Info and forum posts by 'misterpol'

RE: Anyone see Gameswipe last night?

It was Ashlyn from Big Brother not Orla.

Sorry but I`m sure I only know this from reading that book of Brookers.
I think they went to Glastonbury and she bought a really crappy tent for a tenner, anyway it was a funny story go read the book.

RE: Musical Instruments at Netto

Quote:
Oi. The supermarkets sell crap DVD players to. You are not alone with seeing the problems people have with quality of the cheap stuff they buy from them.

:) But a crap DVD player isn`t going to put you off watching and enjoying movies. A crap guitar might put a keen kid off playing music which would be sad.

RE: Musical Instruments at Netto

It wasn`t really directly a rant at the OP but more of a general rant about the crap that is being sold as musical instruments these days. I just hope that folks stop wasting their hard earned money on this rubbish.

RE: Musical Instruments at Netto

These are not musical instruments. They may look like musical instruments but they are far from it. I work in a music shop and this kind of crap is a nightmare. We see people bringing stuff like this to us all the time.. "It won`t stay in tune", "This bit`s fallen off.." - well it`s because you think that you can spend £25 on a guitar and still expect it to be good.

If you are buying one of these guitars to give to a child and expect them to learn with it then think again. A cheap badly made guitar will put a young guitarist off - rough frets, bad action (the height of the strings above the fretboard), cheap tuning heads will all conspire to cause aches and pains in their hands. Your £25 bargain will be shoved under the bed to collect dust within days and your kid will be put off learning an instrument for good.

The clarinet and flute shown here will leak air from badly fitting valves and if you give them to a kid doing lessons then fully expect to get a polite letter from the woodwind tutor
telling them that this instrument is not of a high enough standard to learn on. We see it happening all the time.

If you really want to get your child into music then please go to your local music retailer rather than a grocery shop. Buying a musical instrument is not the same as buying a tin of beans, a loaf of bread or a DVD player. Making music can boost your kids confidence and help with creativity and education. You wouldn`t send your kid to school with a broken pencil.

It may be more expensive initially but you will benefit in the long run. They will give you the right advice and sell you the right instrument for your budget. The can provide you with the tuition contacts and materials to get you off on the right foot and hopefully build up a relationship with you that will develop over the years.

I know times are getting hard (for us shopkeepers too, but that`s not why I am ranting on here) but it would be much better if you didn`t buy a musical instrument at all rather than buy the crap that the supermarkets are offering you these days. Buy second hand or at least speak to someone you know with a bit of musical knowledge before you throw money down the drain. Sometimes something that looks like a bargain can be exact opposite.

RE: Dodgy "Game" Manager flogs EIGHT Xbox360s on Ebay

I got a reply from Game...

"Hi Paul

Thank for your email. I am sorry for the delay in responding to you.

After a full investigation into this Ebay auction and contact with this individual, we`re confident that this is not an employee of GAME and someone has been misrepresenting themselves on the Ebay website. Ebay were notified on Monday and the `seller` retired his auction without selling any of the Xbox 360`s.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to write to us about this matter.

Regards
Customer Service
GAME Stores Group Ltd."

So there we go. I`m not convinced that the person was not a member of staff. It seemed a bit too elaborate a story.

RE: Dodgy "Game" Manager flogs EIGHT Xbox360s on Ebay

Quote:
I`m pretty sure someone will have e-mailed Game by now...

Already Done!

I wouldn`t mind if he had only reserved himself one for personal use...I have worked in Game in the past and it really sucks so I don`t mind him using one of the perks of the job. It`s the shameless profiteering that p***ed me off. I`m not even that interested in and Xbox360 - I`m waiting for the Nintendo Revolution.

Dodgy "Game" Manager flogs EIGHT Xbox360s on Ebay

Didn`t get your Xbox 360 on launch day?... this greedy f*cker could be to blame.

It looks like a manager at Game abused their position to make profit over the interests of the general public. He even states if there is a problem with them you can take them back to your local Game store.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8239781361&ru=http://search.ebay.co.uk:80/8239781361_W0QQfromZR40QQfviZ1

Robin Williamson? Livingston branches?

