More late night ramblings
Oct 19 '07
The Bottom Line xxx
Thanks to the several nice comments received on my last late night ramblings. Poor fools, you both have inspired me to write more!
I phoned my bank. Before you get to speak to someone, you have to listen a lot and jump through hoops. After pressing buttons to choose the language, the nature of the query, describe what I want, then enter my account number, finally Someone answered. She asked my name, then the very next question was my account number, and how could she help.
So.. why did I already wear out my finger typing it all in?
"We value your business, please stay on the line and continue to hold..." while you are paying the premium rate for the privilege of calling us and speaking to a person because I am too stupid to figure it out myself. Yes, I can see how much you value my business.
Please use the website to answer your query. If you call a person, we will charge you. And if the query is 'why isn't my internet working?'.....
I had breakfast at a hotel which, for some reason, was showing "wrestling" on TV. It showed actor after actor pounding the crap out of another - there was no wrestling, just forearm smashes to the face, kicking, stamping, kneeing , until their opponent was beaten and pounded to unconciousness (or at least, pretended to be). Rules were ignored, "illegal" moves were used to win, and the crowd kept cheering as chairs and other stuff was used to beat someone unconcious. So breaking rules wins the prize and makes the hero. What a fantastic example for the kids while they east their Cheerios. Why don't we glorify liquour store robberies, drive by shootings and launching cruise missiles against schools in 3rd world countries?
Why are we so scared of Bird Flu? Millions of uninfected birds have been slaughtered, restaurants have taken chicken off the menu and thousands of chicken farmers have been bankrupted, or nearly. All for an 'epidemic' that has killed less than 100 people in nearly 10 years. Since when has that been an epidemic? Ten times as many people die from fugu poisoning. So what is the panic about?
Is it that the biggest selling anti-flu vaccine is Tamiflu, which is sold and marketed by Roche under licence from Gilead, previously headed by a former leading politician who remains a major shareholder? http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/
Now, I am a bit slow but ... is there a connection?
In the UK, some kids aged as young as ten were jailed for throwing stones at a father as he played cricket with his son, until the father had a heart attack and died. They got two year sentences (appealed of course), and the judge said he 'hopes this will be a deterent". Parole after 9 months? While the government reduces custodial sentences due to overcrowding? For decades we have sympathised with the criminal, not the victim, tried to understand and tackles the causes, while crime has increased and jails become overcrowded. When will we realise - it isn't working! Countries with tougher sentences have lower crime rates. Learn from success, not failure!
I tried to buy some new shoes the other day. Shop after shop had dozens of narrow, pointy shoes which taper to a point; they also had dozens of shoes that had ends which were square and chunky. But I could not find any that were actually foot shaped.
I still remember the excitement in my family when my dad bought our first video player - yes it was a while ago! It was great - we could watch videos but we could also record TV shows when we were out, or watch one show and record another to watch later. Then of course technology got better and along came DVDs, so we progressed and got a DVD player. So now we can watch DVDs. I do kinda miss being able to record programmes when we are out, though.
I notice there are now numerous ways to refer to the people who take care of passengers on planes: Flight Attendant, Cabin Attendant, Cabin Crew. It's not PC to say "stewardess" or "Hostess" as we must not be gender-specific. Like we can't refer to "waiter" and "waitress", we are supposed to call them "server". But what I don't understand is that it is ok for them to call us "sir" or "madam"? How come only the customer is not allowed to be gender-specific? Why don't the cabin crew ask "Would you like the chicken or beef, passenger?", and the servers ask "Shall I bring your bill, diner?" Personally I'm glad it has not got that stupid, but honestly, what was wrong with "steward and stewardess"?
Isn't it funny that in UK, 70% of companies hesitated to put up Christmas decorations last year, for fear of offending people - mostly the uninvited - while all over the Middle East, China, and other non-Christian countries, Christmas was celebrated happily, openly and without fear or apology? Actually it is not funny, it is shameful, embarassing and ****ing pathetic, but that is what Britain has become. I've even seen suggestions that we stop calling it Christmas; instead we send 'Holiday cards' and put up a 'festive tree'. Will someone, please, stand up and say "We are British, we are Christian country; if you want to come and live here, you can do so if you accept our values; if you don't want to then go somewhere else." Or maybe even we can allow all religions to celebrate equally, without discriminating against Christianity. Any chance this might happen in time for this year?
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
vodkaboy
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Location: Somewhere over here
Reviews written: 168
Trusted by: 73 members
About Me:
I've been thinking. That's an improvement.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.