the hat to you and your continued public service announcements. Please also inform me how boiling water to the face feels as I need to clarify and as I am made of Lego and bacon I have no idea so it won’t work on me.

I fucking wish.

2) Snow Photography
I’m arguing with myself on this one, I know its super cute to see your kids playing in the snow, and seeing my nephew doing it made me let out a high pitched “awwww” so much so I had to reach up into my vagina and pull my cock and balls back down but its just that everyone is doing it.

3) “I can’t possibly travel anywhere at all”
I saw the snow Saturday night and it was all of 2 inches, I saw it Sunday afternoon and it was practically gone in Reading, yet people were still heavily implying there was no possible way they could get into work or leave their house through fear of being eaten by packs of feral snow men or whatever it is people are terrified of.

4) Media hype
I can’t even begin to stress how annoying the scaremongering is on this one. Just go to the Daily Mail site and search for snow. The eagerness for a death toll is just distasteful.

PANIC BUY NOW! CANNIBALISM SOON!

5) This blog entry
I’m well aware of how much of a total wanker this blog makes me seem, I’m not happy about it either.

No You Can’t

2012-02-01T12:05:00.000Z

I saw this sketch on Saturday Night Live recently and I thought oh my god that is so true, and applicable to a lot of people on the internet.

In a nutshell for those that can't be bothered to watch the video (Am I deluding myself into thinking those people are still reading?) the jist of it is that the internet has created an abundance of people with no real talent who think that they can just dive right into a career with no real skill or talent. (I know, the irony isn't lost on me.)

For instance there are several "photographers" on Facebook. These "photographers" have set themselves up pages and put a couple of generic examples of douchebaggy photography. Usually shot with a fish eye lens.

In my book, and again, this is my book (of sorts) you can not call yourself a photographer unless you have 2 or more of the following:

A) A studio
B) Specialist equipment (not just an expensive camera you paid for with borrowed money off a friend who stole from his ex boyfriend)
C) Undertaken a commercial engagement for your services
D) You have registered yourself as a company and are paying the appropriate taxes / fees.

If you don't qualify on the above criteria than you are no more a professional photographer than I am a professional writer. What you have my friend, is a hobby. Nothing more. There is nothing wrong with that but please don't make yourself out to be something that you aren't with a piss poor set of dull shots of friends parties shot with a wide angle lens and then have the gall to pretend you charge for it.

As a friend of mine put it; "Getting a camera for Christmas makes you no less a photographer than me a Calvin Klein model for getting underwear".

Incidentally I do know two very good photographers, Ben Spear of BenSpear.co.uk who is a freelance graphic designer and photographer who has his proper equipment, undertaken commercial engagements AND pays tax for his freelance work.

The other is Richard Parsons of BlackPixel. Richard even has his own studio, filled with equipment and managed to make me look presentable in a very nice relaxing shoot last month. I'd very much recommend him to anyone.

Fuck yes.

I have also happened across quite a few profiles on dating sites where guys say they "model" as a profession. NEWSFLASH: Taking your clothes off in some guys garage while he films is does not make you a model. It means you're gullible, deluded and probably get raped a lot.

So to reiterate people, please stop fooling yourselves into thinking you have talent and for the love of God please stop taking black and white photos of absolute meaningless shit whilst using a wide angle lens. It sucks donkey ass.

Tis The Season To Be Dumping

2012-01-21T12:49:00.000Z

I'm surely not the only one who’s Facebook newsfeed has seen a lot of this since New Years Day:

It seems quite a few relationships are coming to an end now that Christmas has been and gone, but what I would like to know is why do people hang on and say to themselves “I'll finish it after Christmas?”

If I were the one wanting to end it, I'd do it as soon as I felt it. Once those feelings start they can't be turned off and I think its selfish to string someone along while you claim you're "just not sure how you feel". Bullshit. If you're doubting how you're feeling it is never a good sign and what you are doing is not fair. You're just trying to spare your own feelings of guilt from making someone you care about upset. Sadly, breaking up is upsetting, always but there is nothing you can do about it. Man up, end it and move on.

Truer words have never been spoken, albeit spelled incorrectly.

If I were the dumpee I would prefer not to be strung along and live a lie over the festive period, or for any occasion for that matter. If there is one thing I can’t stand, its being lied to. It insults my intelligence and anyone who I find out has lied to me is instantly in my bad books. I respect honesty, even if I don’t like it very much at the time. So why do people carry on with a doomed relationship for the sake of Christmas, Valentine's or Birthdays for example?

But even with all the relationships coming to a close there is also a few of these:

Just in time for Valentine’s Day!

On the flip side we have people who rush into these relationships just so they aren’t single for Valentine’s Day or whatnot. Why do people do that? I posed the question to some twitter followers and the answer was more or less unanimous – presents. Are people that shallow? I suspect it falls down to something I keep banging on about, the lack of self worth and the need to have it instilled by another person.

But hey, I’m open to the idea I’m wrong and it really is true love. Open to the idea, I didn’t say I believed it.

Where’s All The Pussy At?

2012-01-17T22:51:00.002Z

Christmas has come and gone now and I like many males ages 13 to 60 no doubt got at least one Lynx shower gel / deodorant set. I've been using it for showers or baths twice a day since the 25^th December (24 days by my count) and you know what? Not one bit of bitch wrinkle. In fact I'd go as far as to say the results have been most disappointing and I feel a little lied to by the advertising folks at Lynx.

For instance:

Despite the warning label (pictured) I have not had "unlimited female attention"

Packaging Lies.

I haven't had mind control over a plethora of snatch...

I've not met some random yippee bog in a supermarket, ripped each others clothes off on the walk home and had dirty muskrat sex...

I've not been besieged by a beach full of pudding hatch running at me...

Every shower I've had has just been with me, there have been ZERO glamour models soaping me up...

It goes without saying Lynx does a pretty shitty job at covering up B.O. let alone the stench of rotting flesh...

I'd also like to take this time to remind people (mostly straight guys) that Lynx IS NOT a substitute for a shower after the gym. Dirty sons of bitches.

I feel let down and deceived by these shysters and even though I am a gay man, feel that I am missing out on my promised abundance of ham wallet. They promised me gut locker and by crikey I want my entitlement of fiddle cove!

Sex Addiction? Bitch Please.

2012-01-11T12:14:00.001Z

I Stumbled across this piece on BBC News about an upcoming television programme about sex addiction and it focuses on comedian Jeff Leach’s attempt to battle his “problem”.

There must be better ways to launch a career?

“At the age of 27, comedian Jeff Leach has slept with more than 300 women and wants to confront his problem.”

Sex addiction? Are you serious bro? If anything this is shameless self promotion at best and at worst an attempt to portray himself as a sensitive victim in an attempt to score more vaj.

I posted a link to this up on my Facebook wall as I thought Jeff Leach was quite tasty (still do, shameless attention seeking aside) and it sparked some debate as to whether or not the guy was genuine.

Let’s do the maths:

Jeff Leach is 27, lets assume he lost his virginity at the average UK age of 16.

27 – 16 = 11, in other words Jeff Leach has been active for around 11 years. If you then take the 300 (we’ll round down as straight men always over embellish their sexual conquests) and divide it by the number of years (300 / 11) you get 27.

So Jeff has bedded on average of 27 women a year since being sexually active. Or 2.25 a month. Or 0.51 a week.

When you break it down like that it is not at all shocking. I'm sure most gays who read this will know someone who does easily more than that a week. I know a couple of flight attendants who can do 2.25 in a slow morning at any given Sauna around the world.

The piece also states that "It's said the average British man has had 13 sexual partners and women have had just seven". If that is true my advice to the hetros. Go any do some living please; and my advice to Jeff if I was his therapist would be that he doesn't have a problem and to stop trying to make himself happen. He is a poor mans Russell Brand - at best.

How many people have you had sexual contact with? Anything more than a kiss and a cuddle (according to Jeremy Kyle).

What Is Wrong With Humans?

2012-01-05T14:32:00.000Z

I don't understand humans. It’s never been my strongest feature but in the last day or so I've taken notice of some behaviour and actions that I just find astonishing. In the past few days there have been (that I have found) a number stories of women murdered by their husbands / partners and I'm just at a loss as to what drives a man to do murder their partner.

December 25th 2011 – Ruby Love was hit in the head and strangled by her boyfriend Manjar Juma then dumped in a canal.

December 27th 2011 – Catherine Winter was stabbed to death and left in a pool of her own blood while babysitting. Tony Busby has been remanded into custody for this, it is not specified if he was seeing her.

January 1st 2012 – Michael Atherton pulls out a gun and kills his partner Susan McGoldrick, her sister Alison Turnbull and his niece Tanya Turnbull as well as shooting but not killing his daughter Laura.

January 3rd 2012 - Marie McGrory was strangled to death in her sleep by her estranged husband John McGrory.

January 4th 2012 – Katy Winchester strangled by her boyfriend Kurt Tyrell who then hung himself.

Do these selfish pricks not realise that their victims have families, parents that will never see their daughters again? Children that will never see their mothers again? I don't understand how you can look into the eyes of someone you claim to have loved / love and see the life drain from them at your own hands.

I just don't understand.

A slice of Maternal Madness

2011-12-26T23:43:00.003Z

Christmas - a time for togetherness and family, well, most families. That is unless you have an alcoholic in your midst like I do. 02:40 boxing day was when I got the last abusive text message from my mother. Someone I made a conscious decision over 3 years ago to remove from my life completely.

It turns out she stole my number from the emergency contacts list on my older sisters Fridge yesterday and decided rather than wait a couple of days that Christmas Day was the best day to start an argument. It began at 01:30 with a phone call from an anonymous number, then a text saying it was a wrong number, which I deleted. Then a follow up message saying "Don't wish me a Merry Christmas then" to which I ignored and deleted, then "Bah Humbug" as shown in the image. It's then that I asked my brother if it was her number and it turns out it was.

Merry Christmas Y'all!

Just so you’re up to speed here is the short version of when I cut her out (not why). I was preparing a meal for my younger siblings and my Nan as she’s getting on a bit and I figured it may be one of the last times we’re all together. So my younger sister rings up asking for a lift as she couldn’t be bothered to get herself there, I said no as I was cooking and then my mother piped up that my sister was being “her usual selfish self” and I said I was in no mood for her shit stirring.

So mother dearest gets right in my face, hissing through her clenched black nicotine stained teeth and says “Don’t you ever talk to me like that” and suddenly something snapped. I recalled every instance she’d ever got in my face and sneered at me to never talk to her like that under her roof and I thought, “You know what? I’ve had enough of this”. For 24 years of my life I’ve had this hideous abusive creature threaten to throw me out, bully and abuse me and she’s now under my roof trying to pull this shit on me? No fucking way.

So I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck dragged her to the door, chucked her out and spat in her face. And you know what it felt fucking brilliant. I don’t regret it one bit.

If you speak to her she’ll hang on to this as the reason we’re not talking, and doesn’t even begin to consider a catalogue of abuse dating back to my earliest memory. If you’re interested, my earliest memory must have been when I was 2 or 3 and splashing in the bath and she told me not to, then I splashed and she held my head under. I remember so vividly the terror that came over me in that moment, even to this day.

She won’t even consider that draggong me and my younger brother around Camberley town centre, gone midnight after a christening when we were both under 10 years old as she was pissed out of her head and snatched us after an argument with my dad. I had to retrace my steps back to the bar and get the bar manager to take us home as she’d passed out on the pavement. Nice. She probably can’t remember her taking a knife from the kitchen drawer and going to stab my dad when we all finally got home either. Oh yes in case you’d forgotten both under 10 years old. No, can't be anything like that, its just the argument we had in my flat.

She most certainly won’t remember or think a contributing factor is the countless “suicide attempts” that she performed throughout my teens. These were such a regular occurrence that me and my younger sister were on first name terms with the paramedics. These “suicide attempts” were designed to garner sympathy or attention from whoever she was seeing at the time, usually accompanied to the Honeyz song “End of The Line”. It’s around this time I sought counselling as it became apparent to me from spending time around other families that this was not in any way normal.

Most likely she’ll overlook the time when she smashed herself in the face, bled all over the living room and decided to send picture messages to people of her face before taking a walk down the Vale Road to stop by her ex’s house, then onto my older sisters house. She claims a picture fell and hit her face. This is total fabrication, she did it to herself.

If this was an accident why take photos and send them?

Surely you'd call 999?

Question: Who has an accident that bloody and their first reaction is to send photo messages to people? YOU DIAL 999! Pure and blatant attention seeking. Her favourite version of this story is that she was injured and wanted help from her ex, got told to go away and then went to my sisters and was also told to fuck off. What she will neglect to tell people is that her ex was with someone else and they’d split up a year ago and even she was remarried. She will also leave out it was past 2am, and she’ll sure as shit glaze over the fact that my older sister had just had her first child and when she had made her way there she was calling my sister, brother in law and Nan all cunts. But yeah, they told her to piss off. So she’s the victim again. (On a related note I will never forget the coppery stench of getting blood out of white carpet. Truly disgusting.)

The thing my mother really excels at, is playing the victim, she thrives on it. She blames her behaviour on three main problems. The first is she claims her father was an alcoholic and used to beat her and she was terrified of him. True or not, the bottom line is you can’t live your whole life using that as an excuse to act like a cunt. The second is she got pregnant at 17 and had a child that my grandfather and grandmother raised as their own and she was too scared of my grandad to tell her daughter the truth. (Yes, my aunt is my sister. Messed up right?) Again get over it and don’t use it as an excuse to treat others appallingly and drink yourself into oblivion. The third is she will make out that she was beaten mercilessly by my father every week throughout their entire 25 year marriage. This is a gross exaggeration.

There is some truth in the fact that my Dad did hit her, it wasn’t every weekend by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not by any means going to condone the actions of my Dad but I do understand them to an extent. My mother has an uncanny ability to push someones buttons and push them to their breaking point. She is like Hannibal Lecter and will use elements of truth to get under your skin and systematically take you apart. And over the course of 25 years she wore my father down to breaking point several times. No one in the family had any knowledge of how to deal with alcoholics and he reacted badly. No question about that but I understand it.

After my parents split up I was next in the firing line and was pushed to breaking point by the venom that comes from her. Having had no counselling on how to deal with alcoholics I will admit I had snapped and pushed her on her arse a couple of times. Not my finest moment but hey, people can only take so much. The important thing is that I realised that I wasn’t behaving in a way I wanted to continue with and sought help. Something she has never done, because it is so much easier to play the victim, drink yourself half to death, act disgustingly, and blame it on others.

Those are just a few examples throughout my life of why I do not want her in my life in any way, shape or form.

She is a cancer that has negative effects on anything it comes into contact with. A cancer I had the sense to cut out. A cancer I find difficult to be totally rid of because she has people that continue to enable and validate her disgusting behaviour. Alcoholics have to hit rock bottom, they need to reach a point where they have lost so much that they are motivated to seek help themselves. Sadly some alcoholics never reach this and drink themselves to death. Some do, but what prevents people from hitting their rock bottom is enablers. Enablers are the people that coddle alcoholics and come running whenever they are told. Sadly my mother has these. I have made my decision to cut her out of my life until she seeks the help she needs and sticks to it. I've wasted far too much of my time in the past trying to help her and getting nothing but abuse for it and what her enablers fail to recognise is that they are not helping her and are only making her worse.

I hope she reads this and understands it is not just one thing that has driven me to cut her out, its an entire life of her abusive behaviour and drinking. (To add context, there where good times but I can't reconcile those against the bad.) I hope she understands that I'm not doing it to be hurtful but I'm cutting her out for my own mental well-being and I hope that it contributes to her wanting to get the help she needs on her own. Deep down in my heart of hearts I know this will not happen. I am going to have to change my number again and also look at taking legal action in the form of a restraining order.

Why do Amazon Continue Using HDNL?

2011-11-23T18:40:00.000Z

I'm not a fan of venturing into town centres at this time of year, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the volume of humans just puts me in a rage so I opt to do mine online. My retailer of choice is was Amazon but this has changed the more and more I have to deal with HDNL one of the carriers on their preferred supplier list.

HDNL are in a word, terrible. They are supposed to deliver my items next day as I pay for Amazon Prime yet they are consistently late, often arriving after 7pm and in one example it looks like they had a fight with a box containing a Blu Ray player I purchased. The blu ray player was actually dented where it looked like someone had dropped a knee on it.

What took the biscuit today was that on the 21st November I ordered a new keyboard and PC controller and arranged delivery to be made to my office as it is open 24/7 and permanently manned by security or receptionists. My estimated delivery date was the 22nd November, as expected being an Amazon prime member and selecting items eligible for this service.

I checked the tracking at about 4pm and noticed my item again was loaded on to the drivers van, which makes no sense if it was already on there. So already we know their tracking services is a pile of shit.

This makes no sense!

The 22nd November came and went and both items were listed as "Out for delivery" according to the HDNL tracking service. I even got home and checked before I went to bed and apparently the vans were still out for delivery. Which doesn't seem right at all.

So this morning (23rd November) I ring HDNL and they inform me that at 16:50 they attempted a delivery but the building was closed and they couldn't deliver it. Which I replied is absolute bullshit, as I was there at that time as was reception, security and about 500 colleagues. We've now established HDNL drivers are liars too. Anyway, the silly tart at HDNL said that because no one was there to sign for it, they will attempt to deliver it tomorrow (24th November) which I said was not acceptable. Seeing as they have lied to me and messed me around.

I've spoken to Amazon and they genuinely don't seem to care about the problem as I have complained before to them about my blu ray player turning up looking like it had offered Cheryl Cole perfume in a Guildford nightclub toilet. Amazon have said that they are looking into HDNL, but they said that back in November 2010 when BBC's Watchdog did a special on HDNL but I've not seen any improvement in service from HDNL whatsoever. If Amazon or HDNL employ social media monitoring tools / weasels please by all means head over to Twitter and search for HDNL, I think you'll see the sentiment around HDNL is inherently negative.

I asked for a refund from Amazon and they have said they will refund me when the items arrive back from HDNL but what I'd really like is to be able to continue using Amazon Prime and have the confidence in it that I used to have, I want to be able to know that if I order something that it will arrive when and where it is supposed to, and not be drop kicked by their illiterate lazy delivery drivers.

So Amazon, for your brands sake, please stop using these idiots and stick to CityLink, Parcelforce or Royal Mail.

X-Box Users Not Hacked, Writers of The Sun Still Morons.

2011-11-22T11:11:00.001Z

The Sun have cobbled some poorly written piece of diarrhoea together this morning about X-Box users accounts being "hacked" and for some reason it is on their front page. (Must be a slow news day). One thing I would like people to realise is the difference between hacking and phishing.