Even though the bidding is closed it simply means that the bidding was high enough for him to close the auction and sell all 8 of the consoles to the first 8 bidders who bid over the reserve price. A seller can close an auction when he feels he has made enough money. At 4 pm today the bids were approaching £400.

I feel Game should investigate this matter and reprimand or even dismiss this member of staff. He quite clearly states he is a manager at a Game store. The name given may be fake but I`m sure there are ways of checking the preorders made for the Xbox360 in branches in Central Scotland.

It may be an elaborate cover story but something does seem odd about it.

This item was edited on Monday, 5th December 2005, 22:30

RE: www.looking4dvds.com

Did any of you actually look at the website you were ordering from? I mean, looks aren`t everything, but the website looks like has been coded by monkeys and designed by blind chimps.

Just because you are saving 1 or 2 pounds by not buying from a more reputable source is it really worth taking the risk. I know Play and Amazon are a bit dearer but at least you get what you pay for.

If you really want to save money you can get just about any DVD you want from a bloke down the market on saturday afternoon.

Caveat Emptor (especially if the website looks really crap)

Fire at Video Island warehouse... any more info?

Lo All.. I use Tesco DVD rental (not too bad overall - a bit of a struggle to get the newest releases though) and this message has appeared. I`m not sure when, but I sent a few DVDs back on Saturday and was having a look to see if they had arrived so this is the first I knew about it. You would think Tesco could send out a email to let the customers know...

"We have experienced a fire in the warehouse
This may cause a temporary disruption in service for some customers. We`re very sorry for this and will, of course, be offering full compensation for any loss in service that you experience. Thanks for your patience, we`re moving heaven and earth to return to peak performance as soon as possible."

see also...
http://videoisland.com/corporate/news_item.html?item=1241

I had a search in the forums but no one seems to have mentioned it recently. I was wondering if anyone had any more specific onfo about the expected delay or compensation.

Cheers - Paulie.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 6th September 2005, 14:51

Cheap Gamecube games at Woolworths?

I was having a look at the sale stuff in Woolworths (Falkirk) and I couldn`t find the Gamecube display they had there last week. One of the shop assistants told me that they were discontinuing selling Gamecube games and were selling the remaining stock off cheap. She went through the back and brought a pile of games out - the prices ranged from £35 for Metroid Prime Echoes (only a couple of quid off really...) down to £4.99 for some of the older games. I picked up FZeroGX and Soul Caliber 2 for £4.99 each.

I`m not sure if this is a national or local decision by Woolies but it could be something to keep an eye on.

RE: broadband speed

(here goes for another techy question answered in a completely non techy way...)

you would think that wouldn`t you.... but depending on the p2p software used you are normally limited to how fast the users at the other end are able to upload. if you are connecting to a dial-up user then you will be only sucking the data at 18kbs or summat regardless of your download speed.

I use BitTorrent for some downloads and I find it can vary in speed from 10kbs up to 100kbs at best. There are other factors involved though - port settings, computer processing power etc.

The exception to this is downloading from newsgroups - I have a 2mb Blueyonder connection and when downloading from the blueyonder news servers I can be getting between 1.9 to 2mb per second (sometimes peaking even faster!) [ nb. the blueyonder servers are currently being overhauled at the moment and are pretty crap for downloading from...hopefully things will improve]

I would heartily recommend p2p users to have a look at learning how to use newsgroups... http://www.slyck.com features tutorials on all of the major p2p and how to use newsgroups.

To see all of the lovely stuff you can download from newsgroups then go here http://www.newzbin.com

pol

RE: Problems with FreeNetName - I keep getting disconnected.

bleh...no answers.

RE: broadband speed

it could also have something to do with the fact that if there are more blueyonder broadband users in your local area then your share of the broadband "pie" is reduced. ie - if you are the only one using the local node thingy then you get 100% of the bandwidth - if there are 100 users in the local area connecting to the same node widgety doodah then you get a bit less. User to Bandwidth ratios and all of that gubbins...

