Airport Lounges

I am lucky (or unlucky due to the amount of flights I have to take to gain access), in that I can get access to these executive lounges at airports, I have to say that they are great, it gets me away from the normal holiday maker, they have free beer and snacks and the seats are normally large and comfortable, overall they are great.

Except for one small thing, they are filled with business men and women who in general have their heads stuck up their own arses.

Tell me why they have to wonder around with a Bluetooth headset, as soon as they sit down they take the seat next to them for their coats, no matter how busy the lounge is, and when you ask them to move their coats so you may use the chair they look at you with disgust (or maybe that's just me with my Orange County Chopper tee-shirt and big fat belly sticking out).

As soon as they sit down the laptop comes out, let play who has the best laptop (well actually that will be me, but I don't brag about these things).

Lovely places filled by arseholes, what a shame.

Its Just Stupid

I read a report today on the BBC website about the air crash at Heathrow

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7196128.stm

I want to praise everybody on board especially BA staff, the pilots clearly did a fantastic job, the comment that got me was this from the BA staff on the ground looking after the crash victims

"However, there are some limitations to what we can do due to the various regulations with which we have to comply and the restrictions of operating in an airside environment. For example, we have to wait for permission to remove baggage and any other personal belongings from the aircraft. When that permission is received, our aim is to get these belongings back to customers as quickly as possible. "

What the hell... they need permission to get the bags off, what idiot decided to implement stuff like this, would anybody not want their belongings back, there credit cards, their clothes, stupid rules like this make me sick the person who made the rule should be shot.

Skype Blues

I installed Skype on my home PC yesterday and yet more horrors awaited me, as in a previous post, why oh why do software vendors do these things.

Every time I start IE7 I get a Skype Help page in a new IE tab telling me about the IE add-on, come on Skype what the hell are you doing, I don't want this, I don't need this, you are a disgrace, lucky being somewhat of a PC expert I managed to disable said Help screen, but what about Average Joe out there with this bloody annoying pop-up every single time IE starts.

Talking of Skype though, whilst it is still the best... when it works... it appears to be becoming increasing bad in terms of sounds quality, and many re-dials are needed, I guess we can put this down to increased usage of Skype, but its funny that it started happening once eBay purchased Skype, maybe there is a link.

I remember when eBay purchased Skype, I said at the time it was a stupid move, I have no idea what they were thinking, the reason eBay is so good is that it's faceless and efficient, did eBay think people would be happy to spend all the there talking to one disgruntled client instead of looking after all their other clients... nope... eBay needs to start understanding their clients or they will become second fiddle to another auction house... it can happen.

Supermarkets, Chickens & GM Food

I was watching the program on Chanel 4 about the chickens with the TV Chef's, it horrible what they do to the chickens as they grow, the supermarkets claim we want cheap food and that's the way we get cheap food, well no shit, of course we want cheap food, like cars and holidays and everything else, but cars are not £150 to buy are they, then I started thinking about GM foods.

Now I am no environmentalist, but I was thinking about GM foods, what's the point of them, who actually needs/wants them, I can only see one advantage, to the supermarkets, our Tomato's are all the same shape and bright red and they last 5 years before we get rotten, but at what cost.

It's taken nature millions of years to get us to the point we are in today, but scientists with less than a few years knowledge claim to know better, how can that be right, we simply do no know what we are doing and its dangerous.

The supermarkets have to stop all this activity now, its a total disgrace, stop the terrible treatment of chickens, stop GM foods. Using the excuse that we want cheaper chickens is total bollocks, put anything cheap in front of us and we will buy it, its just a price war between them all and the only winners are the supermarkets, if we don't stop the, who knows what damage they will cause.

PC Manufactures

I got hold of my friends new laptop a few days ago, he asked me if I could set it up for him and put a wireless network in his house. The laptop he bought was very nice, but out of the box bloody slow... why... because of all the shit that they come shipped with.

Tell me why does the laptop come with 3 different Virus Software, 4 different ISP's, god knows how many other "Free Trials" of software, in total he had 15 things that started when his laptop booted up, now he has one... the Virus software.

These manufactures are giving the PC industry a bad name, just like the software vendors, why does every single piece of software now start-up automatically when the PC starts, if I want to run the bloody software I will start it, another fiend of mine had 33 items in the system tray, can you believe that, all casued by software that started when the PC booted, after I have finished he had 6, the rest now starts when he wants to use it.

Somebody has to sort all this shit out it a bloody joke.

Budget Airlines

I read an article on the BBC web site about the extra charges from budget airlines,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7176401.stm

I booked 4 tickets to go to Spain this year, in total the extra charges were £201, what was at first a bargain soon turned into a cost which was a rise of 40% over our ticket prices, the one that got me was the credit card charge, £2 per person per flight ! which came to £16 credit card surcharge

Now I think paying for the services you take are fair, for example they introduced a charge for taking hold luggage, well if I only have hand luggage why should I pay extra, so this seemed fair but, when the airline introduced this charge, they did not reduce the ticket prices, so I was paying the same amount and everybody else was paying extra, its this practice that sickens me, its not about being fair, its about hidden extra's to increase their revenue.

The exact same flights last year were 35% cheaper than this year, virtually all of this was down to the extra charges, Budget... well not for long if they keep this practice up.

Sky Anytime PC

I installed and used Sky Anytime for the PC, its good, I can download any film I wish to watch and then stream it around the house to watch on any TV it’s a nice service.

It’s just a shame about the crap software that it uses, well crap in my view in one way, when you install it each time your PC starts it runs the bloody program in the background, now as a little bit of an expert I can spot this and stop it running, but I wonder how many people out there are complaining like hell that their broadband link is slow, all because Sky has decided to use it up with their file sharing.

Now OK, without the file sharing it downloads would be slower, but file sharing should only work when you want it to, when you tell Sky to share, it’s terrible that Sky believe this is OK (Chanel 4 does the same and I am sure the new BBC one does as well), if they want to use my PC and Broadband then they should pay part of my monthly bill.