Rant of the Day v2.

[1DC]

In the sixties they made copy Parker pens in Japan and changed the name of the village to Usa so that could stamp made in USA on the side.

[ricardian]

In the sixties they made copy Parker pens in Japan and changed the name of the village to Usa so that could stamp made in USA on the side.

Robin Day confronts Japanese Foreign Minister with fake ballbearings

[ian16th]

There were Japanese made pens branded as 'P.arker' and the '.' was very feint on sale at Steamer Point in 1960.

[G-CPTN]

Vale of Mowbray mini pork pies at Iceland were £1 now £1.19.

[tango15]

Vale of Mowbray mini pork pies at Iceland were £1 now £1.19.

I don't know whether other people have noticed, but a lot of grocery prices have increased lately and in many, the shelves are emptier than normal. The German ones are no exception to this, at least in my experience.

[G-CPTN]

Tesco's T E Stockwell crisps were 10 for £1, now 6 for 65p.

[Pontius Navigator]

I have several items on subscription from Amazon. Kitchen towel up 73p, about 9%, Collgate 3p, 2%, Dishwasher tabs 50p or 6% and Mrs PN's thing 45p or 3%
and our pensions by 0% come next year.

[ricardian]

How true!

[Boac]

"SO TRUE", Ric. This particular Gerbil has a house insurance policy with 'Admiral' who 'generously' introduced a rewards scheme a while back that could be used against your renewal premium. The positive cynicism I expressed to Mrs B and some friends, needless to say, came to fruition at renewal last month. For the slow ones here, the premium increased by roughly double the accumulated 'rewards' I had...............

So, on the phone I were. Whinge whinge, not paying that, stick it up yer underwriting tube.... Guess what - "Let me see what I can do blah blah". New premium down to just a few squid above last year's............

Generally never fails, but still they try it on.

[Pontius Navigator]

I used to do Green flag. About £75. Renewal £150. Online new policy £75. Range and got £75. In fact they clearance doubled the quote with online £75.

Best deal ever, extended my policy by to cover continental, did the trip, rang them to cancel. As it was within 14 days I got all my money back. Result

[Hydromet]

Bloody Ausgrid - our electricity distributor. Lunchtime yesterday, lose one phase of our power supply - some power & light circuits. Ring their emergency number, check that it hasn't been reported, it hasn't, but I can't do it by phone, have to go to their web site. Do that, check again that it hasn't been reported, then go through the labyrinthine website - check map, locate property etc, terms & conditions, check boxes and pass the stupid Capcha check. Attempt to submit..."Sorry, there's been a problem. Please ring ...(the first number I'd rung)." Went through this rigmarole 3 times with the same result, so went ballistic - rang local MP - recorded message. Fair enough, it's a public holiday. Get state premier's email and send her a blister. Made me feel a bit better, but still not able to report the outage, so I ring the number that is ONLY to be used for downed power lines, which this wasn't. Finally get through to a useful human, who tells me that yes, it has been reported, will be out for about 3 hours, and yes, they've had lots of complaints about their web site.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Rather irritating evening yesterday. My trusty work laptop decided to throw a wobbly in the midst of a SQL database update and re-index. Left me not only with a messed up SQL development database but with a corrupted Windows 10 NTFS with pointers and file indices screwed up as well, probably because multiple documents were open at the time the machine blue screened. I was transferring data from an Excel spreadsheet into SQL. Despite much chkdsk /f'ing (and not a bit of blinding) I decided the wisest course was to fdisk and rebuild the whole caboodle from scratch from my backup. Finished about a quarter of an hour ago. What a palaver. I am going to buy a backup laptop this afternoon and use it as a hot backup using Windows OneDrive. One can never be too careful.

[k3k3]

My energy supplier has just gone down the tubes, waiting to see what happens. The only good thing is I owe them £50 and not vice versa.

Tonik Energy (Tonik Energy Ltd) is ceasing to trade. Ofgem, the energy regulator, is appointing a new supplier for its customers.

[PHXPhlyer]

From Computer Thread
Desktop stopped loading browser tabs, chrome nor Windows Edge.
Had just had SSD installed last week.
They said bring it back in and we'll check it out.
One hour later they called saying virus/malware detected.
$80.00 to eliminate.
They claimed it came (possibly) from a Chrome extension.
Chrome extensions been running forever.
Wankers!

PP

[Pontius Navigator]

I was transferring data from an Excel spreadsheet into SQL

Now we know what TGG really does for a living.

[CharlieOneSix]

My energy supplier has just gone down the tubes, waiting to see what happens.....

I went though this a few years ago. Take a meter reading. In my case the supplier that Ofgem organised to take over honoured my fixed price contract so I had time to look around the market. I've been with Octopus for a couple of years and they have been very good - that's probably the kiss of death for them!

[llondel]

I was transferring data from an Excel spreadsheet into SQL

Now we know what TGG really does for a living.

I was thinking along the same lines. The virus strikes back!

[k3k3]

My energy supplier has just gone down the tubes, waiting to see what happens.....

I went though this a few years ago. Take a meter reading.

Thanks for the advice, just done it.

[ExSp33db1rd]

.............and yes, they've had lots of complaints about their web site.

When our power goes out I use a landline to ring their freefone number, and get a recorded message telling me to check "outages" on their website. Without power my modem doesn't work, so HTF do I use my computer ? ( and no, I don't have a mobile phone that connects to the Internet )

[llondel]

I have battery backup on stuff here, so I have a few minutes in which I can get on-line and report an outage, assuming the outage didn't also take down the local cable repeaters.