Steam Racket

"As of June 2009 the company is under investigation by a Select Committee of Tynwald, the Isle of Man's parliament. One of the concerns of Tynwald is the annual published profit margins by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, which according to Hansard, are 36% - almost three times the industry standard for ferry companies throughout the world." THREE FUCKING TIMES.

And why does it need such a massive margin? From Manx Radio -

"Mr Malarkey believes the real problem lies in the fact the company is servicing massive loans, taken out by its parent company McQuarrie." Who'd have guessed?

So in the face of their first bit of competition do they:-

A - Accept a lower profit margin, lower freight prices to increase their competitiveness and try and win back customers whilst at the same time lowering foot passenger fares to increase the number of people using the fleet and stop half empty sailings. More people onboard means a busier bar and more £4 sandwiches being sold.

B - Blame it on foot passenger rates and threaten to increase them, cut services and lay off staff (in order to maintain their 36% profit margin)

C - Blame it all on a user agreement that has allowed them up to now to financially pillage the Manx public (and businesses) for a 36% profit margin

D - Expect some sort of Government intervention in order to maintain their 36% profit margin

E - All of B,C and D

This Week I'll Mostly Be Playing

I have a Mass Effect expansion I want to get through although I'll need to start a new profile. Who's stupid idea was it to only be able to launch the DLC from the Normandy? Yeah, OK I don't have any saves before the game sucks you towards the final showdown so I'll take some of the blame.

Following on from that I have Mass Effect 2 winging its way towards me right now, game of the year so can't go wrong. It'll be a toughy to decide which profile to carry forward (damn you Mass Effect DLC)

Finally, Fallout 3 New Vegas should be here by the weekend. Fallout 3 is right up there amongst my favourite games of all time and even with all the bugs I can't wait to play this. Will be nice to see how accurately they've mapped it, going to go back to Vegas in February to compare notes. Can't beat a bit of Vegas.

Once those are out the way the Christmas run up includes

Call of Duty Black Ops
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

This is always a busy time of year when it comes to gaming but fortunately for me I've declared my work year over. Time to unwind and prioritise what does and doesn't get done, I've made my money and can happily say fuck it till next April. Talking of which I'm off to watch Alien 3 Extended Edition on Bluray.

(You'll notice no mention of Fable 3, I know I'm on my own here but I found Fable 2 to be the biggest let down turd of a game I've played in years, and they reckon this one is worse)

Question

If the advertised salary for a vacancy is "highly competitve" why don't they just give you the amount?

Is it maybe because it's not competitive, it's fucking shit, so shit that you wouldn't bother getting of your ass to apply if you knew how shit it was? Is it because it pays only ever so slighlty better than being a scrounging cunt - plus has the downside of you actually having to do something? Fuck knows. At what point did companies think it was ok to stop giving a "in the region of" figure?

The more the days, weeks, months and years grind on the more I know I was born in the wrong decade. My annoyed with life bullshit o'meter has finally hit full. Fuck the lot of it, I give up.

Can't Believe I've Done It

Made my first million? Changed my views on wastrel fucking governments? Nope. Much more important than that, for the first time in my life I've cancelled a pre-order! That sort of shit never happens.

I've been humming and hahing about Kinect for a few weeks, every report I read although positive ends with some sort of warning, "shit if your sitting down", "shit if you move your hands too far", "shit unless you live in a barn".

What finally did it for me was admiring our ever growing collection of family Wii games whilst looking out of the corner of one eye at the Wii, Wii Controllers, Wii Balance Board and Wii Motion Plus jobbies all gathering dust. I've also just completed Mass Effect, I fucking love real games me, is there any chance Kinect will offer something new to real gamers and not just offer 40 something women and pissed teenagers another way of dancing around their front rooms like utter twats? I doubt it*. I doubt it enough to have saved myself £129.99. The only decision now is put it on black or buy 129 lottery tickets?




* Not saying that I'll never buy it, hell if I'm wrong I'll be the first mug on eBay snapping one up for £700 or whatever the going rate will be by Christmas

Chilean Miners Saved By God

"Thank God". If I had a pound for every time I'd read or heard that about the miners rescue I'd have at least 7 pound, just from the last few hours. With how busines has been the last week I could use that £7.

Lucky then that TV companies had a chance to interview God before he jetted off back home to America, "I just came here to drill" God announced on the completion of the rescue hole. Good old God turned up after seeing the plight on TV with a crack team of drillers and managed to reach the men in less than half the time the Chilean authorities expected. A bit like Armageddon but without slow motion walking and a poncy Steve Tyler soundtrack. Did God expect worship? No, he was more than happy with a job well done, top man!

He does work in mysterious ways but surely wearing a hard hat and being knee deep in shit has to be pushing it a bit.