Still cleverer than a writer for The Sun.

Phising - According to Wikipedia "is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one"

Phishing through the eyes of a writer for The Sun.

Or to dumb it down so that readers of The Sun can understand it: "They send you and email or a text pretending to be Microsoft and ask for your details" it's the equivalent of a man turning up on your door in a suit asking for your bank details to review your account to save you money.

Hacking - According to Wikipedia "In computer security, a hacker is someone who focuses on security mechanisms of computer and network systems. While including those who endeavor to strengthen such mechanisms, it is more often used by the mass media and popular culture to refer to those who seek access despite these security measures."

And here's a picture of a cat.

Or to dumb it down so that readers of The Sun can understand it: "They use magic to break into computers and steal information, and do it without you doing anything at all" It's the equivalent of a man turning up in a black mask with a bag marked "swag" and picking the lock on your door to steal your things.

The Sun like to confuse the two terms because the general public on mass are morons and won't know the difference and "Hacking" is a term used a lot in the media right now, what with the whole voicemail hacking scandal of various celebrities and Milly Dowler's phone. Incidentally it wasn't hacking, its exploiting the fact that 99.99% of people will not change their voicemail remote access code from the default setting. In which case you are an idiot.

So now you're richer for the knowledge I have bestowed you. Go forth, be unafraid and don't hand out your god damned details.

Facebook Reach (or how marketing are only interested in big numbers)

2011-11-16T11:10:00.005Z

Recently Facebook announced a change to their Insights functionality. (For those of you who aren't in marketing or data monkeys like me Insights are Facebook’s reporting tool on pages for brands and businesses that tell you how many likes you have and page views etc.)

Those changes included: Adding a “Reach” metric, Engaged Users, Talking About This and Virality. I’m not going to bother going into all of those metrics and what they mean as quite frankly I don’t have a clue. I've read the PDF Facebook have made publicly available and quite frankly it is total jibberish.

For instance in this PDF of riddles and lies we have definitions of the exciting new metrics one I'm going to discuss now is "People Talking About This".

Who are these people and what do they want?

Facebook describes it as “The number of unique people who have created a story about your Page in the last seven days" sounds simple right? Not so much in my book. I am not comfortable reporting numbers to a business that I don't understand with a definition is not specific. Are these "people" fans, friends of fans or both? Each option has its own ramifications and it is silly to go blurting out numbers without knowing what you're talking about. This isn't the only metric that Facebook use "people" to define what the metric means. Which makes analytics all kinds of frustrating.

Next I'm going to go into Reach. I'm finding it quite worrying also that Facebook are getting behind this fluffy Reach / Friends of Fans metric. I was at the Adobe Social launch in London last week and it concerned me that the 800 million users was being vomited up a lot. My problem with this is that some marketers, lets face it, are morons. If you start throwing around numbers like 800 million, marketers are going to start creaming their collective knickers and all the best practice that people like me try to pass on around targeting and tailoring a bespoke, relevant message goes out the window in favour of "But we could potentially reach 800 million people!!". Yes in theory you could, but again if we go back to my potential versus reality anecdote, this isn't always the case.

In my opinion Reach is a bullshit metric for 3 reasons

1) Not everyone in your Reach gives a tiny rats ass about you, your brand or your product and no amount of spammy adverts or endorsement from friends is going to change that. No matter how snug and refreshing a fresh Tampax out of the fridge is, I doubt I'll be putting one up my snatch.

2) You're making your conversion look a LOT worse than it is.

YOU AREN'T CONVERTING!

3) The human population is 7 billion. That is your total reach. Now shut the fuck up.

So to conclude, could someone from Facebook please tidy up your explanations and could marketers please remember to not turn social media into another form of broadcast advertising. Oops too late. Sigh.

Can we have human breeding control laws now please?

2011-11-15T21:42:00.000Z

So I've just got back from the corner shop after successfully sourcing some M&M’s (wicked craving) and I’m stuck behind this knocked up teenage slut who can’t be older than 17 and she’s complaining that her shopping came to £31. Incidentally my M&M’s came to £1.99 which is cause for complaint.

£1.99 = Rape.

Now I saw what this skank had bought and it was fags, booze and scratch cards. No actual food, meanwhile she’d left her offspring in its pram in the door way in nothing more than a towel. It’s 5 fucking degrees out and you think it’s acceptable to drape a towel over your child while you spend your child benefit on fags, booze and scratch cards?

The cornerstone of any healthy baby's diet.

It’s sluts like this which is why we NEED controls on breeding in this country. How these people can be permitted to procreate is beyond me.

But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.

We had to beat them to death... with their own shoes...

5 More Things Brett Ratner Should Apologise For

2011-11-11T15:18:00.000Z

So in the news this week Brett Ratner has used a homophobic slur and has quit as producer on the Oscars for 2012. Shame.

Apparently now he has apologised, but while he's making the rounds here's a list of 5 other things I want an apology for.

1) X-Men: The Last Stand

How did you get it so wrong?

Bryan Singer practically spoon fed you what to do with the Dark Phoenix saga and you took it and shit all over it. You sir, are a clod.

2) Rush Hour

Eugh

Jackie Chan & Chris Rock in a generic buddy cop “comedy”. Hilarious.

3) Rush Hour 2

Eugh II

Jackie Chan & Chris Rock in another generic buddy cop “comedy”. Hilariouser

4) Rush Hour 3

Eugh III

Jackie Chan & Chris Rock in another another generic buddy cop “comedy”. Hilariouserer (seriously Bret, when did your last original thought die? Oh yeah, X3)

5) Santa’s Slay

This happened and we allowed it to happen.

WTF? Bill Goldberg as Santa? Who is your dealer and what are his details?

Bad Brett. Bad. I’d rub your nose in it but I don’t think you’d learn anything.

Relationship Addicts

2011-11-08T15:49:00.002Z

I've touched before on people desperate to be in relationships and I think it is time I go through a more detailed analysis I’ve theorised. I've based this on lots of chats with lots of different friends. I think my writing of this can come across judgmental but a lot of it, believe it or not, most is based on my own personal experience of when I was a lot younger and dealing with a lot of personal problems.

He's going to inject love hearts.

To begin, the usual pattern with relationship addicts (addicts) is that they find guys they like the look of that fits their “type” and instead of taking the time to get to know them they immediately rush into a relationship (be it officially declared or not) and that is where the problems start. Removing that first step where they take the time to get to know someone they immediately fill in the blanks based on the limited data set that they have. Those usually being looks, a couple of compliments and well timed romantic kiss etc which build fond memories and set expectations high of what is to come.

With the blanks then filled in by the addict their other half becomes a demi-god in their eyes, untouchable, perfect and unfailing in every way and this is how the relationship continues. Their partners behavioural flaws are accepted and intentionally overlooked in the honeymoon period as the physical attraction is still very much prominent and over ruling common sense. It’s only when that fades that the addict starts wondering why their partner is “changing”. I have news for you, they haven’t changed, and you’re just starting to see your partner for who they really are.

It is this perceived change that is when the addict starts to become very demanding and the problems get worse. The addict becomes higher maintenance, wanting more attention / affection as they perceive that they aren’t being treated the same as they were before. It is this extra demand that places additional strain on a relationship.

Various things happen when a relationship hits this point; scenarios that I have encountered include the addict seeking the affection they crave from other people, or their partner seeking a lower maintenance thrill elsewhere or constant arguing because no one is willing to call time on the relationship that shouldn’t have started to begin with and this usually becomes giving their partner “one more chance”. It’s these “last chances” that often drag a relationship that shouldn’t have gone beyond one or two weeks of chats rather than 2.5 years of misery. I know this, because I did it. I was this person; I clung to a couple of good memories and overlooked obvious personality flaws and incompatibilities for the sake of “spark”.

When the relationship does end (and it will end), the addict is again destroyed and they are mourning the loss of their relationship with the character they created, and that is all it was, a relationship with a character created by assumptions and a delusion of what that their partner was really like. Their self worth is gone because they never had any to begin with. It is the addicts main reason for craving relationships. They base their entire self worth on their partners opinion, which is a hugely messed up way to live. People like this should not be getting into relationships, no one should until they are confident and comfortable just being themselves. Not one half of a comedy double act of dysfunction.

My advice to relationship addicts is this:

1) Learn to love yourself before you can expect anyone else to love you
2) Get some good friends, don’t date out of boredom
3) Take yourself off all dating sites / apps
4) Get to know people properly before rushing in to a relationship

Battlefield 3 V Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Rivalry Settled

2011-10-28T12:22:00.001+01:00

In the gaming industry this is currently the major rivalry, seriously if you don’t believe me or if you’re not a video game fan I suggest going to YouTube and look at the comments of any video from either game. It’s a heated rivalry that has been raging all year. But it isn't the first of its kind and certainly won’t be the last. Video game fans are constantly at each other’s throats about what is better. If its not PS3 or X-Box 360, PC or console its some other meaningless war of words which serves no other purpose than to take up valuable oxygen and adding countless hours of badly edited videos on YouTube (seriously people, with a little time and effort you can learn some other settings on Windows Live Movie Maker).

These rivalries have been going on since I was a child with the NES / Master System rivalry, I remember a friend I went to school with would have blazing rows with anyone who suggested the Dreamcast was inferior to the PlayStation, what did it matter? These pointless rivalries exisit outside of gaming in other forms of technology, a current contender for most pointless rivalry is Apple V Android. I have a friend who literally bleeds Apple. I expect has the Apple home page from when Steve Jobs died as his desktop wallpaper. Anyway, his devotion to the brand borders on the same territory as religious fanatic and I wouldn’t be surprised if he suicide bombed HTC at some point in the future.

What I don’t understand is humans need to prove superiority over someone else? I just don’t see the point. I’ve said before that I don’t think religion is the cause of all wars, people are. If people didn’t have religion they would find another excuse to kill their fellow man. Stick more than 2 in a room and they’ll find an excuse to kill each other.

So to surmise my point and finally settle the debate as to what is better; BF3 or MW3, PC or console, PlayStation 3 or X-Box 360, the PC version of Battlefield or console version, FIFA or PES, NES or Master System, Apple or Android: The bottom line is: it doesn't matter which is “better”, you’re all nerds.

Bye bye Grindr

2011-10-19T16:49:00.000+01:00

Dear Grindr,

I am done with your service. Your pop up ads are the final straw for me. They are poorly targeted and show a fundamental lack of understanding of your audience. On top of that they are massively inconvenient and reminiscent of browsing the web in the late 90's.

She's done with you too.

Your reduction in functionality in recent releases is a sad indicator of what is to come as it is now clear you have no intention of providing your users with a useful tool, rather instead selling advertising space for irrelevant shite. Selling advertising space is totally fine and I understand this is how you make money but you are doing it in entirely the wrong way. You should have kept your basic Grindr version as it was: Unlimited daily blocks, favourites etc with of course a bottom banner ad. You shouldn’t be removing existing functionality to crow bar people into upgrading to Grindr Xtra. Grindr Xtra could be where you throw the development money and new features, things which your users would find valuable, things like verification, filtering, restricting visibility for groups of people and more.

I don’t understand why the adverts are so bad either, I mean you know who your audience is to an extent, they are (or should be) over 18 years old gay men, with a penchant for gadgets, looking to meet other men and you know roughly where they are too in real time. That is marketing gold right there, why not pop up adverts in partnership with a nearby Starbucks saying 25% discount if you show this advert with you and your date? I mean that is way more intelligent than some examples I have here.

How on earth is this relevant?

Who clicks on this garbage?

You're advertising to gays you fucking idiots.

Anyone who falls for clicking on this is a moron.

OR, you could read the FREE release notes. Cunt.

In the coming months I fully expect newer versions of basic Grindr to come with limits on profiles you can view in a day or limits on the number messages you can send to further drive people to upgrade, as sadly I don’t think whoever is in charge of your business development is savvy enough to come up with something more compelling to drive upgrades or to make advertising more relevant for your users. I wonder how many other users of Grindr, Blendr or DNR social have to delete their profiles so that you no longer have cattle to sell to advertisers before you make substantial changes to your product and the way you operate your business.

Anyway, I hope I am proved wrong, I suspect I won't be.

Joey Nova

Reading Borough Council are evil robbing cunts.

2011-10-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

I wake up this morning to a letter from the immense cunts at Reading Borough Council demanding £105 from me for a parking ticket that some inept douche bag put on my car back in April.

I want parking attendants put in SAW traps.

Here's my reply to them.

To whom it may concern,

I have just received your letter dated 13th October 2011 announcing your charge has now doubled to £105 and I am livid. How dare you further try to extort more money from me with your illegal and erroneous claim of a parking violation when I was clearly showing a temporary permit and had highlighted in previous letters to you that:

a) Your “evidence” does not show my dashboard clearly and

b) My evidence proves clearly that it could be seen.

Taking photos 20 feet from any car at intentionally misleading angles is always going to “prove” your point. But it is not admissible evidence by any stretch of the imagination.

So let’s begin reviewing your “evidence” again before I go insane attempting to explain this on the phone to your customer service dullards:

1) This does not show the dipped part of the Ford KA dashboard where the permit was clearly visible

RBC's "Evidence" 1

2) Again, this is taken at an intentionally misleading angle, proving nothing as it intentionally misses out the part of the dashboard where my permit was clearly displayed.

RBC's "Evidence" 2

3) Again, another pointless misleading angle, this time with a lovely yellow sticker asking for money that you are not entitled to, nor going to get.

RBC's "Evidence" 3

4) A charming shot of a pole. But sadly not a shot of the part of my dashboard where my permit was.

RBC's "Evidence" 4 (Seriously, what is the point of this one?)

5) This photo of the back of my car proves nothing, whatsoever.

RBC's "Evidence" 6

6) A side shot, FROM 20 FEET AWAY! How the hell does this show up close the dashboard from a legitimate angle proving I am not displaying a permit?

RBC's "Evidence" 6

Now let’s review my evidence shall we?

1) Proof that you can clearly see my permit from outside the car which is not at all what is reflected in your PCN described as “Parking in a permit space without displaying a valid permit”

Can you see my permit?

2) And my personal favourite – A receipt proving I had paid for a temporary permit.

I think it is an absolute sham that you operate in this manner. Your evidence is a mockery and the very fact I am writing this letter 6 MONTHS after you slapped your ticket on my car is a joke. I should invoice you people out of principle on the time wasted writing to you and proving that you are liars, frauds and cheats.

If you continue to pursue this I shall consider taking legal action against you for stress of dealing with this bogus claim AGAIN.

Please confirm in writing within 7 days of receipt of this letter and cancellation of this charge or I shall assume the matter has been dropped.

Regards

Joe Young

I cannot describe how fucking irritated I am right now. What I want to know is how they can conceive that their photos prove anything? They may as well have included photos of kittens or fuck even blue waffle as proof that they couldn't see my permit. I also want to know why some nut job serial killer hasn't started prowling the streets abducting, torturing and eviscerating parking attendants as they are clearly the lowest most vile form of life on this planet. Hmm. Maybe that could be a new hobby for me...

What do you think of their "evidence" (I realise I'm using speech marks a lot here). Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

When did the art of conversation die?

2011-10-12T15:13:00.002+01:00

So I decided to rejoin Gaydar over the weekend, as I’m kind of bored at the moment and thought it might be time to reach out and connect with some new people. No, not like that, I have no sex drive at the moment. To make friends. Anyway, as expected I have the usual flow of messages from old perverts wanting flasks off my piss / dirty underwear as per usual. Amongst the standard depravity I start chatting to some guys who seem nice enough, so I part with my MSN address to further engage with a couple of them and then for some reason the conversation grinds to one or two word replies and I have no idea why. This isn’t the first time this has happened either.

In my experience I think the problem is that most guys online just want everything immediately. if it’s not a casual pounding they want to meet someone, fall in love at first sight and jump right in to a relationship without getting to know someone. (I’ve mentioned these emotionally inept relationship addicts previously in a blog.) I was speaking to a friend of mine yesterday and it dawned on me that no one just takes the time to get to know someone, they meet someone and if they don’t fall head over heels in ~~love~~ physical attraction they jog them on and move onto the next piece of eye candy with no character or morals. It’s why most gay relationships formed in this way are doomed to fail. (I’ll probably go into that in a separate piece as it is slightly tangential.) Anyway, it seems guys want to be dazzled immediately by telling them what they want to hear and shoe horning a relationship or sex in before getting to know someone. That or they want some unrealistic catalogue model.

I happen to really enjoy conversing with people and getting to know them, I find very rarely do I click with someone immediately anymore as I’m getting far too old and cynical to take everything at face value now so I do like to take my time building a connection with someone as a friend first and if during that I realise I’m not compatible with that person then that’s ok, I’ve potentially made a friend or more to the point, I’ve not got emotionally invested and gone through a break up and all the bullshit that comes with being in a relationship when it is blatantly not going to work.

However I seem to be quite alone on this front. I’ve met a few guys over the summer some as friends and some as dates and the ones as dates have been utter disasters as none of them could be bothered taking the time to get to know me, which I’m not really fussed about looking back as I don’t need people like that in my life but I have in contrast found a couple of people who I’ve taken the time to get to know a bit and I can say that I'm glad they are friends, but my god are we no way compatible in any romantic sense and I’m sure that they would feel the same way! But it all starts with conversation and it seems now that it is dying out.

In my book, and this is my book of sorts, you shouldn’t just reply with “yeah” or “ok”, or any other one or two word replies. You just come across as stuck up, rude, disinterested and generally a dick. I make a point to try be articulate and engaging, ask questions, and put some effort into what I write in my messages so at the very least you should put some damned effort into replying! We don’t have to agree on everything, a good debate is fun as long as it is constructive and backed up with facts but give me something to start with for fuck sake.

Anyway that’s a quick outpouring from me about dating / men.

Here's a funny video.

Do you have a problem with guys not being able to string complex sentences together? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Grindr Even Less Safe

2011-09-30T14:05:00.001+01:00

So Grindr 1.6.1 is with us, with it some new features, from Grindr's own blog:

“Today’s update brings iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users a brand new way to navigate profile and chat photos, with multi-touch zoom and pan functions. You can now explore photos on Grindr the same way you do with images from your camera or on the web using your iOS device. This version also includes a few bug fixes to make the app run more smoothly.”

Wow! That’s amazing! Assuming of course that people on Grindr a) Have pictures and b) They are pictures of themselves. Which of course we know that most on there do not.

