A little test…

I wonder if anyone actually reads this blog anymore. I know during the summer of 2006 a few of you checked here to see how my Hunter S Thompson-esqu adventures were getting on. (I ran out of ether, if anyone’s interested)

I fear that everyone has forgotton this place exists now. So, to see if anyone is still listening here’s a little incentive; the first person to email me (trilby7@hotmail.com) with the word ‘moron’ get’s a pint the next time I see them. (This offer does apply to those overseas, you just might have to wait longer for the pint…not as long as I’ll be waiting if no-one emails me).

Good luck…

Shit and PIN

These new chip and pin services (that allow you to slide your debit card into a machine and punch in your PIN instead of signing a receipt) may be all well and good, but they have created a new problem; which I call PIN awkwardness.

These new machines may well increase security against identity theft but they don’t half take a while to do their thing. A typical scenario can go as follows:

The cashier punches the amount in…15 second pause.

You enter your PIN…30 second pause.

It doesn’t work…15 second pause.

The cashier takes the machine back and starts again…20 second pause.

You enter your PIN again, worried that the bloke behind might be looking over your shoulder. Or is he perusing copy of Big Jugs you have tucked slyly under The Guardian?

It works!…15 second pause.

You remove your card …15 second pause.

You wait for a receipt (which is only going straight in the bin anyway)…30 second pause.

You leave, and purposly drive your car straight into the nearest wall.

And all the while this is going on, it leaves you with a dilemma: what to do for the time it takes the machine to decide your PIN is correct and complete the transaction?
Do you look at the cashier? Well, you could but the whole thing could take upwards of 30 seconds and your gaze could well be misconstrued.
You could look at your card poking out of the machine, but then you just look like your waiting for something entertaining to happen, like for it to jump our, spin round your head Fantasia-style, and do a little dance on the Aeroes.
Do you try and converse with the cashier? No, you don’t. Because most cashiers are fucking morons.

What I suggest is the following; you pay with cash. Debit cards should be for removing money from cash points and jimming open locked doors only.

Still an idiot

Its good to see that as another year trails off without anything of note to commemorate it, my annoying traits are still intact. I’ve managed to let £600 slip through my slack handed fingers, and I have no-one to blame except my own fucking stupidity.

To cut a long, and frankly boring, story short I am owed three holiday shifts from my subbing job at the Independent on Sunday. The thing is you can only claim these shifts on days you don’t work (ie, a Saturday I have off) and before the end of the year; typically, there’s one Saturday left – the 29th. And I’m working on it. Once the clock ticks over to January 1st my three holiday shifts evaporate, quicker than Scott Carson’s chances of ever playing for England again did when he let Nico Kranjear’s shot apologetically slip into the back of the net.

I get £200 a shift, so that’s £600 gone. And all I had to do was tell my boss earlier than I did (which was last week).

And I really could have done with that money. I’ve just chundered about two grand on a new car and laptop. Two fucking grand. Just like that. And yes, I will enjoy my new car and laptop, but they won’t feel nearly as fun with the feeling that I could have been six hundred quid richer as well.

The worst thing about this? I will probably do it again (or something similarly fucking stupid) again, and again, and again. It’s in my genetics. I was born to be a fucking moron.