Monthly Archives: January 2008

Do I look like I give a damn?

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Watched Casino Royale last night. Great film. I remember when it came out Gary saying it was a damn good film and I really enjoyed it. Opening sequence was excellent. Lots of running – like it was the mark of a new guy. The airport part was the only – for me – typical bond bit and whereas Connery / Moore would have had the witty remark I preferred the silence. The love interest? Predictable – all part of the “shag’em and shoot’em” routine. It seemed more substantial than previous offerings in the 007 stable and is more than welcome because of it. Very watchable film.

Rez. more of it.

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I have an xbox. Links 2004 is good. Forza? Hardly played. Fable, hardly played. Simpsons, girls played it. I was not impressed by any games – oh yes, I have Halo. What a bag of crap that is. So it sits pretty much unused. I had no plans for it save maybe one day sling MAME onto it.

But then I find out that Rez HD is coming to the XB360. I have no idea what other XB games I might like, I know I looked at Live and didn’t like their pricing model and I have no loyalty to the XB brand – as opposed to Sega, Nintendo and Sony. In fact I’m surprised that the XB is getting the game over Sony. But this does mean I’m looking a lot harder at getting one. The problem will be their pricing.
The PS3 costs me nothing to race others in Ridge racer, to download demos, extra content. As far as I know Microsoft want their slice of cash each month regardless. That is not something I like purely because I can’t justify the time online to cash needed. It’s like WoW – unless you are going to play a lot, why bother?

But Rez HD … it’s looking good.

Moving suppliers

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We used to pay little attention to the utility bills. If they said they wanted 35 quid a month (or any amount) then they got it. We took it for granted that what we saved in the summer would even out with what extra we used in the winter. Oh how wrong we were….
After going bankrupt we naturally examined where each penny was being spent. And once we got the ability to pay bills again by getting the utility back (water are okay, electric/gas aren’t too bad, phone? they make you sweat blood. No, I am not joking) we looked really hard at these budgeting schemes. Initially we left it to them and it slowly but surely slid in their favour. I don’t mean that they had our money – I mean that our debt increased. Their grip got tighter. This matters because we wanted to change suppliers.

You ring your gas supplier and say “I want to switch to someone else”. They reply “No problem, but fully settle your bill first”. And all of a sudden you can see that part of their ploy is to put that financial obstacle in your way. After all, if you are moving suppliers to save money chances are you don’t have the money around to pay that bill off. So you are more likely to stay with that costly company – who then say you can save money by having your electric / phone / broadband / satellite with them. And you can pay monthly there too…. bargain….

With the costs of energy going up (and we can only hope the Govt immediately start telling the elderly that they will help more than they do) then I’m sure many people will head over to USwitch, find the deal and only then discover just how bad their debt is. So when the Govt and journos say that so many people have yet to switch it must include not just the inertia effect but also this financial hostage taking that the energy companies deal in.

Are we switching? Hell yes. But only when Martin Lewis says so. (The only thing I will not change is my ISP. At £35 a month it’s costly but when I ring Zen I get someone who really does know all the technical stuff. I don’t ring often but when I do the last thing I want is someone reading from a screen. I also – obviously – need an excellent service which I get).

A little closer

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D got an offer from Derby University today – Behavioural Sciences Hons degree course. She’s walking on air and smiling so wide the top of her head could drop off :)

After a tablet.

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I’m in the market for a graphics tablet and the Bamboo from Wacom seems to fit the bill. It’s got 4 programmable buttons and the reviews are pretty good. This is not for high-end Photoshop use – far from it – but I’m wondering if anyone else has used one? We have a Volito for the PC which is nice but (1) it’s aimed at kids and (2) it’s used by them. It also has no mac drivers. Wacom do seem to be the people to go with – or is this model bettered?

Act on CO2

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New Year starts and so does the propaganda. We now have a government funded website called “Act on CO2“. It offers tips for motorists to help them ‘reduce their carbon footprint’. Things like “have less junk in the car so it is lighter” and “keep the tyre air pressures right”, “Petrol or diesel” and using a smaller car. They even have a Brand Partnerships page which if you look really carefully at you’ll realise that every brand there is absolutely reliant on the car. No car, no brand. This then explains why the biggest clue for car users is not anywhere on that website. So here it it:
Get out of the damn car and walk or use public transport.

Fact is there are school mums taking the 4×4 to drop off little Timmy when they live only yards away, people driving to shops they could easily walk to, perfectly good public transport that car drivers will ignore because it is beneath them. That website – which we as taxpayers have also funded – is car propaganda, nothing else. If the govt were serious they could do so much better. I’m surprised they haven’t followed that ridiculous Honda ad from last year which seemed to preach that the internal combustion engine was in fact a gift to nature.

This is why the Road Tax is a nonsense. It’s a one-off pain that is shrugged off. Abolish it. Get rid. Instead, impose a car insurance tariff and double the tax on petrol. The person who has the best clue about this? Ken Livingstone. The congestion charge in London isn’t just right, it should be extended to all cities. (The arguments against are in the main crap because the govt actually wants to see this fail. No way can the govt lose the support of the Roads lobby). Until the motorist is actually hurting daily they won’t consider using their head and will not consider what they are actually doing. But then it’s always the other guy isn’t it?

Ron who?

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I can’t be the only brit to keep seeing loads on blog posts about some guy in the USA called Ron Paul. According to some he’s great but then so is Bush / Guiliani etc. Mr Paul also believes in creationism. Whatever. There’s so much noise about him changing US politics. And yet in this article about the US election, there is no mention of Ron Paul at all. He’s not even hinted at. So either a respected and knowledgeable BBC corespondent has no clue, or the blogs are doing nothing but inflating the impossible. I go with the latter. But hey, I’m a brit, what do I know about it :)

Grouch

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For the last 364 days and 20 hours the people next door have not been in residence for more than an hour in total. They decided to have a party and bring all their LOUD FRIENDS with them. So I accompanied their wailing at midnight by blasting out the Cunninglynguists (it’s the only music I have in the PS3). I hope I annoyed them, I really do.

(Bee Gees – they are playing the Bee Gees and loudly too. Baaaaaaaad)