Some things that have neglected to mention on their blog that version 1.6.1 brings us is that now there is a limit on the number of people you can favourite and block each day. That limit is 10. Unless of course you part with some money and upgrade to Grindr Xtra, which you can of course do. But it creates an entirely new profile, loses all your blocked people and you have to start all over again.

My problem with this 10 daily block limit is that Grindr is leaving people open to the major flaws of its product. That being that it is a real time location based “networking” app that doesn’t offer verification. I’ve mentioned this before in my blog which I've been told has been read by Joel Simkhai founder of Grindr. Yet they have not released any filtering functionality or verification, nor that it is in development or even being considered and now they are limiting our ability to block people we don't want seeing us or contacting us!

I personally think anonymity is a two way street, if you hide your face, you're not going to see mine.

So until Grindr offers verification or the functionality to filter out people with no photos, or photos of irrelevant crap the options you have for protecting yourself against people using the app for abusive purposes are:

1) Blocking any and all people without a clear face photo, which you can no longer do

2) Removing any identifying photos

3) Deleting the app

Users of Grindr need to be made fully aware of the dangers they are putting themselves in with this app. I have it on good authority from the same friend who worked for Grindr that a number of people (12 was the number I was told) have been killed with Grindr being the means that was used to initiate contact and find the victim, and I personally have come across a few profiles in my time that said something like "Group of mates laughing at the faggots" (No idea how that made it through the moderation Gestapo!) Yet they still trundle along not protecting their users, while attacks go on.

Verification is essential for this app as I have proved over on my Tumblr blog http://grindrfakes.tumblr.com people are fake on there and it needs to stop. It is imperative for these apps where people can see pretty much exactly where you are.

I came across this graphic earlier this week on a thread about people bitching over Facebook's recent changes:

The image it applies nicely to Grindr except for one difference: if your pigs are being killed, attacked or more than 50% of them are fake or you don't know what they look like then you have no product.

If you use Grindr please be aware of its dangers until such a time as they provide a safer environment for their users.

If you would like to see verification or the ability to filter out people without face pictures please send them a request here: http://grindr.com/support/contact

NHS Christian Nazi Whore

2011-09-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I have a day off and decide to do the bi annual trip to the sex vet for a routine check up. (I know, I really do find some amazing ways to spend my recreation time don’t I.)

Cunt.

Anyway after the usual tests, the woman who performed them asked if I would like some condoms, to which I replied yes please. We then have the following verbal exchange:

NHS Bitch: You do realise you’re more at risk don’t you?

Me: What do you mean?

NHS Bitch: Well, the type of sex you have.

Me: Sorry, as in?

NHS Bitch: Sex with men

Me: Excuse me?

NHS Bitch: Well you are in a higher risk group of contracting HIV

Me: Well I’ve come across dozens of statistics that contradict each other on who is more or less at risk.

NHS Bitch: Well you’re here often enough, I’m not going to lecture you on the risks.

Fucking patronising whore!

I’m there “often enough” because I get checked once every six months because I like to keep on top of my sexual health. Now, It may be me jumping to conclusions but this cunt wears a crucifix and always comes across quite judgmental, especially when asking questions around my sexual history since the last visit. She does lots of tutting when going into details about condoms and oral sex. (Seriously, do you wear a condom when getting head?) So I’m thinking her patronising judgmental attitude stems from her religious ~~beliefs~~ delusions.

I don’t get offended often but being told I’m more at risk because I’m gay and like greasy butt sex is a little rude. Especially if you look at the Terrence Higgins Trust site and see some statistics that contradict the judgmental bitch.

The First:
“The majority of people actually diagnosed with HIV in the UK in 2009 (54%) had been infected through heterosexual sex, almost two thirds of those infected heterosexually were black African and the majority (68%) of these people had probably acquired HIV overseas.”

The Second:
“However, the numbers of heterosexual HIV infections that were probably acquired here in the UK have been rising steadily in recent years - 1,130 of diagnoses (54%) in 2009 were picked up from heterosexual contact and 32% of heterosexual HIV infections that were diagnosed in 2009 were probably acquired in the UK.”

I wonder if she says to black African people "You do realise you're more at risk". I sincerely hope she does not. Even if it is true, you don't need it rubbed in your face whilst being patronised. Why do people continue to act like this in 2011? Leave your religious persecutions and medieval hang ups at the door, or if she is 100% accurate give me the date to prove it.

Oh, she also did this to my arm:

Ouch.

Anyone know a good clinic where there are no morons with religious mental problems? Leave a comment and let me know, or don't.

An Idea for Telecommunication Providers

2011-09-15T11:26:00.001+01:00

Telecommunication providers lie and I'm sick of it.

I know I am not the only one in the UK who suffers with shitty signal quality from Three and I know I am not getting anywhere near 50mb broadband with Virgin. It seems whenever I am on the M4 my signal dies, or whenever I’m on the train going through Crowthorne or Sandhurst I’ll have no signal either.

He had a promising career in mobile phone sales.

A major gripe I have is Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) advertising “Up to 50mb” or “fastest internet ever” or mobile phone networks stating “99% UK coverage” or some false marketing bullshit to try get you in the door and rape your wallet. I’d appreciate some transparency and honesty here. Now they have made themselves a little get out of jail free card with the phrase “Up to” and my problem with that is essentially it is potential. As we all know the difference between potential and reality is often quite substantial. Here’s an anecdote an old boss of mine shared with me about the difference between the two.

"Dad, can you tell me the difference between potential and reality?" His father looks up and then says, "I'll display it to you. Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million pounds. Next, ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million pounds. Then come back and we’ll discuss."

The boy is puzzled, but asks his mother, "Mum, if someone gave you a million pounds would you sleep with Brad Pitt?" His mum with a little smile on her face says, "Yes, I would." Then he goes to his sisters room and asks her, "If someone gave you a million pounds, would you sleep with Brad Pitt?" His sister looks up and says, " Definitely!" The boy goes back to his father and his Dad says, " Potentially, we are sitting on two million quid, but in reality we are living with a pair of sluts”

So yesterday whilst attempting to speak with my friend Louise on Vodafone and after a lot of dropped calls I came up with a brilliant idea – pay for the service you actually get. For example if you have 20% signal for the day, you only pay 20% of the line rental for that day. The same would apply to ISP’s. I you only get 10mb speeds and are promised 50mb you should only be required to pay for 1/5th of the service. The benefits of this are twofold.

1) The customer is not paying for a shitty level of service
2) The providers are forced to up their game and spend money upgrading their technology to give the customers what they say they will

I can’t see ISP’s or networks rushing to adopt this but hey, it is a good idea in my book. And this is my book, of sorts.

Well that’s my two cents on this. I’m off to potentially call people, browse the web on my mobile and download at 50mb. Then again I’ll probably accept I’m dealing with a pair of sluts.

How To Check If a Guy on Grindr is Fake

2011-08-15T22:53:00.002+01:00

Seeing as Grindr don't currently offer any form of verification I thought I'd share something with you that I've found works quite well to weed out fakers you will no doubt come into contact with.

That tool is Google Search by Images.

How it works is you upload a picture and it finds others like it. Where this is particularly handy is that it will prove to you that the guy you're talking to has stolen his photos from the web.

How to do it

Step 1)
Have a copy of your picture. To do this on an iPhone press the top and main button together, no idea how to on a Blackberry sorry. Or if you're doing this on a PC right click on your image and click save as. So you now have your images. (Here's some fakers I found earlier)

"Paul" From Wokingham

"James" From Reading

Step 2)Head to http://www.google.co.uk/imghp or type "Search by images" into Google, then click "upload an image" as in the below screenshot and then select your image.

Step 3)
Click search and check out your results! (Click images to see the full size results)

Step 4)
Block the fucker and out them to your friends.

Faker

Too many people are being taken in by these fakers and they need to be stopped. It could be a case of a dirty sad old man harvesting pictures to masturbate over, or it could also be potentially used by homophobes using these photos to arrange meetings and attacks (If it isn't already being used for that)

Please forward this blog on to anyone you know who uses Grindr or any internet dating sites for that matter as it has been really handy for me.

Found any fakes? Out them in the comments section here and I'll compile an album if theres enough.

Why I Unfollowed You on Twitter

2011-08-10T15:39:00.003+01:00

Just in case you’re wondering it will be one or more of the following:

1) I’m sick of you having full, detailed conversations with anyone and everyone.
There is no need to do this, you all have each others telephone numbers, email addresses, Facebook profiles, inside leg measurements and countless other IM services. So why, for the love of Christ do I need to see your conversation all day, every day in my face. Answer – I don’t.

2) You have nothing interesting to say.
Carrying on from point 1, if its not a mindless conversation between you and some other pointless drivel merchant its some photo of you with your clothes off shamelessly pandering to the other parasites on twitter doing the exact same thing as you are, desperately seeking approval and attention from people who wouldn't give a fuck about you in real life.

3) I have nothing in common with you.
I don’t work with you. I don’t work in the same industry as you. I can't learn anything from you. You don’t have a similar sense of humour. You don’t produce anything I like. I’m not friends with you.

4) You retweet every piece of stupid stupid crap you read.
Oh wow! I get to see whatever all the people you follow are tweeting too? How efficient. And fucking annoying.

5) You are totally closed minded and unable to acknowledge, let alone accept another persons opinion.
Usually this is religious people but it does extend to people deeply political or the extremely deluded who believe with every fibre of their being that climate change is 100% fact and cannot possibly be wrong.

6) You go on cryptically about a “new man”
But whenever anyway asks you about it you reply some horse shit about “Oh I don’t want to jinx it”. Yeah because wearing your heart on your sleeve and plastering any and every form of social media with your new found feelings aren't going to doom it? Moron. If I was seeing someone and they were being that gross on any social media I’d can their ass then and there.

7) You are friends with someone I fucking hate.
I don’t wish to have my face rubbed in the fact that you are bestest chums with people who make, or have made my life miserable. I don’t want to see your shiny drunken faces pressed together like you are poorly separated Siamese twins. I don’t want to see you tagged in places and conversing about festivals or how much fun you're having with them. I just don’t want to know.

8) You are desperate for followers.
I'm fast finding twitter is turning into a myspace style popularity contest to see who can get the most friends. I am both past and over this. Stop begging people to follow you. You're not a celebrity. It is tragic.

9) You use text “speak”.
I hate, hate, hate, HATE text speak. I appreciate that you need to get whatever you have to say under 140 characters but surely it is better to try challenge your vocabulary rather than making yourself seem stupid and illiterate?

10) You tweet all the fucking time.
Seriously we’re talking all day, every day. Less is more, whittle it down to the gems. A good rule: If in doubt. Don’t.

Those are my top ten. I'm sure I've missed a bunch off, and I'm aware I complain too much so don't me smart and try point that out. Leave a comment (Not in text speak. Its expected and dull) or unfollow me on Twitter.

Where the fuck are these useless cunts then?

2011-08-08T20:34:00.002+01:00

So with the London riots society is falling apart and doomsday is upon us, or so the media would again have us believe.

(*9th August update - I stayed up until nearly 2am watching this and it was actually pretty bad.)

In these dark times society needs a symbol. So I ask you, where the fuck are these useless cunts when you need them?

The Black Void & The Dark Spartan

These piles of anal rot were mentioned 5 days ago on the Telegraph website. Must be feeling pretty fucking stupid now!

"The Statesman"

This chubby funster is doing a lot of good right now. Oh wait. He's not.

"Knight Warrior"? Douche mound more like.

Or how about we get Knight Warrior down from Manchester? Surely this scrawny teen can dish out some street justice.

As stupid as these people are (or look anyway) they are clearly geniuses compared to this absolute fucktard:

Yes, someone actually put themselves and their loot on twitter. Idiot.

Who will save us from ourselves? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Utøya Island & Oslo Buried Under Amy Winehouse

2011-07-23T19:30:00.003+01:00

Firstly I'm not trying to compare the two, I'm simply putting across a point about the human condition and the backwards ass media. Anyway I was watching the news about 2pm with my Dad today and I’d not heard anything about the tragedy or what has happened in Norway until then and I actually welled up. It doesn't happen to me a lot from news stories, the last time being Baby P incident. But the sheer brutality of slaying that many innocent people is simply unfathomable, so much so I think the human mind finds it easier to lump all the people who died in Norway into “statistic” rather than “individuals”.

Which I suppose its why there is now an abundance of outpouring for one Amy Winehouse. It’s one person that humans can focus their emotion on and it becomes all the more real and relatable.

However in my book, and this is my book (so to speak), it doesn’t make her the martyr that a lot of people are making her out to be. She was a decent singer yes. But as far as an artist goes she was sub par. She regularly cancelled performances, something that a proper performer doesn't do, and some of her performances which are all over YouTube back it up too. Half heartedly mumbling through her act and getting booed off stage by actual fans who paid to see her not the majority of the people who are bleating away now who probably just downloaded her songs illegally.

You may think I’m just doing my usual “Joey Nova” shtick but this isn’t, this is me being the real me. I know addiction, I grew up with it and I have a good understanding of it and in my opinion knowing what I do this is the final selfish act of a selfish person who didn’t care she had a family who loved her and fans who loved her too. So for her family and genuine fans my deepest condolences.

I think the thing about this that bothers me is that no doubt come this evenings news, and tomorrows newspapers is that the tragedies in Oslo and Utoeya Island (Those are where the tragedies took place, might as well try remember them as you won't in a week) will be relegated to the middle of the papers and forgotton, whilst an inherently selfish individual will be praised and made out to be a “musical legend” simply because it sells papers and the human condition simply doesn't know how to cope with a tragedy on the scale of that of Norway’s.

Why I Hated LA Noire

2011-07-14T16:38:00.000+01:00

I first heard about LA Noire about 3 months prior to release and after the successes of GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption (one of my favourite games of all time) I was very excited to see the latest Rockstar offering. I make a point when a game is coming out that I am interested in to find out as much as I can about it and I thought it was a very original concept, a rarity in an industry dominated by sequels where the fresh idea has one foot on in the grave and another on a banana peel.

I was intrigued to potentially use my impressive deduction skills and intellect to solve simulated cases with real consequences behind my actions. The potential for it all to go wrong and send the wrong man to the chair, for example I thought was a really interesting unique selling point.

This however was not the reality of my experience of LA Noire.

To call LA Noire a game is false advertising. If it was called an interactive movie I’d probably be more forgiving of what is essentially 25 hours of driving to and from cut scenes. The main problems with LA Noire in my opinion are that you generally expect more from something with the Rockstar name attached to it. Previous games have had the option to have consequence free roaming, for example if you wanted to you could just fire your gun at someone. This is a luxury I took for granted with GTA and RDR, as in LA Noire, you can’t do this. You can’t even jump unless it’s part of some incredibly inflexible chase scene. Minor details but they all add up to a feeling of a very rigid, linear game which tries to disguise itself as an open world title.

Yes, I am trigger happy.

The first part of a case starts with hunting for clues at crime scenes, which is painfully dull. It consists of super sleuth Cole Phelps turning things in his hands until the camera zooms in and tells you what relevance it has. Whilst this is going on I’m wondering what jedi mind rape was performed on me by the marketing people at Rockstar...(seriously guys, amazing marketing but I do feel like I’ve been date raped)

The interrogation part of the game was like sex with your step dad, I found myself bored senseless and just wanting the ordeal over. So much so I just opened up the guide on IGN.com and followed it through to get it done quicker. (I am aware I could just stop playing but I have a compulsion to finish something once I start it, especially if I paid £40 for it) The acting was hammy but I understand this was necessary to give you enough of a clue to realise someone was lying or not. They may as well have been twirling a wax moustache after answering your questions in some cases.

A lot of cases end with you either having to gun someone down (FINALLY) or decide who to convict. The latter doesn’t really resonate with you as much as you’d think as it really doesn’t matter who you choose as there aren’t any consequences to it, without giving spoilers away you really needn’t bother with the homicide mission.

He doesn't look like he gives a fuck, and neither do I.

The redeeming feature of the game was the ending. Not because it was a compelling resolution to an engrossing story but the sense of satisfaction that I would never have to put the disc in my PS3 ever again.

I also read on IGN that it’s unlikely that we will ever see a sequel to LA Noire, mainly due to a fall out with the Team Bondi and Rockstar but hey, don’t question a miracle. Let’s simply hope that this paint drying simulator is never resurrected in any form.

Sometimes dead is better.

Why Recruitment Consultants Are Parasites & How They Work

2011-06-30T16:33:00.002+01:00

A few friends of mine at the moment are currently out of work, or have just left University and are looking for jobs and having worked as a recruitment consultant in the past for nearly 2.5 years I think its important that anyone looking for work reads this blog to prepare themselves for dealing with recruitment consultants.

There are some valuable things I want to impart to those who are job hunting:

1) Recruitment consultancies do not work how you think they do.
A lot of people think when they are looking for work “Oh I’ll spend the day in town and go round all the agencies and register” assuming that once you’ve gone in, filled in the forms, re typed your CV, done the MS Word / Excel tests, jumped through the hoops and got through the swimsuit round; at that time a crack team of hard working recruitment consultants will get right to work calling every company they know looking for a job for you. This couldn’t be further from the truth. They are there to service the needs of themselves and the companies on their books.

Degraded much?

How recruitment consultancies actually work is that they spend hours cold calling companies. They seek out HR representatives and hiring managers and try to find out if there are any roles going. They then blow smoke up their asses saying “we have top grade candidates on our books” and other such bullshit until the company agrees to let the consultancy work on a role. It is at that point the recruitment consultancy will look through their database, Monster, Reed etc.

2) Recruitment consultants are using you for leads.
One of the main reasons they get you through the door is to pump you for information. A recruitment consultant will always ask you some questions that seem perfectly innocent but are in fact designed to look for opportunities for them to make money.

You, post registration.

Example 1: “Are you currently interviewing anywhere else” – This is a recruiter finding out what roles are currently open and where. All they have to do is pick up the phone and if they’ve probed you well enough you’ll have handed over the job title and the person you are being interviewed by. An extremely predatory tactic that can have detrimental effects on your own application. Imagine giving this information away and the recruitment consultant gets another candidate instead of you into the role! You’ve screwed yourself!

Example 2: “Can you provide us a list of references” – Again, seemingly innocent but far from it. This is again designed to get contact details of hiring managers within companies. Don’t provide references until you have the job and do not give them away on your CV!

3) Do not waste your time registering until they have told you exactly what the job is and who it is for.
Registering is how they get you to open up and find out all they need. Junior consultants are tasked with finding their own leads and volume of bums in seats is paramount to their personal success. Don’t waste your time doing tests and all that crap. If you’re experienced let your CV speak for itself.

