Grumpy Old People

I dance like me Dad

My breath smells of a thousand fags
And when I'm drunk I dance like me Dad
I've started to dress a bit like him

Early morning when I wake up
I look like kiss but without the make up
And that's a good line to take it to the bridge

Robbie Williams - Strong

Buy the robots from gadgets.co.uk

Google maps let me down again

I definitely don't live here.

But who does live at 9504, E 63rd St, Raytown MO, 64133?

The google maps search for "my house" must work for at least one person.

Punky Grumpy Re-design

Bruce Lawson has published the mission statement for his soon to be re-designed site:

• crap/ missing images
• broken permalinks
• dismally formatted text
• incomprehensible sequencing and chronology
• random disruption to the look and feel
• highly irregular posting.

I hope that the whole site uses newsprint text.

And he really must keep his psychopathic, chucky-esque 404 error page.

MP Idol

Too busy to produce a site, so I redirected mpidol.com instead.

The Usability of Singing Telephone Numbers

Bloody hell this really annoys me... People do it, businesses do it and it drives me crazy.

So, I get a message on my phone and they leave a number to call.... and they sing it... so sodding fast I have no hope of ever writing it down.

Now, to the person saying that number, it has become etched on their brain, so it rolls off the tongue very very quickly... But for the listener, it's new... chances are even the STD code is new... I just had a call I had to listen to 4 times to get the number... and because I'm not an ansaphone power user, I haven't learned the key codes to replay something, that meant 4 calls, each time getting more pissed off.

In terms of saying your telephone number, singing it (how you remember it) is NOT USER CENTRED... It's bloody self centered.... For instance... I could be struggling to find a pen, with traffic in the background, trying to swap hands as I start writing amonst another million things...

So, when leaving a number on my, or anyone else's ansaphone, break up the STD code (maybe saying "O1" as a separate entity) , break the number into collections of threes or fours (works for me), leave pauses and say it slowly and clearly... please....!

Can I respond to BBC complaints?

The BBC have a great complaints site where you can read some of the complaints they receive alongside the responses from the BBC.

This Dr Who complaint consisted of the statement : "Episode three of Doctor Who was too scary to broadcast at 7pm".

The BBC then gave a pathetic response that "The series has always been shown in the early evening and, while the monsters may be scary, the content is carefully considered for a pre-watershed audience."

I would have responded with this:

"Yes, it was bloody scary wasn't it! The purpose of Dr Who is to scare the hell out of children so that they have vivid memories of the nightmares induced by the show. This will ensure that they always associate the BBC with fond memories of their childhood as they will have forgotten all about Ant and Dec by the time they are 25."

And you may like to read my complaint that I have just passed onto the BBC.

Women and men

There were hundreds of papers and posters presented at last week's British Psychological Society conference, and much press interest (we even had a press conference for our own symposium), but the one all the newspapers published the next day was that...women are far grumpier than men.

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=343462005

Gurus

I'm fed up with very elderly American men, labelled by a lazy British press as 'gurus', waltzing around the UK with their severely out-of-date 'know-how', charging preposterous amounts of money for their sometimes questionable services.

They may well have huge marketing machines, but that doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.

I shall name no names. Yet.

Number One Google result for "old people"

If this site is the number one result on google for "old people", then I am very worried about the perception of "not so young" people on the internet. I hope that older people will start blogging and publishing web pages that offer some better search results than this.

And don't even ask me what sex related old people search terms are appearing in the usage statistics for this blog.

Another favourite of mine is "backward thinking old people" on Yahoo.

Dr Who has a shop girl as an assistant

"Rose is a shop-girl from the present day."

BBC Press Release

A "shop girl"! Does anyone still describe female retailers as "shop girls"?

I can find a reference to a 1922 silent film called "Only a Shop Girl", which is about a murder, some sex and a few misunderstandings, but that's about it.

The new Doctor Who speaks in Mancunian and the episodes are filmed in Wales, which is a bit odd as a Dr Who exhibition in Llangollen closed last year due to lack of interest.

But on the plus side, there is a Dr Who Appreciation Society in Cardiff, and a lot of Welsh maggots appeared in The Green Death when the Doctor patronised the Welsh, They got him back by burning his holiday home.

I guess that I am moaning about the fact that the BBC are bringing Dr Who back to our screens. It will never improve on the golden years of Tom Baker, and they haven't even been brave enough to make the Doctor a female.

I suppose I should be grateful that they have got a shop girl as an assistant.