Friday, August 27, 2004
Vent-a-Rant
I now know how they sell Diet Coke With Lime-Flavoured Stuff™ (or whatever they call it). They just have vending machines full of it, even where there is supposed to be spring water, regular coke, sprite, and even vanilla coke.
Which brings me to how I discovered this amazing fact...On the train station after the Law Revue at UNSW ended, (which proved to be the most boring waste of seven bucks ever) I used a vending machine to get a much-needed drink, fully aware that there was a 60% chance that the thing will have my $2.50 for dessert, and just give me a polite gurgle in return. At this point in the night, though, I was willing to face those odds for a drink, so I paid my money...and realised that it spat out a 20 cent coin. So I put it back in. And it spat it back out. This resulted in some mighty fierce mind-games between me and the vending machine...
...which resulted in me coming off second best. So instead, I gave it four 5 cent pieces, one by one...then hit the 'Coke With Something Resembling Vanilla™' button.
And I was stoked to hear a bottle making it's way down. What I wasn't stoked about was the 'Diet Coke With Lime-Flavoured Stuff™ (or whatever they call it)' label on the bottle.
Craig found that pretty funny.
I found the idea of force-feeding him the bottle's contents equally funny.
Being the hopeless addict I am, I had to at least drink SOME of it. I think there was even a dead rat in the bottle, which helped me get the horrible stuff down.
Oh, and I checked under the lid, to see if I won anything. It proclaimed:
'YOU WON NOTHING, SUCKER!'
The worst part is, that whole situation was far funnier (guess you had to be there) than the entire revue. And it only cost $2.50.
Which brings me to how I discovered this amazing fact...On the train station after the Law Revue at UNSW ended, (which proved to be the most boring waste of seven bucks ever) I used a vending machine to get a much-needed drink, fully aware that there was a 60% chance that the thing will have my $2.50 for dessert, and just give me a polite gurgle in return. At this point in the night, though, I was willing to face those odds for a drink, so I paid my money...and realised that it spat out a 20 cent coin. So I put it back in. And it spat it back out. This resulted in some mighty fierce mind-games between me and the vending machine...
...which resulted in me coming off second best. So instead, I gave it four 5 cent pieces, one by one...then hit the 'Coke With Something Resembling Vanilla™' button.
And I was stoked to hear a bottle making it's way down. What I wasn't stoked about was the 'Diet Coke With Lime-Flavoured Stuff™ (or whatever they call it)' label on the bottle.
Craig found that pretty funny.
I found the idea of force-feeding him the bottle's contents equally funny.
Being the hopeless addict I am, I had to at least drink SOME of it. I think there was even a dead rat in the bottle, which helped me get the horrible stuff down.
Oh, and I checked under the lid, to see if I won anything. It proclaimed:
'YOU WON NOTHING, SUCKER!'
The worst part is, that whole situation was far funnier (guess you had to be there) than the entire revue. And it only cost $2.50.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Mental OH&S hazard!!!
This is a worry...
Exit /n./ Portion of a means of egress which is separated from all other spaces of the building or structure by construction or equipment as required in this subpart to provide a protected way to travel to the exit discharge.
Exit discharge /n./ That portion of a means of egress between the termination of an exit and a public way. — Occupational Health and Safety Standards.
Some people must be really bitter about their jobs to churn out things like this.
Exit /n./ Portion of a means of egress which is separated from all other spaces of the building or structure by construction or equipment as required in this subpart to provide a protected way to travel to the exit discharge.
Exit discharge /n./ That portion of a means of egress between the termination of an exit and a public way. — Occupational Health and Safety Standards.
Some people must be really bitter about their jobs to churn out things like this.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Happiness is just a phone call away...
Just like to provide the other side of the coin when it comes to telemarketing.
Many people complain about how much telemarketing firms rip off the charities that they're calling for. As if they'd be better off without telemarketing in the first place.
'Do you guys know how much you're ripping off [charity]?'
I'm asked this many times daily by people who think that they're throwing me the curveball question of the century. Yes, we're ripping them off by giving them free money. I have no idea how they've managed to survive for so long as a result. Makes 'em pretty stupid to be getting us to call around in the first place, eh? They'd be better off without us!
What do we actually do, though? Give them the money that's raised, minus a percentage (obviously to pay staff, to cover other expenses, mainly). How is that ripping them off? OK, so the company's obviously going to exist to make some sort of profit, and that's going to be from some of the money that's raised...but if a charity's contracting a telemarketing firm to do these campaigns, isn't it because it's a source of funding for them at no cost? Trust me, it also beats having a handful of people out on the street, or in shopping centres with buckets and cheap T-shirts for raising money.
'Are you paid?'
Would YOU do this job for free?
'You already called me three times this week!'
Do these people realise that we have computer systems DESIGNED to filter out previously called people unless ordered to do otherwise? Not going to get far if we're calling a previous rejection three times in a month, are we? Besides, we can see if we've called you on our fancy glowing things. Unless you have three phone lines, we did not call you before this.
'I already support this charity!'
Great, then you'll have no problems supporting us now!
Admittedly, a great of these people have supported us as much as they can, and probably support other charities as well...but this line really doesn't work if I can see the person's living in Double Bay, Homebush, Belvue Hill or wherever. Although, I guess if they have the insurance coming up on their 5.4 V8 Mercedes S55 AMG, then it kinda makes sense that they're battling through a trying time in their lives. Hell, they couldn't even afford a 7.3 litre V12!
'FUCK OFF, I'm eating dinner!'