4) Be proactive.
Don’t assume sticking your CV online is all you need to do. New people are going on the job market every week. You need to delete and re-upload your CV ever week as every day or week. Why? Well, recruiters have emails sent to their inboxes of keyword searches set up within Monster etc that match their requirements to words in your CV. Yes that’s right, all they are doing is word matching. If you have a particular skill that’s a little niche mention the word a few times to push yourself up the rankings.

This is not job hunting.

5) Don’t make it ridiculously easy for them.
Remember to be vigilant with what information you give away on your CV and to these pin striped parasites. They are not here to help you!

6) Apply Direct
Recruiters make their money charging a fee to the company based on a pre agreed percentage of your salary. Imagine this scenario, two candidates evenly qualified arrive one is with an agency, the other is a direct applicant. Now who are the company going to hire? The one that will cost them 25% of their salary up front or the one who they found themselves. Bingo. Cheaper option. It’s simple business.

That being said once you reach a certain level you will come across "Executive Search" (head hunting) and then its generally a little less cut throat and horrid. After all that's how I wound up working for the kick ass company I do now!

Those are my top tips for anyone job hunting now. Do you have any? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don’t.

Parting Thoughts For "The Company"

2011-06-03T22:44:00.001+01:00

Well Thursday was my last day working for "The Company", have to say there's been ups and downs but over all I felt I have learned a lot. Mainly what not to do and how badly some things can go wrong if you don't employ the right people, or in fact if you employ them like they are a fat kid inhaling KFC.

My parting gift is some suggestions that they need to utilise if they want to improve things within "The Company" while they are still making money as its going to be a lot more ball ache to rectify this when they are haemorrhaging cash / staff.

Reduce the number of people making web content
It makes no sense having the volume of marketers "The Company" have when few, if any are experts in a particular vertical of marketing. Don't get me wrong, there are some damned talented marketing people there but most are good all round marketers but few specialise. This has a detrimental affect on the website which instead of having a clear voice and branding is like Frankenstein’s monster with a schizophrenics brain.

Great monster, terrible website.

Realign Marketing KPI’s
“Leads” are not a good indicator of marketing success. Money is. Sticking forms up in front of sub-par content so that you record names of people that may not even be good prospects is kind of pointless and makes it hard for people to research who we are and what you offer. The main reason "The Company" do this is that senior executives are asking marketing to generate “leads”. There is no focus on “Sales accepted leads”!

Coffee is for closers.

Offer better holiday
20 days starting is piss poor. Utter utter dog shit.

Offer more interesting benefits
Previous companies I have worked at have offered £50 a month to employees to spend on gym memberships, this encourages people to be fit and healthy, they also offered free vending machines and free fruit as well as subsidised meals, all in all so far best company I have worked for bar none.

Stop Being Big Brother
"The Company" operate an archaic big brother style piece of surveillance software, it pops up every 20 minutes and asks what you're doing. It serves no purpose for full time, permanent members of staff and is a hindrance to work.

and he wasn't even subtle.

More face time and interactivity with senior management
I suspect a lot of bullshitting takes place rather than truth telling. I’m not 100% convinced the problems from the lower levels make it up unfiltered to management, this makes it nigh on impossible to get actionable change done and thus for value to be added by people with common sense.

Drop the Buddies
It’s not a play school and no one is taking them seriously outside of corporate marketing. They are frustrating to customers and professional people who are leaving because they cannot reconcile "The Company's" infantile gibbering with their own professional integrity. Unless they are of course arranged ala "The Human Centipede"

FEED HER!

Phrases and words I fucking hate

2011-06-02T08:49:00.001+01:00

1) “Not gonna lie”
This is at the top of my list. It’s a superfluous phrase that I find incredibly irksome. Why say it? Does this mean when you don't say it, that the verbal diarrhoea spewing from your mouth is total fabrication? You never hear anyone say "I'm lying right now". Although life would be a lot simpler if people did. On a related note please watch "The Invention of Lying". Very funny and sweet film. Anyway. Stop saying it.

2) “At the end of the day”
At the end of the day it is 11:59. Please stop telling me that it is anything different. If you mean “this is how I find this situation” then please, by all means say so. I also find people that use this phrase will use it several times in the same sentence and several more times in the following sentences. Spice up your vocabulary.

3) “Not being funny but”
No. You’re quite right. You are not, but hey at least you have something in common with the cast of Gavin & Stacey. If your statement is factual and meant to be taken seriously then please convey this with your tone of voice, words used and if you are able to, your body language. Using this prefix for your statement makes you sound chavvy and unintelligent.

Not being funny? Neither are they.

4) “Boi”
I have mentioned it before in a tweet but I felt it needed elaborating upon. Urban dictionary has a variety of definitions and they tend to step on each other’s toes. However it is used widely on gay dating sites to describe being male. It's sad to see anyone over the age of 18 using it to describe themselves. It is especially tragic to see guys over the age of 30 using it to either describe themselves or guys that they are interested in. Most gross. If you are looking for a “boy” please say so using the correct spelling, also turn yourself over to the correct authorities as you are no doubt a sexual predator.

Mature boi seeks younger boi for NSA

5) “Textes”
Guests on the Jeremy Kyle show seem to have this inability (birth defect) to say this word properly. The plural of “text” (Text message) is pronounced texts. It is not pronounced “textes”. Take the time to say the word a few times on your own before making yourself sound like a dullard on television.

Couldn't help drop this stunner in.

6) “No offence”
Using this to start or finish your sentences is almost as annoying as anything else here but it’s farther down the list as I’m pretty sure I do it. Usually to dig myself out of a hole I’ve dug myself with this blog having pissed off a friend of mine inadvertently (looking forward to damage control after this one!) If you don’t want to offend people, don’t say it. If you do want to offend people, say it then apologise while weaselling out of it when people come complaining. Like I do. Because I rock.

Any phrases that particularly piss you off? Leave a comment and let me know, or don't.

5 Suggestions on How To Improve Grindr

2011-05-16T13:33:00.005+01:00

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but since having handed my notice in I find myself ~~bored enough~~ compelled to write. So here we have it, my 5 suggestions to improve ~~sleazy hook-up~~ social networking app Grindr.

1) Photo type
If you’re going to take the time to have moderators manually approve photos then it shouldn’t be that much more work for those moderators to then classify photos.
Categories should be:
1) Face
2) Full body
3) Full body without face
4) Other (any pictures that do not fit in the above categories)

2) Verification
Now I’ve been a practicing homosexual for some ten years now and I’ve seen my fair share of porn on the web and like to think I’m savvy enough to spot when someone is using someone elses pictures on the web. Spotting fakes is easy enough, its usually a low resolution picture, and when probed is usually followed by “I don’t have facebook” or “I don’t have any other pictures”. Come the fuck on Bridget, its 2011 and you’re using Grindr on an iPhone or a Blackberry (I may be wrong but I hear phones can come with camera built in now!) If you’re using an iPod touch you can sync photos onto that so lets cut the bullshit already. Get a few pictures or get fucked. I also find if someone is too good to be true, they usually are. So my advice is block.

This is me, really it is!

Alas, for some reason Grindr seems to suffer from a plague of people using fake pictures. I don’t understand the logic behind this but my theory is its dirty old perverts, married weirdos, or ugly people (or all of the above) looking to waste time by chatting and harvesting pictures of people on Grindr. It pisses me off. Grindr should offer verification as standard, its not hard to do and would make the whole chatting to people online a bit safer for their users and offer something that their competition does not as yet offer.

3) Restrict visibility from groups of people
Using this with the above photo type functionality and verification would be amazing, I for one am not comfortable with people knowing what I look like and approximately where I am, yet they retain their anonymity.

You wouldn't talk to people in public hiding your face, why do it here?

I would like the ability to hide myself from people who are unverified, people that are not showing a clear face picture, are not within my preferred age range, or are partnered. I am sick of blocking / getting random messages from peoples chests, legs, feet, cars, views from their window or any other random imagery, and guys who are looking to cheat on their boyfriends.

4) Friends list
Favourites and friends would be nice to be seperated. I speak to a lot of friends on here as for some reason its the best way to get a reply out of them (you love the cock, you know who you are!) and I have a few rows taken up with friends which makes it harder to see the trolls that are near me, or the torsos I can block (its way more fun that Angry Birds)

Not as addictive as "Torso Blocker"

5) Block list
I don’t like the “unblock all” function. Its risky, some people I block for a very good reason, others can be accidentally blocked or they may piss me off in the heat of the moment and I may think oops I didn’t want to do that. Unblocking a specific person would be a good feature to add. Theres a couple of people I’ve blocked accidentally that I wouldn’t mind catching up with but not at the expense of opening the flood gates of hell and having all kinds of circus freaks hassle me again.

You're barred!

So them be my suggestions, what are yours? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Quick Update

2011-05-10T14:34:00.000+01:00

I've not had a bitch in a few weeks so I thought I'd let people know what's new with me!

So recently I have moved, the Island is done with me. Will miss the bear and wish him well with Goldilocks up North where people talk funny. Alas new house is a lot of fun. Albeit crowded with crap from the previous scummy inhabitants that I will purge from my abode.

I've also handed my notice in at the company I'm working for currently. I'm so relieved to do so, I will miss a few people over there but not the total and utter lack of process and the abundance of marketing people that keep getting hired is a constant reminder that I have made the right decision in moving. Even if I think it may kill 60% of the material I write about. Then again I am a pretty negative son of a bitch so I'm sure I'll rant on.

I am also fortunate enough to have secured a role within a leading computer games company and am very very excited to be their brand spanking new web analyst. Good news for me and hopefully the lovely people at Omniture who will I'm sure be thrilled that they have to deal with me still in some capacity!

So that is whats new with me! Whats new with you guys? Your hair looks lovely by the way.

P.S. I'm addicted to IKEA. Here's a picture of me and Hillier posing like pricks:

Who killed "the customer is always right"?

2011-04-07T09:56:00.002+01:00

I did a quick Google search for the title of this blog to see how much else there was around the subject and was astonished to see how many results came back. It would appear I’m not the only one tired of getting shat on by big business. I suppose the purpose of today’s blog is to find out why “the customer is always right” died and see if I can convince just one person to start being more vocal when these dicks fuck us around.

Now I’ve always been a complainer (shock, I know), its in my nature but in the last few years it seems that big companies default state of mind is “the customer is a fucking moron who is trying to shaft me out of money” and they will cling to this belief, fighting tooth and nail to prevent us the customer from getting the service we deserve. We, their source of revenue that is. I find it frustrating that to get any form of service from some companies I have to write a blog or letter of complaint to overrule some arsehole jobsworth retail “manager” when surely these retail apes should realise that keeping the customer happy is better for long term business?

For instance I always get good customer service in Clas Ohlson. If you don’t know who they are, they’re a smaller chain which is best described as if IKEA and Woolworths had a baby. It has most things Woolworths had, minus some toot, but it is arranged in a logical aesthetically pleasing way. Anyway I’ve had to return a couple of things, items I had opened, used and realised that were not fit for purpose. Rather than being standoffish, making me jump through hoops, perform a jig for the supervisor or orally please the manager they are courteous, obliging and helpful. Because of this I keep going back, I actually enjoy walking around the store and make a mental list of things I’ll buy in future. They get my repeat business!

On the flip side, I’ve had numerous experiences of bad customer service, poor management and bad policies (most recently from B&Q) that have soured my opinion of the store so much I will never shop there again. For the sake of them losing £20 on reselling some built bookcases, they have lost hundreds of pounds in my future DIY, furniture, Gardening, Lighting, etc purchases. So where is the logic in that ill thought out decision to refuse to take a hit on £20 at the cost of future business. I’m not under any delusion that I’m influential and can cripple their business but some people with personality disorders do read my blog and do listen to what I have to say and whilst I’m sure won’t boycott B&Q, they may think “hang on, is this worth the hassle if I need to return this?” and that will potentially cost them more money.

Another example is the Hobgoblin in Maidenhead, we usually go there for leaving do’s, pub lunches etc, yet last time we went they asked a colleague to leave as he had a Starbucks coffee. They were most rude about it, so at the cost of them not selling one beer (£2.50?) they’ve now lost out on: 10 x beers coming to £25 once a month for a year which is approximately £3,000 over the year. Gee well done on that decision. Retards.

I think it highlights that a lot of businesses have a major lack or foresight and / or are confident on the majority of consumers lazy, compliant behaviour. Where they can jerk us around, and because its a little easier, we’ll come crawling back begging for more. I think its time to say no more. When companies deliver a poor level of service, you need to stop going there and make noise about it, its only us the consumer that can do something about it! When they start losing money they’ll start to change, not before.

So, back to who killed “the customer is always right”? – Joint effort. We left the door off open, businesses came in, shot it in the face and made sweet love to its corpse.

B&Q Reading can kiss my arse.

2011-04-04T15:17:00.000+01:00

This weekend I received some really crappy customer service from B&Q that I thought I’d share with you all.

Last week I moved into a new house and spent the majority if it cleaning the filth the previous tenants had left and building furniture, unpacking and whatnot.

Anyway as people that know me are aware I have a lot of DVD’s and Blu Rays. So I thought I’d invest in two of B&Q’s tall and wide bookcases to store them all, the piles of media everywhere were making my OCD act up. So I pick up two boxes from the area where it is indicated on the display model and having had a very stressful day of assembling bits from Ikea, Argos and such like I simply couldn’t face erecting another piece of flat pack furniture or someone would have got a claw hammer to the face, so left the task to my new housemate while I made dinner.

To my shock when I came back there were not two tall wide bookcases but two tall narrow bookcases which were not what I wanted! I returned to B&Q and checked and they had in fact put the wrong boxes in the area for tall wide book cases.

I then spoke to someone who claimed to be the manager who informed me as they had been built that they would not take them back as they would have to sell them at a reduced price. (Hardly a dent in B&Q's business is it?) I then pointed out that they had put the wrong boxes in the wrong place, which proved to be an excercise in futility as she was adamant she wasn’t going to let me swap them, despite their error)

So today I ring their “customer service” helpline and again, regale them with my tale of home improvement woe, saying that I can accept fault on both parts, I should have been on hand to ensure that the boxes contained what I thought but also they were at fault by putting incorrect boxes in the incorrect places. I was told I would be called back, and I was by someone who informed me again, that because I had opened and built them they would under no circumstances accept them returned.

After again explaining that the cretins at B&Q Reading had put things in the wrong places I was again told no and now I am stuck not only with two useless bookcases at a cost of £80 but an extremely bad taste as to how B&Q treats customers who spend money with them (running total so far since moving is now at £150+)

After this debacle I will never be buying anything from them again and urge you all to do the same. Besides, IKEA offer a wider selection of furniture and the IKEA customer service pisses on the experience I have had with B&Q from a height.

An open letter to Karma.

2011-03-15T18:03:00.001Z

Dear Karma,

What is your fucking problem? Can you explain what your beef is? I thought you were supposed to be some sort of impartial cosmic balancer, who if we acted like total dickholes would see that we got our comeuppance and if we are a nice people we had some good fortune?

Can you therefore please explain to me why some people I know can cheat on their partners and go on with their lives totally consequence free, while perfectly lovely people I know have some of the worst things imaginable happen to them?

If you could sort your fucking shit out and undo some of your rather ill conceived actions that’d be dandy, or I will have to file you with Christianity and all other religious beliefs under “total and utter elephant crap”

All religion / religious concepts.

Deeply pissed off and upset with the universe,

Joey Nova

Yes, I Am.

2011-03-10T14:44:00.002Z

After speaking with two very good friends of mine they put some things into perspective for me about my last post, where in a rare moment of weakness I began to question myself.

Firstly I'm a nice guy, yes I have faults but who doesn’t. Someone would be lucky to be with me. I have a lot to offer my heart is in the right place and I’m not going to settle for some chump-stain puke that doesn’t deserve me.

Secondly, why the fuck should I change for anyone? If someone likes a toned down piss poor version of me then they aren’t liking the real me, and if you don’t like the real me then fuck you, right in the eye socket.

Thirdly, if in doubt I need to start thinking "what would Stone Cold Steve Austin do?"

HELL YEAH!

He’d raise hell, drink beer, open a six pack of whoop-ass then leave.

And that’s the bottom line because Joey Nova said so.

Am I Relationship Material?

2011-03-09T12:14:00.000Z

I'm not trying to make this a “woe is me isn’t my life so sad” piece, I’m just trying to do a bit of self analysis and whilst no one has specifically said this in so many words, its a conclusion I've come to after looking through the numbers. Can I deduce that I am not relationship material?

I don’t think I’m one of the people I speak about in my Stephanie Meyer / Twilight blog (I hope) but it would be nice to feel the butterflies and spark of something exciting and new starting up with a guy. Something I’ve not felt since November 2006 when my last relationship started. (Ouch, I honestly didn’t think it was that long)

It’s not like I’ve not had feelings for anyone since October 2008 (when my last relationship ended), I have, but I do find it rare to spark with someone and when I do feel something it catches me off guard, but it seems more often than not it isn't reciprocated. I'm not shy about telling someone I like them, I always say its better to go for it and be shot down than to never have tried at all, who knows what possibilities you miss out from by stopping yourself right? (Yikes, am I too full on?)

Then again do other people think like that? Have other people had feelings for me and not mentioned anything out of fear of rejection? Or is it that no one has felt anything for me? I must admit that whilst I like to think of myself as pretty good at reading people and their body language, the way they say things etc, when it comes to people liking me I am quite thick. As in you would have to write it down or act it out with sock puppets.

Interested in dating me? Invest in a puppet!

I think this is a product of being a former fat kid and just not seeing myself as attractive / desirable to people, and despite how I present myself I do have a few self confidence issues around some things. I think I counter balance these perceived flaws by being turning the volume up on parts of my personality, which doesn’t help matters when I already have quite a dark sense of humour. A few friends have said to me that they have “forewarned” people that haven’t met me before to let them know I’m not as bad as I appear at first. I think that its mostly nerves on my part as I am quite shy underneath it all and I put on a bit of a front to put myself at ease, a casualty of this I think is that not many people stick around for a second impression.

I'm also aware there is a perception that I'm quite negative, I disagree with that as I think I'm a realist; but I am aware with a dry, sarcastic, sometimes warped sense of humour I don't do myself many favours to undo this perception at all. Something I aim to do is to do less complaining and bitching and let people know more when I am happy about something as I know I am most vocal when I'm pissed off about something or other.

Or at least make an effort to change
your perception of my happiness!