I`m sure the more techy people here will know the technical term for this...my brain no worky. bleh.

Problems with FreeNetName - I keep getting disconnected.

Hello! - I am using Frenetnames 512k ADSL Broadband service (on my work computer) using a D-Link DSL200 ADSL USB modem.

The problem is that is seems to disconnect itself from the internet (actually it just stops connecting to websites - the connection still appears to be live in the corner of the screen) if I leave it unnattended for 10-15 minutes or so. The same thing happens with both IE and Firefox.

I have to manually disconnect then reconnect the connection in order to browse again.

Could it be that the freenetname server is disconnecting me after a certain period of latency in order to conserve bandwidth? I won`t even bother trying to phone the technical support number as it just puts me through to one of those Indian call centres who are less than useful unless your problem is one written on their scripts.

Could I use one of those "pinger" things to make it look like I am using the connection if I am away from the keyboard? Could anyone suggest a good one? - cheers!

RE: Star Wars Episode Three - Leaked footage hits net. Help please!!

Quote:
But his character is "Commander Cody" apparently, so he could possibly just be an extra OR that could be a name that Boba Fett adopted in order to infiltrate the Jedi?


I think the name is an "in joke" by George Lucas.

Commander Cody is a character from 1940s/1950s saturday morning serials (he was like Flash Gordon in a Rocket Man suit!) - George Lucas has used the episodic nature of these classics as a basis for the Star Wars movies...why do you think the titles of the episodes are so cheezy!? The scrolling text at the start of all of the movies is similar to those used to keep the saturday morning viewers in the 1950s up to date with the plot...

http://www.slick-net.com/space/serial/index.phtml

...and if you want to download the leak try using "bit torrent" and "suprnova" in google...seek and ye shall find

RE: How trippy is this?

The artist is called Kurt Wenner... here is a link to more of his stuff...

http://www.dodger.com/wenner/gallery.htm

RE: Credit card fraud

My business credit card got about £1000 worth of stuff put on it last year, but my bank cleared it.
The funny thing was about £600 was on an online casino so if the fraudster won I thought the money would go onto my credit card ..........but no.

Talking about money back refunds

I remember about ten years ago BP garages ran a promotion where you collected stickers and exchanged them for cds and videos ( I think you had to collect around 25, 1 for every £5 of fuel ).
Anyway my friend and I both worked part time in a BP garage and call it what you will ( stealing probably) aquired a vast amount of tokens.
We would take the cards with all our stickers in them to another Bp garage and swap them for cds then take them to John Menzies and exchange them for money ( we found out the cds that were £15 ).

What a nice little earner.

RE: Have Game got a scam going, or is it just our store?

If they can`t give you a penny ask them for a two pence piece...you shouldn`t be losing out on the transaction.

I work in a shop - thats what I do if I run out of pennies...

RE: Splash - should be shut down

Its the joy of saving a few quid, sometimes I wonder if I should just go to a high st shop and pay over the odds.
At least if somethings wrong I can just go back to the shop.

One things for certain, no matter how bad Splash are they got some great free coverage on the news last night.

Binary Newsgroup advice required...Blueyonder now useless...

For the last week or so the blueyonder newsgroup servers have turned really crap. I use them for downloading, ahem, large files from binary newsgroups, but recently there are so many incomplete posts that they are practically useless. I`m not sure if this a temporary problem but I am seriously considering paying for access to a subscription newsgroup (usenet?)

Does anyone have any recomendations for good providers of binary newsgroups? Are they all american? are there any european ones?

cheers in advance

RE: T3 - what does James Cameron think?

just a thought, but in the 1st one did someone not mention the 1st Terminators were easy to spot because they had plasic skin or something.

RE: Star Wars Episode I and II DVDs to be deleted!!!!

one word


money

RE: Matrix Revolutions sucks.....Officialy

I was talking to a guy yesterday and I had mentioned that I had seen Revoultions that afternoon...he said" I`ve watched the first one, but haven`t got round to the other ones yet..." - I advised him not to bother as watching them as they would ruin the magic of the original Matrix.