Oh, great. We're representing a charity that makes it's rounds saving lives, asking for your help, and you're hungry, and your steak's getting cold(er). Sorry. Better get our priorities straight. What were we thinking?
So far, the only real excuse to meet telemarketers with open hostility is if you've been woken up because you're a shift worker. Which is understandable. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about that, but if you're a shift worker needing sleep, I'll give you advice: Turn your phone volume down when you go to sleep. Unless there are any reasons to receive an emergency call, of course.
There are many more stupid responses I recieve, but I won't go over them here. Maybe next time. I'm tired.
And I gotta go to WORK tomorrow morning! I'll be sure to grab some material for another entry!
Many people complain about how much telemarketing firms rip off the charities that they're calling for. As if they'd be better off without telemarketing in the first place.
'Do you guys know how much you're ripping off [charity]?'
I'm asked this many times daily by people who think that they're throwing me the curveball question of the century. Yes, we're ripping them off by giving them free money. I have no idea how they've managed to survive for so long as a result. Makes 'em pretty stupid to be getting us to call around in the first place, eh? They'd be better off without us!
What do we actually do, though? Give them the money that's raised, minus a percentage (obviously to pay staff, to cover other expenses, mainly). How is that ripping them off? OK, so the company's obviously going to exist to make some sort of profit, and that's going to be from some of the money that's raised...but if a charity's contracting a telemarketing firm to do these campaigns, isn't it because it's a source of funding for them at no cost? Trust me, it also beats having a handful of people out on the street, or in shopping centres with buckets and cheap T-shirts for raising money.
'Are you paid?'
Would YOU do this job for free?
'You already called me three times this week!'
Do these people realise that we have computer systems DESIGNED to filter out previously called people unless ordered to do otherwise? Not going to get far if we're calling a previous rejection three times in a month, are we? Besides, we can see if we've called you on our fancy glowing things. Unless you have three phone lines, we did not call you before this.
'I already support this charity!'
Great, then you'll have no problems supporting us now!
Admittedly, a great of these people have supported us as much as they can, and probably support other charities as well...but this line really doesn't work if I can see the person's living in Double Bay, Homebush, Belvue Hill or wherever. Although, I guess if they have the insurance coming up on their 5.4 V8 Mercedes S55 AMG, then it kinda makes sense that they're battling through a trying time in their lives. Hell, they couldn't even afford a 7.3 litre V12!
'FUCK OFF, I'm eating dinner!'
Oh, great. We're representing a charity that makes it's rounds saving lives, asking for your help, and you're hungry, and your steak's getting cold(er). Sorry. Better get our priorities straight. What were we thinking?
So far, the only real excuse to meet telemarketers with open hostility is if you've been woken up because you're a shift worker. Which is understandable. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about that, but if you're a shift worker needing sleep, I'll give you advice: Turn your phone volume down when you go to sleep. Unless there are any reasons to receive an emergency call, of course.
There are many more stupid responses I recieve, but I won't go over them here. Maybe next time. I'm tired.
And I gotta go to WORK tomorrow morning! I'll be sure to grab some material for another entry!
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
ebay is Doomed
Congratulations, jamesyencken! You are now the proud owner of a copy of Doom 3!
Truly, this guy has done something incredibly intelligent, and snapped up a copy of Doom 3 a whole THREE DAYS (give or take) BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE! Including the time to process and ship, this may mean that he might end up with it a few hours before everyone else!!!!! And at a final bid of $20,000,100.00 yank-dollars, you'd have to agree...
This guy is a total fucking tool. I wonder how he justified his purchase. The game's likely to retail somewhere between $30-$50 upon it's 'official' release on the 5th of August. But those suckers'll have to wait. More fool them, apparently, because for just over 20,000 kilodollars, this guy has the one-up on all of 'em.
I used to be against wholesale human slaughter, but I'm seriously worrying about the state of the gene-pool. People like this should not be allowed to breed. But I think I'll look on the bright side. He's probably just screwing with everyone, and had never intended to pay for it. This gives us hope.
But there were 44 other bids there, all that were bidding more than $80US for it. And at least one of them's a serious bid. And that's what I worry about. The guy who put this up for sale (who, incidentally, is pretty damned smart) just sold it for at least 80 bananas. Even if the only serious bid was the first one, he's still made some profit at the expense of human stupidity.
Just like the Chairman of Dell.
Truly, this guy has done something incredibly intelligent, and snapped up a copy of Doom 3 a whole THREE DAYS (give or take) BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE! Including the time to process and ship, this may mean that he might end up with it a few hours before everyone else!!!!! And at a final bid of $20,000,100.00 yank-dollars, you'd have to agree...
This guy is a total fucking tool. I wonder how he justified his purchase. The game's likely to retail somewhere between $30-$50 upon it's 'official' release on the 5th of August. But those suckers'll have to wait. More fool them, apparently, because for just over 20,000 kilodollars, this guy has the one-up on all of 'em.
I used to be against wholesale human slaughter, but I'm seriously worrying about the state of the gene-pool. People like this should not be allowed to breed. But I think I'll look on the bright side. He's probably just screwing with everyone, and had never intended to pay for it. This gives us hope.
But there were 44 other bids there, all that were bidding more than $80US for it. And at least one of them's a serious bid. And that's what I worry about. The guy who put this up for sale (who, incidentally, is pretty damned smart) just sold it for at least 80 bananas. Even if the only serious bid was the first one, he's still made some profit at the expense of human stupidity.
Just like the Chairman of Dell.