I do have some good points that I don't publicize well: I'm pretty romantic and love to brighten someone's day by letting them know how much they mean to me or that I'm thinking of them. I'm obviously not going to give away my top moves on here but I think its little things that make someone feel special. I am also pretty damned considerate too, I have a good memory and remember what people like or don't like and always take that into account when cooking or making plans. That being said I'm not some pushover doormat, I will always speak my mind and let someone know when they've pissed me off. Usually via a blog (Just kidding, I'd never whine about my relationship on a blog)

So those are what I think my main good points, bad points and issues are. Have I missed anything off the list?

Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Dear Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose and M&S...

2011-02-18T11:08:00.001Z

Dear Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose and M&S,

Please, please, please can one of you fine Supermarkets please invest in a new store on Kennet Island in Reading. The current "convenience" store Hudson's is a joke. It has next to no stock and 3/4 of it is closed off!

Sweets section. Yummy!

The best stocked area of the shop

Sorry, we don't sell milk.

Big creamy piles of fuck all!

A plentiful selection of beers, wines and spirits...

When asked why the shop is like it is the guy working there said "We don't see the point of having lots of stock as no one comes in here".

Excuse me, what?

No one comes into your shop because you have no stock and what stock you do have is priced at borderline rape.

The sad thing is that this shop has real potential. Kennet Island residents are as mostly young professionals, a market that isn't too doing too badly financially and lives for convenience. It could be making a killing over local supermarkets like Morrison's, which isn't too far away but far enough if you've just got in from a hard days work and really cannot be arsed with dealing with chav families arguing and screaming doing their weekly shop.

Having a selection of nice ready meals and snacks would be a god send, it doesn't have to be this baron wasteland of a store.

So please, someone from Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose or M&S please come buy this shop help me get some bastard Mini Eggs and Cherry Coke!

Shameless Self Promotion

2011-02-17T14:51:00.002Z

I got new hair! Courtesy of the wonderfully talented Aaron Blondell.

Aaron does some wonderful work for fashion and telly and stuff so go check him out on his website.

You can "like" him also on the old book of face too.

Nuffield Update

2011-02-14T12:34:00.001Z

Following my earlier blog where I was expressing my displeasure about Nuffield Health Reading raising their prices without notifying me, and the general decline in quality I was contacted by their General Manager Andy Knowles and we spoke for quite a while about various points I’d raised in my blog and I have to say that Andy was professional and courteous about the comments I had made in my last blog about Nuffield.

Andy informed me that there are reasons that the price had to go up, which I do in part agree with, and was most apologetic that I had not received a letter informing me of the rise in price.

We touched on the images I had taken in the gym which showed various things wrong and in disrepair, and Andy pointed out that it is actually prohibited to take photographs in the gym (I wasn’t aware but it makes sense actually, I wouldn’t want any photos of me looking a sweaty mess being taken) but they did actually help him influence some positive changes.

To surmise some positive changes Nuffield Reading have implemented:
• New mats had been ordered
• The sauna had a full refurbishment in summer
• All lockers had been replaced (they now take the membership card instead of a £1 coin, which is handy)
• Staff had been reprimanded about leaving blue roll on top of dispensers when it could have easily been put away
• New equipment had been ordered (New kettle bell weights)
• Gym has just been repainted to reflect Nuffield branding
• Other repairs will be happening in the coming months

So overall a good few positive changes have been made, out of respect or the member rules I haven’t taken photos but I do think I would not be being fair if I hadn’t pointed out the positive changes made both prior to and since my blog.

Unfortunately I can’t comment whether or not there have been positive changes on the customer service skills of the staff or not as I decided to stick with my decision to cancel my membership at Nuffield Health Reading, however I am hopeful that Andy will address these in time and instil the basics of “Smile, Speak, Service”.

These core skills will be both beneficial to the members who will be receiving a better level of service and the staff when it comes time for them to be seeking prospective clients for personal training. Without that rapport you will have nothing guys! So step up your game and make a point to smile at your customers, speak to them and provide a good level of customer service.

That's my two cents on this, what are yours? Leave a comment and let me know, or don't!

Grindr: Translated

2011-01-23T21:39:00.004Z

I've discovered a few things about what people say and what they mean on Grindr. Here are some of my findings:

1) “What are you on here for”
This simple phrase translates quite clearly to “I’m looking for sex, now. Are you also looking for sex now?” Let’s not beat around the bush. Just say what you mean! Anyone who starts any kind of Grindr conversation with this is only after one thing.

My take on their banner.

2) “Got any more pics / pix”
This equals “I am on the fence as to whether or not I wish to bone you, can you please send something dirty to help me make my mind up”. I hate the way in some adverts in gay publications they try tart Grindr up as a social app to meet friends. It’s not. It’s to stalk gays in your area you want to fuck. End of. The poor spelling of “pics” as “pix” personally grinds my gears. Is it that hard to add “cs” rather than an “x”

3) “Got a boyfriend, just looking for mates”
This is on the profile of a guy actively looking to cheat, but if their boyfriend ever went through their phone they can use it as a get out of jail free card. I’m sorry but I just don’t buy that you are on Grindr looking for friends. If I ever get into a relationship again and catch my partner on Grindr he is gone. No discussion. If you want more friends, do it as social activity with your partner. Not on some seedy hook up app.

4) “Cute”
Reading between the lines this means “I have a limited vocabulary and cannot conjugate the necessary words to express my intent to have carnal relations with you, so I shall surmise my intent with one word” Off topic slightly but cute is used to describe babies, kittens and such. As a 27 year old man I find being called cute a little patronising. Might just be me...

Fancy being balls deep in this? No, me either.

5) “Couple looking for 3rd”
“Our relationship is at an end, we’re just doing this because we’re both too chicken shit to admit the spark is gone and we have nothing left and the concept of being single is too much for us to fathom because we are too emotionally inept to function as our own individual selves” (See my Twilight blog)
I have issues with couples who do threesomes regularly. I just think it says you need to split up. If you find yourself having to add other people to your relationship to keep the spark going then you probably shouldn’t be together.

I misspelled on my Google image search for too many cocks...

6) Torsos / scenery / cars / cuddly toys / any other irrelevant shit
Ok not so much a phrase but it does translate to either being ugly, in a relationship, married, “straight” or all of the above. I find it a god damned piss take that these jabronis can see me, know approximately where I am and can perv on / stalk me to their hearts content (I have a high opinion of myself don’t I!) and they get anonymity! It’s bullshit. I’ve touched on it in my YouTube video but it pissed me off. Anyway I now make a game of it and block any and every non face picture on there. No exceptions!

What's the fucking point?

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head now. Have I missed anything? Leave a comment and let me know. Or Don’t.

Monster is shit.

2011-01-20T20:21:00.003Z

Is it just me or is Monster.co.uk slowly becoming more and more aimed for recruiters rather than jobseekers?

In the two and a half years since I have last actively used Monster, I have logged in and seen a sharp decline in features for the jobseeker.

Here are some suggestion on how they can sort their act out before the commodity they sell (your details to recruitment consultants) goes elsewhere.

1) Ditch the interruption advertising
When you log in now your job hunting is interrupted before it even starts. You now get violated with some irrelevant poorly targeted piece of shit advert. Get this annoying load of shit out of peoples job searches! You never used to have it!

2) Bring back a more advanced search
I remember being about to search within salary brackets, this seems to have been killed off. No doubt because recruiters complained job adverts didn’t get enough applicants. As a downside for the jobseeker, people are having to waste their time clicking on job adverts that are beneath their experience and pay bracket because they can’t filter out the irrelevant fucking shit any more.

3) Make jobs appear where the job is, not where the fucking recruitment agency are based.
It seems every job posted by some time waster bastard recruitment consultancy is located actually on the recruitment consultant site! Now I’m not sure if this is another case of Monster fucking up a formerly good thing, or recruitment consultants being lazier than a Mexican piano teacher but its damned annoying. I expect its both.

4) Give people back the ability to block companies.
I mentioned that in an earlier blog, Monster have fucked you all over big time by taking your ability to block your employer from seeing your CV. They need to sort this ASAP. This is a huge slap in the face from their collective deformed member.

5) Add the ability to filter out recruitment agencies
In my personal opinion, and having worked as one, they are a total waste of time. I have never ever been placed in a permanent job by any recruitment consultant. Every permanent job I have had I have got through applying direct. Recruitment consultants are as bad as estate agents, pushy sales people who are only interested in you when they think you are money. I feel a more in depth blog coming on about those cunts later.

I think I’ve come up with a simple and concise list, have I left anything out? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don’t!

Nuffield Health Can Suck It.

2011-01-04T20:33:00.003Z

So it’s January and usually I’d complain about the January whales (Thanks Tony, royalty check is in the post) and how crowded it is, etc but something new has got in my craw this year.

Nuffield Health in Reading took it in their infinite wisdom to jack up the price of my already pricey gym membership. Without any form of written indication that they were doing this. Come to think of it, I’m there 3-5 times a week is that not ample opportunity to inform me of this nugget of information?

Anyway...

I only found this out by logging into my online banking at work to see how much I’ve fucked myself over the Christmas period (not as hard as I’d thought) and I noticed they’ve increased my rate from £55 to £57.

I decided to ring up and enquire and I got a girl answer who didn’t seem to have any real authority, and then explained my predicament, and having been a member for two years how I didn’t feel increasing the price was adequate treatment for a loyal customer. She then went away for a minute or so and came back with what can at best be described as a lacklustre offer. £51 a month if I signed up for a year. Which in my book (and this is my book so to speak) sucks hairy wang.

Whilst the amount is not that huge of an increase, it’s the principal of the increase without telling me. That and I don’t think Nuffield Health in Reading actually provides a nearly £60 a month service.

For instance a lot of equipment is frayed and in various states of disrepair and not what I would call in premium condition for a premium price.

If you check out the website for Nuffield Health they paint a very good picture however if you look a little closer you will notice it’s not as swish as they’d have you believe.

Broken floor!

Heavily frayed and probably dangerous

Blue roll that staff couldn't be bothered to put in the
dispenser, it's the same on the other one too!

Botch job of covering up where the toilet roll
dispenser came off of the wall.

Leaking water fountain that is often running
onto the floor.

Some very sexy well used dilapidated mats

Held together by duct tape!

AND dirty!

So overall these chip away at the illusion of a premium end gym leaving you feeling a little shafted.

In my two years with Nuffield Health I was never given an induction or shown how to use the equipment safely, never once given any kind of plan to get the results I wanted. I have also never had a member of staff walk up to me and point out that I was doing something wrong, something other members have had the courtesy to come and point out!

It has been my observation that some of the female staff are primarily interested in talking to the guys in the weights area and the guys seem to only want to talk to their friends which aren’t working.

There are exclusions to this however, if I am to be fair there are a couple of good personal trainers / class instructors who make things fun and know their onions when it comes to gyming but they are few and far between.

Even taking the lack of courtesy and the decline in quality, the nearly £60 a month simply isn’t competitive. Within a stone’s throw of Nuffield Health you have the LivingWell gym within the Hilton on Kennet Island, as well as a cheap and cheerful gym in the corner of the main Piazza the name escapes me now but I will update this when I go down and have a look.

You also have numerous others (check out the map!) and even on the higher end of the spectrum you have Pulse8 which is less than Nuffield Health and is far, far nicer. Nuffield, step up your game or drop your price!

Overall my opinion right now of Nuffield Health is that it is overpriced with subpar quality and has real holes in their administration department / customer service if they can’t let members know in advance that they are about to increase the price in advance.

Anyone have any good gym recommendations (that aren't total wallet rape)? Leave a comment and let me know, or don’t.

Best of 2010

2010-12-30T12:22:00.004Z

I always mean to do this but I never ever do for some strange reason. So here it is, my top stuff for 2010.

My 10 Films of 2010
1) Toy Story 3

An emotionally satisfying end to a film series I grew up with. When I first heard about this film I was worried it would be a another shameless exercise in bleeding money out of a franchise that should just be left well enough along but thats not at all how Toy Story 3 felt so I’m happy.

2) Tron: Legacy

I was not a fan of the original Tron movie which I saw the first time a couple of weeks ago, Tron: Legacy was visually wonderful and the story wasn’t too phoned in. Take note Avatar.

3) The Other Guys

Will Ferrell returns at his quotable best. Highlights for me included “Gator’s bitches better be using Jimmies” and “Aim for the bushes”.

4) Despicable Me

Minions and “It’s SO FLUFFY!” – That is all!

5) Inception

I fail to see why people find this film so hard to comprehend. Man wants competitor out of the picture so they go into his head to plant the idea that he should dissolve his fathers companies. Is it that hard to get?

Notable mentions for: Red, Kick Ass, Date Night, Due Date and Iron Man 2

My Top 5 TV of 2010

1) Lost

I loved lost from the start. I even stuck through Season 3 and I felt that the journey was enjoyable even if the destination didn’t appease everyone. Also looks friggin amazing on Blu Ray.

2) Doctor Who

Gone but not forgotton

I started 2010 crying like a baby with the departure of David Tennant, then Easter came and brought us Matt Smith as the 11th incarnation of the Doctor and so far I’m enjoying it and have even managed to inflict it on other people too.

Don't forget kids, bow ties are cool. Unless you’re a cunt from Shoreditch.

3) The Walking Dead

Teachers’ Andrew Lincoln does his very best to put on an American accent which doesn’t quite hit the mark but overall the show is amazing. Very much looking forward to season 2 in October. That is a painfully long time to wait!

4) American Dad

Jeannie Gold - Wedding Planner

Amazing Christmas present

Some of you may ask why American Dad and not family guy? Well to answer, I find American dad consistently delivers. When Family Guy bombs, it bombs hard (And then there were fewer is a prime example) but when it gets it right it nails it (Road To The North Pole was awesome). American Dad goes from strength to strength and I really wish more people would give it a chance.

5) South Park

Again South Park delivers for me more often than not. The Coon & Friend Trilogy were a definite highlight this year.

Notable mentions for Family guy which had a shaky start to the season but has picked up as it goes along, Futurama as well as The Apprentice and good old cheesy X-Factor.

Best Game of 2010: Red Dead Redemption

Simply amazing. This game is visually stunning and has a compelling story that take you all over the old west. There are dozens of reviews of this game out there that are better than anything I can cobble together in 15 minutes when I should be doing work, suffice to say the game swallowed a massive chunk of my life as did its DLC “Undead Nightmare”. I tip my hat to you Rockstar.

January Sales Suck Balls

2010-12-15T15:09:00.000Z

I’ve got a minor grievance (shock, I know right) with January sales. My issue stems from the fact that I have never found anything decent in January sales ever and therefore I am bitter, jealous and resentful of those that do.

In my experience being an average Joe size wise, I have an average waist, leg length, chest etc so any clothes my size on sale are non existent. Instead however, there is a surplus of XXXXXXXL and XXXXXS which is of no use unless you are some anorexic queen or a fat-ass land manatee who eats those people. It sucks! Most of the crap in the sales isn't even worth what they are selling it for, its just a lot of people will buy any old shit if it has a sale sticker on. Its simply maddening.

The main thing I can’t get my head around is that people will queue, sometimes sleeping outside shops just to buy shit that they didn’t want to buy in the previous 12 months. It makes no sense to me. If I see something I like, that fits and looks good on me and doesn’t make me look like I have tits, I’m buying it! End of! I’m not going to take a gamble and see if its going to be 3% off in December, oh and you won’t be allowed to return it. Fuck that. If it is some kind of electrical good then I will shop around a few places before making any kind of purchase but saying that I have never found anything I would consider a good deal in any January sale at the main high street places. It’s all online for me.

I do know people that will come back with bags and bags of crap from sales, that all get bundled into wardrobes and never worn. It makes no sense!! Don’t buy crap just because its cheap it is insane and a total waste of money. Sigh.

Well now I have pre-emptively saved you all some money in January here is my Christmas list, it’s online so you don’t have to queue! Aren’t I good to you!

A massive “fuck you” to EasyJet

2010-12-01T10:11:00.000Z

So after speaking with my friend Ruari for 10 years, him being one of the first people I was able to talk to and open up to about my sexuality I thought that was enough time to bite the bullet and go up to Edinburgh and meet him. So late Monday morning I decided to book flights for next Tuesday to make the journey and go see him.

Alas the gods of fate decided that plan wasn’t to be and Ruari has had to cancel on me. That’s fine, its over a weeks notice. So Tuesday morning I tried to get hold of a “customer service” representative (this will be written in that manner as I don’t believe there was any level of customer services on offer) to try get the flight cancelled and my money refunded. Surely a simple request? Not in EasyJets book...

I first tried at 9am and jumped through the crappy automated voice recognition hoops and got cut off straight away after pressing 1, the number for cancelling flights. This was driving me mad as was being on hold for long periods of time with the 24 hour time limit fast approaching I decided to try the social media route. Complaining on Twitter generally makes businesses react (in my experience).

So I tried that and got fobbed off with generic bullshit replies like “I can give you the number for customer services” which are of no help and show a profound lack of:
a) Authority to make any kind of proper decision
b) Actual understanding of the problem
c) Actual understanding of my frustration

I also thought I’d try get some customer service on Facebook. No Joy here:

New levels of sarcasm detected
(click to read as EasyJet will probably delete it from their Facebook page)

Side question to EasyJet: What is the point of you paying for a Social Media weasel? All I can see that he does is tweet stories about snow and disruption? Do you morons realise you can set this up with an RSS feed? Good, now make them redundant. There you go I just saved you between £20,000 and £30,000 a year. Right, surely now you can afford to give me my money back with this extra cash laying around?

Anyway...

After this path proved fruitless I called again, pressed another combination of numbers to speak to a person and due to “snow” and “staff shortages” it wasn’t until nearly 2pm and being on hold for most of the morning and early afternoon (10p per minute, more from mobiles by the way) that I actually got to speak to an actual human (DNA tests inconclusive on the specimens I spoke with) which of course, put me over the 24 hour cancellation period.

The “customer service” rep I spoke to said that because I was over the period would have to pay a £30 cancellation fee per flight per person which adds up to £60 and the cost of the flights I paid totalled £87.14. I also wouldn’t be entitled to the travel insurance or baggage money back, effectively meaning I would get nothing back from EasyJet whatsoever. I asked to speak with his manager and was flat out refused.

Now I have worked in admin before and the actual admin cost of taking someone off a list is minimal if anything at all, its not like the passenger manifest is carved into marble and to have my name removed from said marble is where the expense lays. This is pure unadulterated greed and fraud by a company so shady and sleazy most MP’s would be embarrassed.