The Matrix was a pretty cool movie. It stands on its own a good movie and did not really need the sequels to "explain" everything (not that the sequels explain anything anyway). What seems to have happened is that the success of the original movie forced the Brothers W. to come up with a whole lot of backstory and extrapolation to fill a couple of sequels.

Visually and technologically spectacular as Reloaded and Revoultions are, I have to ask - were they really neccessary?

also - I hate the way the Oracle was used to explain random plot devices

Scene : Int. Oracles Apartment

Neo: I need a new hat to allow me to keep my hair nice and tidy.
Oracle: You need to see The Hatmaker
Neo: The Hatmaker?
Oracle: The Hatmaker - He makes hats
Neo: How do I find him?
Oracle: I can`t tell you that - you must choose
Neo: Choose what? JUST GIVE ME STRAIGHT ANSWER YOU SILLY OLD MOO!...and why do you look different from the last time we met.
Oracle: I just do...
Neo: But how?
Oracle: Just because...
Neo: oh f*** off...pass me that spoon so I can stir my coffee..
Oracle: There is no Spoon.
Neo: Yes there is! - it`s in the sugar bowl...

RE: Anybody else fed up of Bonfire Night?

I work in a music shop (instruments, guitars, books etc) - Last night some stupid f***er decided to put a roman candle / air bomb firework through our letterbox.

Luckily nothing was badly damaged but I have spent most of today cleaning ash/residue off every surface in the shop, but if some of our stock had caught fire we would have been put out of business. (everything is insured but at this time of year a fire would be a financial disaster)

The police really couldn`t care less - one of them actually stated that it was not illegal to put fireworks through a letterbox...I mean, what the f***! - so arson and criminal damage is no longer a crime in this country! The CCTV camera in the street points in the wrong direction and the person in charge of CCTV in this area has told us there are no plans to fit any more in our area.

I would like to see the sale of fireworks to the general public banned - fireworks should be as difficult to get hold of (legally) as guns and ammunition. In the wrong hands they can do as much damage.

Most fireworks sold in the UK are imported so it`s not like people in Britain would lose their jobs. Those british factories still operating can concentrate on the providing fro increase in properly licensed displays.

The sooner the public sale of fireworks are banned the better - just ask the firemen, the emergency departments and burns units. All of you whingers can go to a organised public display.

This item was edited on Thursday, 6th November 2003, 16:25

RE: Play order

The last two disks I`ve ordered have went missing and now after a week my finding nemo is still not here.

I like play, but they really need to do something about it.

Best lcd for £500ish

I`m looking to get a 15", 17" widescreen lcd tv around £500.
Currys have a grundig LCX17WS for £499 which looks pretty good.

any ideas?

RE: How do the Phillip Pullman books compare to harry potter?

The His Dark Materials books p*** all over the Harry Potter books. From a great height. Buy them now.

RE: Pacific 1002

It does sound like a software problem rather than a hardware one. I don`t know if this advice helps....

Try and use at least average quality discs (Datasafe, Datawrite) - I like the ones with a solid white writing/upper surface rather than the cheapo "mirror" ones. Also look for discs that are as close to "silver" in colour on the bit that is read by the laser - the cheaper the disc the more blue/green they are. This may have no scientific basis but if the disc is closer to "silver" (like real CD / DVD) then it should, in theory, reflect the laser better. I stand prepared to be corrected by the disc boffins out there!

Also when burning/writing your discs try and burn vcd/svcd`s at the slowest rate you can stand (2x or 4x maximum) - I know this sounds odd if you have a 40x writer but slower burning of VCDs can reduce errors/glitches etc. (I don`t think burn speed is so critical when it comes to data backups but it may have an effect on audio cds)

Finally - it could be just a crap encoding at the source...or some data corruption somewhere along the line.

Hope this helps

pol

George Lucas Has Gone Mad (maybe a spoiler)

This is up at AICN

"Just a quicky for you...an animator friend at ILM tells me that in Star Wars Episode 3, he`s working on a scene where C3PO donates his leg and other body parts to his maker, after Anakin has a brutal limb-busting fight with Count Dooku. "


Oh My God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!