Default response from EasyJet "customer services"

Come to think of it surely the cost of dealing with my complaint to their business (“Customer Service” reps, a rather clueless social media weasel etc) probably equates to more than my flight.

My plea to EasyJet is to give me back my £87.14 and as a gesture of goodwill refund me the cost of being on hold to your “customer service” department.

Finally, my plea to you, the reader is to never ever deal with EasyJet, learn from my mistake. Book with a proper airline, one that flies over water. One where the in-flight meal isn’t Pringles. Book with an airline where the Scottish pound isn’t considered foreign currency. Book with an airline that actually gives a shit about their reputation, and more importantly their customers.

Have you been screwed by EasyJet? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don’t.

Suggestions For Motorway Improvements

2010-11-24T08:54:00.001Z

I don't know what's going on lately with the M4 but it seems even leaving to avoid every other cunt at 7am is proving to be a massive exercise in futility. Since the so called "improvements" made at Junction 11 I am finding my average journey is taking 20 mins+ a day. So seeing as it will cost the morons who made the decision to "fix" junction 11 a lot of money to put it back how it was I have some suggestions to help improve the flow of traffic.

If I started I'd never stop.

1) 70 is the new minimum speed.
If you, or your vehicle are unable to drive at a minimum of 70 miles per hour you have no business being on a motorway. It is designed for people who have places to be. Not for those on a leisurely drive or a school run. The amount of middle aged women or very old men that I see doing 50 in the first lane is simply maddening! Get off the motorway! It’s massively disruptive to people joining from the slip road and people behind you.

2) No middle lane hogging.
This one is actually in the highway code (if memory serves me correctly) but the second and third lanes are actually for overtaking, not for general driving. People who sit in the middle lane bimbling along at 50-60 miles per hour need to be run off the road, pulled from their cars and executed in front of others to drive home the message that you need to get the fuck out of my fucking way.

Firing squads would create much needed jobs.

3) HGV’s banned from overtaking.
I have no comprehension of why this happens, I’m sure you have seen it. Some gigantic lorry is behind another gigantic lorry. Lorry A at the front is doing 56.5 miles per hour and the dickhead behind in Lorry B decides he wants to do 56.75 miles per hour, it then takes seemingly forever for cocksucker B to overtake cocksucker A at which point the flow of traffic behind has been massively disrupted to the point of a crawl. I find this infuriating! Lorries are incredibly slow to accelerate so why don’t they either get the fuck off the road or sit behind their moronic sloth like brethren?

4) Keep a safe distance.
If you cause an accident by driving up someone’s arse when they brake then congratulations. You’re the reason why its taking me over an hour to get into work. You should be pulled from your car and executed by the side of the road and left for the foxes and badgers to feed on.

Have you got any suggestions? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

10 Things I’d Rather Have Spent £135,000 On

2010-11-11T11:33:00.009Z

In one of the more enraging moments of work that I’ll probably remember for my entire life, the other day I learned that the company I work for has spunked £135,000 on a corporate video. This is the same company that in the 2+ years I have been there has had a hiring freeze (that never really happened as it seems that ~~marketers~~ time vampires constantly found their way into the building) and a salary increase freeze.

So yeah, 2 years, no pay increase and £135k blown on some wanky piece of generic corporate garbage that no one will ever give two shits about.

Personally I’m quite a whiz on Adobe After Effects and could have cobbled something together for much, much less than £135k. So in response to this epically stupid decision I have come up with 10 much better ways to go through £135,000.

1) Hire Jimmy Carr for 13.5 days

I think he’d lighten the mood in a sometimes unbearably restrictive environment.

2) More Cocaine than the human body can handle

Nuff Said.

3) 135,000 downloads of Surfin’ Bird By The Trashmen

I want this as Christmas number one. Haven’t you heard? It was my understanding that everyone had heard.

4) A huge fancy dress wardrobe for the office
Dressing up is fun.

5) Subsidised food
It’s 65p here for a Twix. That’s rape in my book.

6) Private jet to fly into the office killing the time vampires

The refreshing sounds of silence...

Cheapest is 15k, we’d have enough money for a decent wake too.

7) Bringing John Candy back from the dead

Uncle Buck 2 could happen!

8) Expedition to prove or disprove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster

Why not? Still more value in that than a dumbass shmuk video.

9) Cloning Me
I feel this would be beneficial. For me.

10) Burn it.

The new marketing manager manages the budget.

That’s right. Just fucking burn it. Take it out of the bank in £5 notes and burn the whole fucking lot. Torch the fucking lot because if its not going to be spent on staff you're screwing out of raises then I'd rather see it burned.

So that's my thoughts, what would you rather your company wasted £135,000 on? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

A Plea to The Emotionally Retarded, and Stephenie Meyer...

2010-10-19T22:09:00.002+01:00

Something I just can’t get my head around and something that frustrates me to the point my arsehole could snap a pencil in twain. I know it is hard to believe, but I get frustrated a lot, and this has frustrated me for years and for some reason I’ve never taken the time to write it down.

“I need a boyfriend”

I hear this phrase a lot. I hear it from gay guys usually and it makes me want to scream. No one, anywhere, ever, needs or has ever needed a boyfriend. It is not pivotal to survival in the hunter gatherer sense of the word. What these people mean is “I want a boyfriend”.

I don’t understand why?

I think it’s my sociopathic tendencies or maybe the fact I am dead inside but why do some people have to be with someone or more often the point, anyone?

I find in my experience those guys who are always in relationships just can’t function being single. The overwhelming urge to be with someone takes over and they are forever in “relationship” mode and when they are single they mope around like that bitch in the Twilight movies (more on those later) and will actively seek dates with pretty much anyone until someone sticks around. They are so desperate to not be single they end up settling for non deserving pricks 99% of the time. Then the relationship ends and we repeat the cycle again.

The people who say they need a boyfriend in my book obviously have incredibly low self esteem / self worth as it seems that the only way they can achieve self worth is if someone else gives it to them, and that to me screams of someone with major personality problems. Why can’t these guys learn to love themselves first; before getting into a relationship.

I’m not opposed to relationships at all, but I’m not actively seeking one. If I meet a guy and find I like him and he likes me then we’ll see where it goes and you never know it may work, it may not. What I’m not going to do is sit alone, pining and thinking I’m worthless. I’m confident, I have self worth and I have some really good friends who I love to bits and a lot of friends up north and down south who I really should make the effort to see more of. What more do I need? I crave nothing else. I feel a more or less well balanced individual who is capable of functioning on his own.

A mindset which the Twilight films really seem to be eroding from a generation. Case in point, why the hell does that girl spend so much time whining and desperate to be with either hot werewolf guy or big hair vampire guy? Not once in any of the films does she entertain the prospect of just being single and being happy with herself! Is this the message Stephenie Meyer wants young people to listen to?

If so I’m taking a job with the Samaritans to see if I can cull some of these oxygen thieves from the gene pool.

In a nut shell a relationship should compliment your life, not complete it.

Thoughts? Comments?

Monster.com Privacy Rape

2010-10-06T09:29:00.000+01:00

The good people at Monster have decided in their infinite wisdom to remove the block companies feature.

This sneaky fucker is selling you out.

“Monster is always committed to enhancing and protecting your privacy. As part of this effort, we would like to inform you that we have removed the ‘Blocked Companies’ feature from our site.”

Question to the moron who suggested this idea, HOW IS THIS PROTECTING OUR PRIVACY?!

I for one think this is a particularly bad idea almost certainly rooted in some clients of theirs stamping their feet demanding more access to more people and monster having their monopoly deciding to trample on the rights of its commodity (the jobseeker).

What this means is if you have your CV on monster your current employer can now find you and make your life miserable for wanting to look elsewhere for work, this sadly is a reality for many people currently employed.

I wrote back to complain and received a phone call soon after from a customer service advisor telling me that I could set my CV to confidential, which for many people will not help as this doesn’t change anything on the uploaded word version of your CV and does limit the appeal of your CV.

My advice to anyone who doesn’t want their employer to see they are job seeking is to:

A) Set your CV to private so no companies can find it and apply for jobs that you want – not ideal for those in dire need of a new job as this prevents people from contacting you.

B) (Monster recommended) set your CV to confidential, this removes your name and current job from your profile, not your word version of your CV so you will need to edit that. My argument against this is that a lot of recruiters are pressed for time and will just skip over anything that looks hard. Doing it this way also prevents people in your company’s competition from searching for you.

Or my personal recommended option:

C) Delete your data from Monster and give them a firm middle finger, they make their money selling access to your data. Without your data they don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

Are you on monster looking for work, or just there open to job offers? How will this affect you? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don’t.

Sick to the tits of Twitter

2010-09-28T11:35:00.002+01:00

Something that has been grinding my gears lately is Twitter. Actually that’s not fair. The idea of Twitter I like, a nice clean no nonsense place where you can get short, relevant updates from people you are interested in.

Spam Overdose.

However this is not the case. It is fast becoming just another dumping ground for the offal that inept lazy marketers to hock their irrelevant shitty wares. While I enjoy the people I follow I notice that most of the people that follow me on twitter are companies with no relevance to me, or anything that I want who are just following me because I happened to tweet a key word that is of interest to them. From those I then get dozens of replies asking me to check out their website. Where is the value in that? Where is the personal dialogue and how is that different from being spammed dozens of irrelevant pointless emails from some faceless company?

I really don’t see why some marketers are creaming their collective knickers thinking that this is some holy grail of untapped leads? It’s not. Its about being genuine, personable, interacting and most of all, being interesting. Something I will say 99.99% of marketers simply aren’t doing. I personally have never and will never click on any link sent to me from some company I am not following and I urge you to do the same. These marketers need to wake up to the harsh reality that new and different doesn’t guarantee results if you’re not changing your mindset from the outdated spray and pray methodology.

I think its fair to say my impression of “social media marketing” is quite low but there are people that do get it very right. Of the people I follow Benjamin Gaines from Omniture is very good at this and gets it, Tom Smith gets it, AussieBum get it, Firebox get it, Robert Haslam gets it and those are the only corporate people I follow. They interact, they answer questions and they are real people I want to hear from or like to know better.

On a slightly off topic note gaining thousands of followers and following hundreds of thousands of people can’t add value can it? How can you maintain a relationship with that many people? You simply can’t, not an interactive one anyway and I think doing that you fall into the trap of being just another spammy useless time vampire.

Oh another slightly off topic tangential rant, don’t tweet every five seconds. It’s tedious. People who swallow my feed with their crap I will unfollow.

So to surmise. No, I am not going to buy now, register, download, attend, read, view, save now, win, or any other ridiculous call to action to help you reach your volume targets around leads.

Urgent? Really?

2010-09-21T08:55:00.001+01:00

This blog may not resonate with all of you but for some of you I think you may sit there and agree with me on this one. “Urgent”. This really grinds my gears.

Why do people feel the need to classify their email or request as “urgent” when what they actually mean is “I am disorganised and simply cannot prioritise my work so rush around acting like a twat to ensure things get done” it fucks me off.

What pisses me off more is that process is built around their inability to get things done in a logical order. For example we have an internal request system for the web and e-marketing team and because so many people are disorganised the powers that be took it upon themselves in their infinite wisdom to create “Critical” with a view to distinguish those requests that are just there because Time Vampires can’t manage their time and those requests that have a direct and immediate impact on revenue company wide.

Guess what? Time Vampires use critical for their mundane work! I had a request to create a new send from email address yesterday and it was prioritised as “critical”. Now did this have an immediate and detrimental effect on revenue company wide? No. Did this effect the operation on the company? No. In fact as far as it goes this one is lower on the priority list then running out of clean tea spoons in the kitchen (something I find simply intolerable)

My request to any Time Vampires who may be reading this blog (or that have the ability to read) is that you please take the time to think about your task as a whole, and not one part at a time with no thought about the future. If you are working on a campaign it should be no surprise you will need to build a list, design an email, send it, follow up on responses, etc. So please prioritise and ask to get stuff before the eleventh hour.

Does anyone else suffer with people who are unable to prioritise? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

I hate Hutchison 3G

2010-08-25T12:07:00.001+01:00

I’m not a happy customer. Again. Once again the utter stupidity at Hutchison 3G has surpassed expectations. Let me regale you with the past weeks stupidity outbreak.

Wednesday 18th August 2010
I get an email from the good people at Apple saying that my iphone 4 will be with me on Thursday so I ring Hutchison 3G customer services to order my Micro SIM. They inform me that the Micro SIM will be with me in 3-5 working days. Bit long to wait I think, considering I can order from Amazon.co.uk / play.com / firebox.com and have my order with me next day 99% of the time. Alas I go to bed eager to receive my shiny new gadget.

Thursday 19th August 2010 - (Day 1 with no phone)
Around lunch time it comes to my attention that I can’t make or receive any form of communication from my phone which I thought was odd and received an error message saying “SIM Registration Failed” so I ring their Indian call centre (no customer service in the UK) to check what is going on, having strong suspicions that they’ve cut me off because a new Micro SIM card is on the way. The person on the end of the phone (once I had entered my phone number, access code, DOB and reconfirmed it with them) confirmed my suspicions that they had in fact cut me off. Without me receiving the new SIM card.

Whilst I was quite pissed off with this I did think oh well, at least it will arrive tomorrow and I can activate my iPhone.

Friday 20th August 2010 (Day 2 with no phone)
Having woken up and wondered down to the post box there was no Micro SIM card for me, not happy. Especially not happy as the next day was my birthday meal and I was having family over who aren’t familiar with Reading and would need directions, confirmations of time etc. I then call Hutchison 3G customer services again and I am told that it is standard procedure to cut off the old SIM card immediately. I express my displeasure with the situation and ask when I should receive my SIM and I was told Saturday 21st at the latest.

Saturday 21st August 2010 (Day 3 with no phone)
Was woken up by the buzzer! Huzzah I think to myself, my Micro SIM card has arrived! WRONG. It’s Reading Festival tickets for my housemate. Oh and no SIM card for Joey. It was the day of my birthday meal and I had no phone and no way of my family contacting me. Great.

I sent out messages on Facebook and hoped that they were received in good time and filtered to people not on Facebook. Going off slightly tangentially, turns out ordering a taxi without a mobile is fucking ball ache too. I rang Ace Cars at 18:30 and asked for a taxi to Reading town centre at no later then 19:15 and they arrived at 19:49. Lots of running upstairs to the flat to find out where these dickheads were, being told “any second” and running down stairs, waiting 5 minutes and running back up. Repeat until homicidal. When they did turn up I told them to piss off as I had by then asked a friend to come get me.

Sunday 22nd August 2010 (Day 4 with no phone)
The day before my birthday, no post on Sundays. I rang Three again and said it had better arrive tomorrow as it’s my birthday and I’m expecting calls and texts etc.

I was mentioning my ordeal to a friend of mine who works as an IT manager for a well known Antivirus company and he said that his company deal with Vodafone & O2 for their corporate contracts, and that Vodafone and O2 do not cut their existing SIM cards off until the new one has been inserted into a phone, been turned on and activated.

Monday 23nd August 2010 (Day 5 with no phone)
It’s my birthday! Guess what was in the post box: BIG CREAMY PILES OF FUCK ALL! By this point I’m at about an 8/10 on my customer dissatisfaction Richter scale of rage. Again, I ring Three and ask what the hell is going on. Why isn’t my Micro SIM card with me and why did they cut me off without receipt of the new SIM card. The person at Three said “you were told that it would take 3-5 days for the Micro SIM card to arrive” which pushed my up to 8.5 and I then demanded to know why my existing SIM card was cancelled without receiving the new one. “This is standard process” she said. In my opinion their “standard process” is inherently negative to the customer! I asked why they do this when Vodafone and O2 don’t and didn’t get a decisive answer. I suspect it’s simply because they don’t give a shit.

I then questioned why it’s taken 5+ days for it to be posted to me, when I can order from many online stores and get my product next day. No answer to that. I could have fashioned a Micro SIM card out of wood by this point!

Then I said will I be charged for these days without being able to use my phone and the Customer Disservice rep pottered off for 10 minutes and they offered me a £5 credit on my bill. £5 doesn’t cover the electricity used to power the phone to make the 5 calls to their inept customer service call centres.

Tuesday 24th August (Day 6 with no phone)
Had to go into work early to have a meeting with the new CIO about who I am and what I do and how much of my time is sucked by time vampires so wasn’t there to check the post as it came in but when I got home I opened my mail box to see my brand new Micro SIM from Three. Nah just kidding, there was fuck all in there.

Enough is enough and I ring them, again, and go through the hoops and press the button to indicate I wish to leave Three. Today’s customer disservice rep was a little more switched on when I retold my story for the 6th time and asked to confirm the dispatching address. The fucking morons had sent it to my old address, an address I had not lived in for over a year.

This has caused me to go to 10 on the Richter scale of customer dissatisfaction. I asked how the fuck can they manage to send my bills each and every month to the correct address when I changed it months ago, but not one cretin there updated the other addresses?

I’m writing this in a letter to them as I cannot fathom the business decisions that go into making this kind of fuck up.

Anyway my hands hurt from typing.

Have Three pissed you off? Leave a comment and let me know, or don’t.

Why I think Kate & Gerry Mccann did it.

2010-08-16T23:08:00.004+01:00

I remember at the time I thought something about those two just doesn't seem right.

In my life I have had the misfortune of seeing the coverage of a few missing children and none have ever had the media coverage that these two got. That bothered me. A lot. and as much as I'd like to make this a blog about how disproportionate that whole mess of crap was, alas I'm going to maintain focus on my main reason why I think they did it.

Kate Mccann's hair.

I did a Google Image Search and found a professionally
shot image of Kate Mccann doing a sad pose! WTF?!

You may laugh but I'm being deadly serious. If you look at video footage of her throughout this whole thing that bitch looks immaculate. Not a hair out of place, perfect make up. She looks a million dollars.

Lets take a wander back through time:

Week 1

1) 05/05/2007 - 2 Days after Madeleine's "dissapearance" if you look at the video on this early news story you can see her hair is a bit wind swept and she looks a bit upset but her make up isn't running, or more to the point, Kate Mccann is wearing a full face of make up and some nice silver earrings. No puffy eyes, no greasy "I've not showered in 2 days" hair. No siree...

2) 05/05/2007 - This later statement Kate says nothing and Gerry Mccann expresses no emotion and speaks in a cold monotone. I'm not convinced any father who has lost a child would be this calm and composed two days into an ordeal of this magnitude.

3) 07/05/2007 - 4 days after the "abduction" you'll notice both Kate and Gerry appear well rested and somber. Kate hasn't gone overboard with the eye make up here but this womans eyes don't appear puffy from crying or from lack of sleep. Two things that I can assure you any parent in their right mind would have an abundance of if their child was abducted.

4) 10/05/2007 - 6 days in, a new statement delivered by a spokesperson. In 6 days you have managed to source a spokesperson? This thought runs through your mind in less then a week since you "lost" your daughter?

Right lets flash forward. I've established that these people are not acting as one would in the event of a "loss" of a child.

One Month later

02/06/2007 - One day shy of a month later. Kate and Gerry look good. Kate is well kitted out and sporting a nice blowdry next to Gerry who sounds as emotionally invested as I am when trying to locate my post-it notes on my desk. Notice the lovely backdrop with pictures, a website, a logo etc. Not bad going is it! Parents, how long would it take you to find a good web & graphic design team?

05/06/2007 - The Mcanns do crimewatch. We're now just over a month, they both look pretty well done still. Kate sporting a simple pony tail with a green / yellow ribbon and lets face it, her make up is perfect. Also to note, they can now identify a suspect? Weird. That hadn't popped up before...

August (2 Months later)

07/08/2007 - Kate looks like a movie star. She's clearly had highlights done recently and having worked as a colour technician for over a year in the past I can say with some confidence that what she had done is a full head of highlights, with her length of hair would have taken between 45 minutes and an hour to put in, 30-45 minutes to develop and then an additional 45 minutes to cut and dry.

Parents answer me this if nothing else: Could you sit there, in a hairdressers for nearly 2 and a half hours having your hair done knowing that some paedophile had his sweaty hands on your child?

One Year Later

01/05/2008 - Another video, this time we're a year on and they both look incredibly well presented and lets face it, they look "over it". Mind you, they didn't look particularly emotionally invested to begin with.
I linger Kate's hair for this reason. Sara Payne, mother of murdered child Sarah Payne. This woman in her first press conference looked like absolute hell. She continued to look like absolute hell in every media appearance I can recall her being in. This article has a picture of her from her first press conference and as of now I can't find a video anywhere on the BBC website from 2000 that isn't in RM format (seriously they need to sort that) and its clear this woman is distraught, devastated and missing a child.

How a distraught parent actually looks.

The bottom line in my opinion (don't sue me, as they have a tendancy to do) is that Kate and Gerry Mccann know what happened. There are dozens of theories I've read, I know what I think happened, but for me the hair is the tell. The whole thing reeks of messed up priorities, posturing and image. Not for the well being of this "abducted child". For that reason I believe they know what happened and had a hand in it.

What do you think? Am I on the money? How would you cope if your child was abducted? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Marketing Time Vampires Strike Again...

2010-08-12T09:32:00.000+01:00

“I need a way to send my shitty 25% off mailers to more people quicker with less work”

This is the conclusion of a heated conversation between myself and head time vampire yesterday in the office. It seems that the biggest challenge that this particular division of the company I work for isn’t coming up with relevant, engaging content. Nor is it being able to target your message to a specific vertical. It isn’t automating campaigns that can send timely mailers to relevant interested people.

No. It’s not.

Apparently It’s coming up with a way of sending out mailers in 5 languages to 3 internally classified types of customer, types which make no difference to anyone outside the company.

The way they are currently doing it is by splitting the targeting into existing / potential customers and the 3 internally classified customer types . This is not advanced marketing or segmentation. This is marketing basics that my 6 year old nephew could comprehend. It seems researching to see if a particular industry is easier to close business with is too much effort, whereas the pray and spray method reigns supreme.

The message is always basically the same too! “Hard vs. Easy” or “Slow vs. Fast” or some variation of that, then the customary “25% off” devaluing desperate offer to grab and claw at business with an abundance of other useless marketing drawl text. Even if that is the way you choose to market why not set up an automated process to send the drop you pants on price mailer? I could easily save this company £100,000 a year on HR costs alone by setting up that process and allowing to make that team redundant. That’s not even taking into consideration the translation costs.

So I’m back to banging my head against a wall and contemplating looking into ways to slay time vampires.

Anyone know what kills time vampires?? Leave a comment and let me know.

Simple Weight Loss Tips

2010-08-10T11:58:00.001+01:00

Something that has been grinding my gears lately is the land manatees at my gym. I honestly don’t understand the logic behind paying £55 a month to be a member of a gym, when all you do is sit in the steam room / sauna, perhaps expecting the fat to magically sweat out.

So for those people I have come up with a handy visual guide to weight loss.

Sitting in a sauna or a steam room reading a newspaper is not going to make you thin or attractive to humans. If it did we’d all be doing it.

Sadly you need to bust your ass doing monotonous, soul destroying cardiovascular exercise. This means things like running, spinning classes, swimming and such like. Not cake.

While I’m on a rant about the gym I wish people wouldn’t take their offspring there. Nothing makes me want to leave quicker than a swimming pool with children fucking about splashing and making general noise. Leave them in kennels and pick them up later. Don’t drag them to interrupt my work out.

What grinds your gears about the gym? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

I don’t have time...

2010-08-05T10:51:00.001+01:00

Today I’ve got my marketing guru hat on and I’ve been thinking about a phrase I hear a lot from some marketers, a phrase which drives me to despair and frenzy. A phrase that once uttered makes me wish I could fire that person on the spot for gross stupidity.

That phrase is “I don’t have time”.

The key aspect of my job is to help the business maximise the ROI (Return on Investment) from marketing activities. I have extensively researched various best practices which I am trying to roll out to the company I work for, currently with limited success. The main reason I hear for people not being willing to adopt marketing best practices such as building a targeted list, tailoring your message to the audience and delivering it in a timely manner is “I don’t have time”.

From anyone who works in marketing this is unacceptable. To make this quite transparent, in my mind “I don’t have time” translates to: “I’m too busy to do my job properly”

The very point (as I understand it) of marketing within the IT industry is to promote your product or service well enough to generate decent quality leads and prospects for sales to work on.

It is not to have the appearance of being busy. Being busy is fine, but if it’s because you are not good at what you do, or can’t manage your time or have no desire to do better, then you need to re-evaluate why the hell you are in that job.

This issue I have stems from my own twisted mind I’m sure, as I’m my own worst critic and my own biggest fan, I think being both helps keep me objective and makes me strive for self improvement. I love finding better ways of doing what I do, professionally and personally and relish in the benefits of my own self improvement. It’s because of this I find it so frustrating when I come across people that lack that desire to do better and just accept mediocrity as the level to hit.

Does “I don’t have time” drive you mad? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don’t.

*JoeyNova - If you're wondering what the links are for "I don't have time" its something a colleague of mine built as maternity cover for a particularly inept marketing time vampire we have to deal with.

5 Marketing Phrases That Make Me Want To Puke

2010-07-28T21:12:00.006+01:00

Becoming a guru of marketing has been a long, weary road for me and along the way I’ve been exposed to a number of phrases that I find most irksome. Irksome to the point where a little bit of sick comes up and I want to roundhouse someone. I thought I’d share those with you in the hopes my word shall spread and one day the public will be spared this asinine brain diarrhoea.

1) “Best of Breed”
Unless you are a famed animal breeder you have no business using this phrase. Especially when it comes to technology. You didn’t get two pieces of software drunk on cheap wine and put on some Barry White. You either purchased a company and are now selling their product / service or you’ve got a top secret farm with software developers in small cages (battery software developers if you will) and are forcing them to mate. On the plus side they’d be getting much, much more sex.

Best of breed makes me think you’re product is so inbred that hill-billy red necks look down their noses at it. Stop using it, you sound moronic and pretentious.

2) “% Off / Limited / Special / Save Now / Exclusive / Offer”
In my eyes this is the emarketing equivalent of a luminous piece of card in the shape of a star in a shop window. My main problems with it are that It’s common looking. It doesn’t resonate with any audience. It devalues your product / service and it makes you look desperate and not very credible.

If you send this shit out to people every single month people won’t respond and I imagine are put off buying in the middle of the month because they are thinking “what’s the point, they’ll only drop their pants on the price come month end when the sales managers are pissing their pants about their targets”. The more savvy web buyer may even wait until quarter end for the even more “exclusive limited offer” mailer that will no doubt come round. Seriously people, stop doing it. You're not DFS.

If you have no better way to sell you product then by dropping your pants on price like some cheap whore then you probably shouldn’t be working in marketing.

3) “See The Future”
Do you have a time travelling Delorean? Are you sent back in time to eliminate Sarah Connor? Chances are you’ll be answering no to both of those questions. If you did answer no to those questions then you should not be using that phrase anywhere. Ever. It makes you look like a retard.

You cannot see the future, no more than I can. I can however make assumptions, my assumption is if you’re using that phrase then you’re probably not very good at your job and have all the creative writing skill of dried pavement phlegm.

4) “The Cloud”
It’s the fucking internet, okay? I was going to do an entire post around why I hate the cloud but I can probably concentrate it to a few lines. One of the main problems I have with marketing in general is I feel a lot of it is unnecessary bullshit designed to alienate people and create a perception of self importance for the company. “The Cloud” is a prime example of this. In a nut shell it means "online", your stuff is hosted by someone else and you can access it through the interweb.

Why unnecessarily complicate things for people who may be interested to know they can potentially do away with big technical servery type things? It makes no sense. So yeah, cut that crap right out.

5) “Professional”
As opposed to what? The edition you release that is installed by a drunken self defecating clown?

People expect professionalism. Stating your product or service as “Professional” shows you have a real lack of understanding of the USP’s (Unique Selling Points) or FAB (Features, Advantages, Benefits) of your product / service. That or it just doesn’t have any because it is shit.

What marketing phrases make you want to punch someone?

Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Suck on that Sony!

2010-07-27T09:03:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update, I managed to fix the PS3 Yellow Light of Death and I did it myself. So Sony, you may not have £130 of my money.

So if your PS3 breaks and you know me, I'll fix it. For a nominal fee.

The Yellow Light of Death Strikes

2010-07-25T19:57:00.000+01:00

Bastard buggery fucky cunty shity arsey bollocky tits minge flaps gashy turdy wank!

Last night my trusty PS3 was struck down by the dreaded "Yellow Light of Death", having already watched the BBC Watchdog investigations into it I knew that Sony were not going to be of any help to a loyal customer who has spent hundreds of pounds on the console, controllers, Playstation Network downloads, Singstore downloads and more. Anyway, I decided that I would still ring up and try my luck, which proved to be a futile endeavour.

According to Peter at Sony technical support, Sony don't repair your console, instead they charge £130 for you to be sent a refurbished console of the same age and model. Which to me seems pretty stupid as plenty of people have been having this fault. Why not as a gesture of good will either:
a) Repair peoples consoles that have gone wrong due to your shoddy workmanship or
b) Give them new consoles that apparently don't suffer from this fault.

What pissed me off is that Sony won't even give you your data back! This is total horse shit.

So what's the cause of the yellow light of death and how can I fix it?
Well according to most online forums its the console over heating and melting the connections with the motherboard and CPU, or something technical to that effect. There are people that explain it better then me out there so I'm not going to try that hard.

Having looked around the web I came across a few resources but I'd like to inform people of this blatant scams, http://www.ps3lightsfix.com. I would like anyone who comes across my blog to please not give this jackass any money.

There are easy to use videos on YouTube describing in simple step by step terms how to fix the most common cause of the yellow light. They don't charge you a penny. All you need is a heat gun, screwdrivers, pressurised can of air (for dust) and some thermal compound. This shouldn't cost you more then £30 - £40 if you're going to buy it all yourself and will cost you even less if you happen to be lucky enough to know anyone with a heat gun!

Alas I don't know anyone with a heat gun that works, Louise did kindly lend me one but it too is fucked. (Jebus doesn't want me playing PS3 evidently) so will be going to B&Q to buy the £20 one and to Maplin to get some thermal compound.

My Progress
First thing I did was tried using my sonic screwdriver.

Apparently replicas of science fiction television show props don't work. So I continued to take my PS3 apart:

And finally, due to lack of heat gun and thermal compound, this is where I am at now:

I was going to annotate what part was what, but I honestly have no fucking clue any more and am dreading putting all this back together. I sense an epic bitch fit coming on tomorrow after my trip to B&Q and Maplin.

Failing that, its bonus day Friday so I'll just begrudgingly buy a slimline one. Grrrr.

I'll update on my success / failure later on in the week. Wish me luck!

Also if anyone has had this problem and overcome it without giving those cunts at Sony any money do comment and let me know.

Unless you're a Chinese spammer. In which case please leave my blog alone and 染上癌症.

Omniture Update & Why I Will Never Ever Use WebTrends.

2010-07-21T23:59:00.004+01:00

It’s been just over a month since I threw my toys out of the pram about my trials and tribulations with Omniture and I felt that I should post an update to reflect the positive steps those guys have taken to rectify it.

Within a couple of hours of posting I had a comment from Benjamin Gaines, Product Manager at Omniture who, quite civilly and politely responded to me in a diplomatic manner, when to be honest my comments were quite harsh and he didn’t need to be. (Benjamin’s comments and mine are able to be read in their entirety, unedited on the original post)

After the initial comment exchange on my blog, further discussion took place over email and the next working day I had a follow up call with our account manager and our new implementation consultant, who is infinitely better then the last one. Much more consultation was done in that 1 hour call then was done in months of strained conversations and the odd email with our previous consultant.

As it stands now I am happier with our implementation and we now have:

A working “Downloads” report - I am much more confident that the numbers tally up with our CRM system then before and can confidently present this information to management types without looking like a cretin. More so.

A working integration with Exact Target and Site Catalyst – I can now tell marketers exactly how well / badly their email has performed. I can see how many people opened, clicked through, started a web form and completed it. These numbers are very useful as before marketers would coast on “but I got a good click through rate” where as Exact Target counts an unsubscribe as a click through I can now give them a more detailed analysis of their success. Big Win for team Omniture there.

There are still some other things we need to sort out but I’m more confident now then I have been in recent months that these things will get done. So thanks to Benjamin and co on sorting that out. Very impressed with your professionalism and work.

Now on to Webtrends and why I personally will never EVER buy from them.

For those of you who don’t work in e-marketing or web related gubbins, Webtrends do a similar product to Google Analytics and Omniture’s Site Catalyst. They all give you web stats.

Anyway after posting my rant about Omniture, I received a phone call, at work from Jon Levinsohn from Webtrends who had somehow managed to stalk me to my work place and had somehow managed to get my direct dial.

Now I make a point to never mention who I work for; a couple of reasons:

I don’t want weirdo’s, stalkers, freaks, ex’s (or all of the above) hunting me down and giving me grief at work.
Nothing I say officially represents my company in any way shape or form. The two are totally and completely unconnected.

Anyway, I have no idea how this guy managed it but I was royally pissed off.

When I took his call I wanted him off the phone as I was so angry and shocked that he had managed this, he then was quite persistent, rude and pushy on the phone. He then followed up with an email to my private hotmail address! Without going into too much detail and giving away personal information on this blog I will say that the tactics used by Webtrends are underhanded, unethical and I am still livid.

I want nothing to do with Webtrends. Ever. Even if Omniture caused the website to blow up, I would not use Webtrends. I may have had my issues with Omniture but at least I respect them!

If the social media representative from Webtrends is reading this and half as on the ball as Ben Gaines is, I will say this: Do not contact me. Do not follow up on this. I do not want to hear from your organisation again and I urge anyone who reads this to take heed and don’t do business with a company that employs people who engage in this kind of behaviour.

What Social Media Is (And What It Isn't)

2010-07-19T08:41:00.003+01:00

For those of you who aren’t clued up with marketing and web lingo social media is things like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging and what not. Its a way to share information you have and to interact with information others have out there. Notice how I underlined and bolded the word interact? Subtle aren't I!

That’s the key word in social media. I’ll highlight it again. Interact. Something I feel that very few marketers understand is that its all about the interaction. For years they have used traditional web marketing to stand up high and shout their message down upon both their customers and their potential customers without having to hear anything back, and one of the best things about things like Twitter or Facebook is that it gives those people a voice to give valuable feeback. Or at least it should, if marketers were to listen.

I’m noticing more and more that companies just don’t get it and are using it just as they did with email. A colleague of mine aptly put it to me that being marketed to is like being stuck in the corner with the drunk person at a party who keeps repeating themselves and won’t let you get a word in. I couldn’t agree more!

These marketers need to get over how important they think their message is and ask themselves - do people want to hear about it? Are most people going to care that you’re devaluing your product and brand with another 25% off deal. No. Are customers / prospects bothered that you have purchased another company? No; Unless they are existing customers of said purchased company and they want to know what’s going to happen with their business.

While on the subject of message importance and relevance I know of a company that made a recent acquisition and thought it would be a good idea to email their entire database of contacts to inform them of this. The only criteria on the targeting of this message was that they were to have an email address and not have opted out.

To work with the drunk analogy earlier, this is the equivalent of find someone face down unconscious at a party and using “they didn’t say no” as an excuse for having your way with them.

It seems that sooner or later social media is just going to turn into another medium we’re spammed at without marketers taking the time to think whether or not they should, rather then just if they could.

Sigh.

Just to be clear

2010-07-14T13:35:00.003+01:00

I've heard from a couple of mutual friends that a former friend of mine is accusing me of deleting his facebook. I want to make it quite clear once and once only, that it wasn't me.

If it was I would have made it quite clear it was me. I wouldn't be shy about it. Bottom line is I don't care enough and its been over 6 months since our falling out, and he no longer registers on my radar, unless he's out with his clique making eyes and shouting stupid infantile comments.

What I will say is during our friendship you were forever falling out with people and saying some quite vile things, one begs the question; how many people have you pissed off to the point where they would do that to you?

That is all.

I LoveFilm and Amazon Prime

2010-07-01T09:37:00.001+01:00

Ok I realise I rant a lot, but what I want to do once in a while is break it up with some praise. After my recent Omniture related breakdown at work I have to say 2 guys from Omniture in the states have been quite on the ball doing damage control. While the issues are far from resolved it does feel less like they’ve taken the money and run. Which is always a plus so thanks to Ben & Francois for that.

Anyway more praise! LoveFilm is keeping me sane at the moment. Those who know me will know I spend a lot of money on DVD’s and now Blu Rays; most of which I will watch once and never watch again, which is a huge waste of money. Why I love LoveFilm.com is that for £10 a month if I time it right I can get 8 films on Blu Ray or DVD which saves me going and buying films I’d more then likely never watch again. Its also much less stressful then the hour long walk in circles around blockbuster repeating “I don’t know, what do you want to watch”, “Oh I don’t mind you choose”. Maddening

I think years have been added onto my life! As of 01/07/2010 I’ve not had any discs lost in the post and delivery is pretty quick too. So yeah, go join LoveFilm.com

Right moving on, I’ve decided that I’ll start this next bit of praise with some criticism. I’ve been a Game reward customer for years and I have to say its one of the worst “reward” cards that takes up space in my wallet. The main problems with the card are that the selection in game is quite a lot more expensive then it is on Amazon or Play.com. For instance yesterday I bought Red Dead Redemption for the PS3 as I got some voucher for 1000 extra reward points in store it is £39.99 on Amazon as of this morning is is £36.99, with my points I got rewarded and a discounted price of £37.49! Rewarded. Or not, as it would seem.

Sure if you save your points you get bigger discounts but the savings of just buying on Amazon or Play by far outweigh any “reward” you get from Game. So Game, I will be sending you back my reward card and buying online from Amazon. Which leads me onto the praise.

Amazon Prime I love you. I love that I can order something and its with me next day, as many things as I want, as often as I want for only £50 a year. Bargain. This has already paid for itself and come Christmas I will be laughing!

Going back to reward points, Nectar is a pile of shit too. I’ve been doing my shopping in Sainsbury’s, buying my petrol from BP and drinking the cool aid and have barely enough points for a DVD. I’m persevering with this one so that I can get my DVD then that card is being melted down.

Boots is a good reward card, I buy the odd sandwich and for some reason have £15 worth of points. WIN.

Anyway took me an hour to get to work today so I’m going to kick a pigeon to death.

Omniture Sucks

2010-06-18T15:07:00.002+01:00

[21/07/2010 - Update: I think it only fair to update people who land on this page to ask them to check out my update blog, Omniture sorted a lot of the issues out and have begun to sway my opinion, this can be read here]

I work as part of a web team within a medium sized company, and one aspect of my role is to provide decent website analysis and statistics so that my department can continually shape and mould what direction we move our website on. We were currently (and still are) using Google Analytics which is a nice simple free tool, doesn’t have much in the way of bells and whistles but it got the job done, however as my role expanded and as the company I work for acquired new companies our web stats requirements became more advanced and a decision was made to search for something that could offer us more advanced reporting, such as cross domain tracking, so we could see where people came in, where they ended up and where they left.

In March of last year I began the search, I had presentations and calls from the market leaders but we eventually settled on Omniture’s SiteCatalyst. A tool which their sales representative assured us could deliver cross domain tracking, email tracking, a “predator” style heat map of where people were clicking on site, easy reporting, automation and all sorts of other things which would enable me to add value to the company.

We finally signed on the line in late Q4 2009 and were assigned an account manager and an implementation consultant. And that was pretty much it. We were given some code to copy and paste, we were charged in the region of £1000 I believe, to send a web developer to their offices in London for implementation training and left to it.

After 4/5 months of toil and despair, dealing with an implementation consultant, who if I were to describe as being relaxed would be like saying Hitler was a bit of a cad; we had enough. We scheduled a call with our account manager and said after 4/5 months of implementation we still didn’t have any of the things we had asked for. Not one. The heat map overview didn’t work because we had JavaScript drop downs on our home page. The cross domain tracking still doesn’t work, the reporting is cumbersome, clunky and time consuming and we have no idea who comes to the site from our emails! So we addressed our concerns that we felt like Omniture had taken the money and done a runner, and we were given a new consultant to help implement.

Whilst an improvement, we still find ourselves in a similar situation. Now 6 months + on there is not one valuable report I have been able to run. We are no closer to getting a decent report that tells me how many leads our emails in Exact Target are bringing in or any other report of value.

Any report that looks like it might turns out to be wrong! For instance, I ran a report on some marketing collateral to see what had a low conversion rate, presented it to some people in marketing and found out the numbers the report had spat out were totally and completely wrong. We have records of all the downloads done across our sites and these numbers didn’t match even a little bit.

A big gripe I have with Omniture is that they speak to you in technical mumbo jumbo, when it isn’t my job to understand this. My job is to report, make recommendations and guide. I was in not so many words told to go on a course (£1000) so I could learn about all the technical garbage. My thought is that if you are the technical expert, shouldn’t you make recommendations based on our requirements and then do them?

I honestly regret making the decision to move to Omniture as I have not seen one accurate redeeming feature in their product, their customer service or their implementation process.

This whole process has been like passing a cactus.

If anyone has had a similar experience please let me know, or if you have successfully managed to link Exact Target & Omniture and are able to do some valuable reporting please get in touch!

Gabriella Cilmi, Pay Your Dues.

2010-06-15T09:04:00.001+01:00

This Saturday just gone I went to see the amazing Leona Lewis at the O2, she performed an amazing set and proved she is a multi talented artist who can captivate an arena full of people. She is not “just a ballad singer", by any means. Just have a search on YouTube for the Labyrinth Tour.

However, the support act Gabriela Cilmi. I have a bone to pick with you.

In my day Australian singers earned their spot through hard work, suffering and a stint on an Australian soap opera. They didn’t just get discovered at 13 and get a recording contract. OH NO!

Lets look at some examples:

Kylie Minogue – Starred in Neighbours from 1986 – 1988

Jason Donavon – Starred in Neighbours from 1986 - 1989

Dannii Minogue – Starred in Home & Away from 1989 – 1990

Holly Valance – Starred in Neighbours from 1999 – 2002

Natalie Imbruglia – Starred in Neighbours from 1992 – 1994

These poor souls paid their dues in blood, sweat and tears and earned it. Until you’ve served a minimum 1 years sentence amid a maximum security Australian soap, you haven’t earned your spot and you can piss off.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...

2010-06-09T08:48:00.005+01:00

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt" - Abraham Lincoln

Had a rather interesting debate with a dullard yesterday that revolved around how chavvy adorning the England flag is on cars, which devolved into this well controlled sheep Sun reader accusing me of not being patriotic and hating England. Fun times.

Lets recap (Click on the image to view full size)

I'd love to personally know when this war over the flag was. Would be good to include it in the history books. Perhaps its like the American Australian war...and after an extensive search I couldn't find any reference to a war over St Georges Flag in any of these wars: World War 1, World War 2, Vietnam War, Spanish Civil War or War (Song).

After being pwned by my baby sister and I the moron deletes me, which is quite funny as I know I am an ass but seriously a differing opinion? If I deleted every friend who disagreed with me I'd be Kip Drodry!

So to try apologise I extend an olive branch and try explain we don't all always have to agree yet it seems he is totally and utterly incapable of grasping the point: (Again please click for full size)

Gotta love the easily manipulated!

Bottom line is, if you're going to get bent out of shape about my opinion please be articulate and intelligent enough to convey your thoughts and opinions. Don't just go off on a Sun reader rant about things which you know nothing about.

Fuck Recycling.

2010-06-03T15:05:00.003+01:00

Mr. Burns: Yes, well, it does sound delightful! I can't wait to start pawing through my garbage like some starving raccoon!

Have to agree with Monty on this one. I hate recycling. It is ball ache and its not worth my time. My office have recently implemented a ~~penny pinching~~ green initiative where we no longer have individual desk side bins and instead we get these lovely looking communal waste receptacles.

So now the cleaners don’t have to empty dozens of bin bags either. Just asking the question, but what do they actually do? They don’t clean my desk, they don’t dust my computer, they don’t clean my monitor, they don’t clean the keyboard, they don’t de gunk my mouse. WHAT DO CLEANERS ACTUALLY DO? Apart from drag Henry around and make hoovering sounds of course.

Whilst I am sort of for the idea of re-using things that are still useful, I am very much against wallowing in my own filth. I do not sit on top of the food chain to lay back and take it in the arse from hippies and liberal douche bags. Besides as I understand it and I could be wrong (I hope I am) is that most phone books thrown away are not recycled because they are too big to go through the teeth of the machine that shreds them. So they are just put into a landfill. If you think most households have a Yellow Pages or a BT Phone-book or a Thomson Local, and those are replaced annually that amounts to a huge amount of paper that is just buried.

What significant difference can I have spending my time sorting out every piece of refuse into various categories? I hope I am wrong on the phone-book front but until such time as I am proven wrong I have no intention of joining in this political charade.

Anyway, back to my office. It’s not all bad news, I have found a work around:

Yes thats right, a big bag of lovely rubbish under my desk. Problem solved. Now go meddle with someone elses quality of life!

The Solution To My Problems

2010-05-31T02:14:00.002+01:00

I've come to the conclusion that the following are no longer acceptable forms of solving my problems:

Tolerance
Forgiveness
Understanding
Patience
Talking
Listening

Due to these findings I will be adding the following tool to my problem solving stratagem:

Anyone have a fucking problem with this?

Good.

4 Reasons Why Your Gay Bar Will Still Fail.

2010-05-23T14:13:00.001+01:00

I wrote a blog shortly after explaining some common problems I have noticed with Gay bars and why they are closing (5 Reasons Why Your Gay Bar Failed) and after 2 months of being closed The Granby in Reading has reopened.

My thoughts on going along to the first night are:

You chose the wrong date to open.
Next weekend is the bank holiday weekend and everyone will have been paid and be looking to do some serious damage to their livers. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to capitalise on that and promote the bank holiday as the opening weekend? I’m pretty sure if you’d had nailed that, had a very busy opening night people would talk about it. Word of mouth is powerful stuff. The consensus of the people I have spoken to is it was “ok” or “disappointing”.

Your décor still sucks (but a bit less)
I’m a little amazed it took two months to add a coat of paint, change the upstairs carpet and get someone to spray paint some ghetto youth club style murals. While I like the entrance area, there is so much that should have been done to really make a difference. The smoking area is still tiny and the giant hole in the middle upstairs is a colossal waste of space. Fill it in and have two different areas, move the bar, add a stage. Everyone I speak to has a good idea on the layout. Ask around!

You still don’t have ONE hot guy behind the bar.
Such a simple thing! How hard is it to find a hot guy to stick in a black vest and pour drinks? It is still 90% the same unhappy lesbians that really don’t look like they want to be there.
Again please refer to my hiring guide:

Still the same old cunts.
OK not much the management could do and I know this is totally my gripe but there was still all the same bunch of cunts out that I truly despise. Actually there is something they could have done. Paid advertising on Facebook, partnering up with some bars further afield to advertise. Alas no. Same AID's ridden, bitchy, two faced, pretentious, shallow cunts and their chums.

Well that’s my 2 cents. If you went how did you find it? If you’re planning to go what are you expecting? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

In Local News...

2010-05-20T21:19:00.003+01:00

And finally:

Really!?! Seriously!?!

2010-05-19T08:47:00.012+01:00

I’m stealing a sketch from Saturday night live now, mainly because it made me laugh so much.

Really!?! Chavs, why do you pronounce “texts” as “textes”? Really!?! Or “nothing” as “nothink”? Really!?! Or “ask” as “arx” Really!?! Is it that hard to pronounce words properly? Really!?!
Why do some people have no ability to help themselves? Really?!? Is it that hard to try sort something out yourself? Really!?!

Has anyone seen that Windows 7 in 7 Seconds adverts? The one where the guy is showing off private browsing with no history because he’s shopping for jewellery for his wife? Really!?! Does anyone do that? Really!?! Are you sure you’re not just looking at porn? Really!?!

To the moron who lives near me who can’t seem to get into his car without the stereo volume being so loud its pissing off Mars. Does it need to be that loud? Really!?! Do you need to then sing that same song when you get out of the car? Really!?! While I’m on the subject, get your mother fucking battery changed, how many times are you going to jump start your shitty yellow cunt wagon before you sort it? Really!?! Next time you wake me up, I’m leaping out my window and landing on you with a corkscrew in my hand and I’m going to town on you. Really!?!

Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood transfusions. Really!?! Why on Earth would you watch someone you love die when they can be saved? Really!?! Fucking religion.

Remakes in the cinema? Really!?! Are we that low on new original ideas we have to churn out shitty add nothing remakes? Really!?! Nightmare on Elm Street added nothing to the story other then Freddy liked to touch and photograph kids rather then murder them. Really!?! Is that so different? Really!?!

Kerry Katona still in the media? Really!?! Who the fuck is she anyway? Really!?!

That’s my lot today, have you guys got anything that makes you say Really!?!

Leave a comment and let me know. Or Don't.

Joey is Coming Out.

2010-05-07T08:28:00.010+01:00

Right I’m coming out. I feel strongly enough in my conviction to do so.

I didn't vote.

Phew. Feels so good to get it out in the open. I feel free.

To borrow a line from my friend Ruari “Telling people who, or who not, to vote for is a bit patronising: either you believe the people you know have the ability to make up their own minds, or you think your opinion is better than theirs. By all means be proud of who you vote for, but don't insult other's intelligence by these hysterical 'don't vote XXXX' post”

I couldn’t agree more. I personally did not believe in the conviction of one political party over another and I stand by my statement that “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, its just changing the colour of the ribbon of the guy who’s fucking me over and stealing a large portion of my salary every month”

Before I get people whining and bitching saying “you can’t complain about who’s in”, “it’s all your fault” and all that garbage, I say shut the hell up and re-read what I have written above “I personally did not believe in the conviction of one political party over another”. How can I vote for anyone if I don’t trust them?

You see, opinions are like arse holes. Everyone has one, some are more pleasant then others. Oh and for those of you who need a cheap giggle I made this:

5 Reasons Why Your Gay Bar Failed

2010-04-28T08:29:00.001+01:00

I'm originally from over sort of Guildford way and now reside in Reading and this year alone I’ve seen the end of a The Granby, The Malthouse and Scrumptious, leaving a lack of gay places for people to go. My theories as to what factors contributed to their demise are listed below:

1) Lack of hot male bar staff
One thing I noticed with a few places was a severe lack of hot bar men. Without dumping on the lesbians too much we did have a fair few lesbians with the exact same hair cut and 90% of them never ever smiled. We gays are a fickle breed and need half naked toned guys in black vests to make us want to come out on a Friday & Saturday night. It’s simple science.

Come on people, is it that hard to get right?

2) You didn't keep your personal and professional lives separate
There are a couple of bar owners / managers who took their personal vendettas into the work place and would ban people they didn’t like.
Now I totally understand that, but what you should take into consideration is that: A) Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing and B) You’re cutting your nose off to spite your face. You ban one person, their friends won’t come and you’re down a fair bit of money, let alone banning multiple people.

3) You didn't have a gimmick
From my experience not enough was done to differentiate each venue from the others and if it was, not enough to sing about it. If you have a lot of cabaret, tell people about it! If you focus more on a certain type of music, tell people about it!
Simply positioning yourself as a gay bar is fine, but if you have 3 others in the area, you need to give people a reason to come to you. Get a USP – A Unique Selling Point.

4) Your décor sucked
This is something a lot of places overlook, and it is one of the most obvious. Gays are the pickiest people in the world about their interior design; it’s a little bit of a stereotype cliché but it’s one that in my experience has proven to be true. If your décor isn’t eye catching; the gays won’t like it.

A particular failing is the toilets; The Malthouse had the single most disgusting facilities I have ever seen. The need to roll ones trousers up and wade through urine to go to the one cubicle that didn’t have a lock but could be wedged closed because of the dozens of layers of paint was truly a sobering experience.
Swish it up a bit! Fix your toilets!

Wellington boots were required.

5) The music sucked
This is a complaint I heard a lot about a couple of venues and I think it touches on points 1, 2 and 3. I personally had no issue with music as I am usually too incapacitated to notice but I think the blame for this one falls on issue 2. From what I understand DJ’s are usually hired because they are friendly with the person who runs / owns the bar, rather than their particular skill to read a room and perform a technically sound mix. I think it also helps if the DJ is a hot guy but that’s my issue and it also helps if that DJ specialises in a particular genre.

So those are my theories, what are yours? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Tattoo Prejudice? Seriously?

2010-04-26T08:41:00.002+01:00

I've noticed a couple of groups popping up on Facebook about “the stigma attached to tattoos in the work place" and I felt I could (should?) write a little something about it and share my thoughts and opinions on it.

The first point I’d like to cover is this group’s missions statement:

"Our goal is to take away the stigma attached to people who have Tattoos in the workplace, Tattoos are art, some of us have chosen to express ourselves not with vibrant shoes, or a colorful tie, but with body art. What is the difference? honestly."

Looking at this objectively tattoos are self expression in the form of art, some of them can be wonderful intricate, ornate wonders. However some of them are damned awful chavvy abortions. (Why do people have Winnie the Pooh?!) Tattoos are different. You can’t turn them off, but you can hide them. It is quite different to a colourful tie, which incidentally some high flying city jobs are also quite strict on. Another group have said “it’s not different from painting your nails or getting a hair cut”. WRONG! Hair grows out and nail polish can be easily removed. Also some companies are quite strict on that. So stop making out you are some prejudiced minority.

As for a perceived “stigma” I really don’t think this is the case, if someone has the correct skill set and is offered a job I don’t think its too much to ask to ask that person to cover a tattoo that doesn’t reflect that company’s image. If that person refuses to do so and remains unemployed then that is their choice.

Self expression is a good thing, this blog is a wonderful example of self expression but the beauty and main difference of it is that if people disagree with it, they don’t have to read it, and can essentially turn it off. If however, I was however to force everyone to read my blog at gun point (hmm, could I?) that would be a different story.

I understand and support a company’s decision to ask for tattoos to be covered up, if they so wish. There are too many instances where one tattoo is ok to show for one where it might not be for another and coming up with rules for every single possible eventuality would not be possible and I really think that most people would lack the common sense to understand what is and what isn’t professional.

There are a lot of jobs and a lot of different employers where it is fine. As an example the company I work for we have a casual dress code, I am sat here in jeans, trainers and a bright red t-shirt with a hooker on the front. I also have a lip piercing. Not once has anyone asked me to take it out or said anything about it. Why? Because that’s how my company works. I’m quite lucky there, but if I was to apply for a job in Central London working in Law or Finance, I would fully expect to have flat hair, be suited and booted and lose the lip piercing. Why? Because that is what has been asked of me and I’m sure the job would be paying a lot more. Why would I sacrifice a pay increase just over something as trivial as attire? Answer is I wouldn’t. My point being, if you are going to have tattoos and piercings, there are companies that are fine with it, just don’t expect them to come rushing to find you.

Another point I’d like to cover is that its a choice. One group dared to compare “alternative people” to black people or gay people. This is insane. Just to cover some basics about being a gay / black; gay people can not chose to be gay, black people can not chose to be black. You chose to cover yourself in tattoos, that was your decision. If you’re too short sighted to see that it would potentially hinder future employment prospects then you are an idiot.

What do you think? Leave a comment. Or don't.