That Big Nasty C

For the second weekend out of three I'm going to be spending a chunk of time visiting a relative with terminal cancer. Not the same relative, we buried my uncle 4 days after I last "spoke" to him (In as much as you can speak with a vegetable).

Less than 10 days and a bolt out of the blue later my step mum is squaring up to face the unbeatable bastard. Cancer, it's a bit of a twat really.

Everything Online Is Fucking Toss

It is you know. The whole fucking lot of it.

Anything to do with a service being sold online is fucking s.h.i.t.e. Trust me, I've been involved in the online world long enough to know. The latest fuckers determined to undermine my business are hosts and domain registrars. When I'm not being bent over the table by a crooked registrar I'm being let down by some host and their "99% uptime" bullshit. 75% wouldn't be bad you fucking pricks. It's not like I'm paying you for a service....oh hang on a minute. Where else in business could you get away with a contractually agreed service level and then just say "tough fucking shit" when you don't deliver? Welcome to the world of online. It sucks ass.

Pure Gaming Porn

This video makes me very very happy in a holy shit I'm getting old type of way.

P P P P P P P Poker Face

Isle Of Man Ripe For The Rip-Off

"I don't suppose it matters who it is as long as they continue to employ local people and there's a service for local people."

The most important thing is to protect the jobs and ensure there is no supply shortage, swwweeeetttttt. Any oil companies fancy a nice big Manx Government subsidy? Or how about a captive market to over charge?

Maybe the wise thing would be to keep schtum and let Total take care of the sale of THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS.

Time To Pull Out The White Board

and give a little lesson on something called Statistical Significance

Ronaldsway Airport Is A Rockin And A Rollin Again

An increase of 45 people using the airport isn't an upwards trend, it's a fucking stag party making a big mistake.

Always The Wrong Choice

I was clever enough to get by at school. Despite having just about no interest in any of the subjects I was being taught I picked up enough from the teachers I did like, combined with a serious schooling in the "real world" by my dad I did OK. At GCSE level I bagged a full house of B's and C's, not spectacular but not too bad considering I did nothing special to prepare, to the extent that one of my teachers had to come and pick me up to get me to one exam on time because I'd forgetten about it!

When I'd finished my GCSE's it was assumed I'd stay on and do A-levels. How do I know this? Because I got a phone call on day 2 of the new school year from a mate who was contacting me because the school were wanting to know where I was. Where I was? I was where I said I'd be, at college, they obviously thought I was joking. Students like me don't go to college. College is for the deadheads and mentlers that can't behave themselves enough to do sixth form. OK, so I had no interest in school but that didn't stop me from behaving myself and respecting that other people were interested. My reason for choosing college was simple, the A/S level IT was taught on PC's not the toy Macs that every school on the island insisted on using. I knew that it was a waste of my time to learn anything Mac related. The other subjects I chose were just a filler, the only subject I'd been interested in was IT, there was no such thing as a GCSE in it back then and I was in the first year that an A/S level was offered.

The people who did stay on to do 6th form were mainly made up from people who I got on really well with. The majority consisted of my mates who I'd gone through primary school and then secondary school with. I think that most of them took full advantage of what was easily the best school on the Isle of Man at the time and got fantastic A-level results. Most went off to Unversity, some got jobs. Car share and some of the best days of my life.

What about me? My A-level career was short lived. The IT A/S level was useless, it taught nothing. I'd figured this out too late to change course and so I had to see out the rest of the year including the other subjects I was doing as filler. That year wasn't a total waste because I did end up with some A's at A/S level including one in business studies (which I came to really enjoy, cheers Paul Martin). I decided that I needed to do something more practical, the obvious choice was a GNVQ in IT. What a strange course that was! Made up of a combination of school leavers, house wives and men in the mid 30's.

Seven months into my new GNVQ IT course and I can see that once again this isn't really aimed at me. It's not their fault. I ask what I can hope for when I've finished this course? "Well you could go straight in to work as an IT technician or the preferred option is to go to university and do a degree". Ahh, I'd already released several games by this point. I was 18, I did my best to explain. I wrote them a special little graphical something in C that made the lecturers go WTF. They decided that I was wasting my time in education and would be better off getting a job. Most of the poeple on that course lasted out the 2 years and went on to Universtity. I've seen plenty of them around since. Some work in IT support, some drive delivery vans. I left college after 2 years and 2 incomplete courses and got a job. It was right in the middle of a recession. I didn't have the first clue what a recession was! All I knew was I got offered 2 jobs, 1 government and 1 private. I took the private one (for half the pay - software developer £7.5k per annum) because I figured it would help me learn. It did, I owe a hell of a lot to a lad called Michael Ferguson. I was never the easiest person to employ but as a senior developer he looked out for me a lot.

Jump forward to today, I'm 31, I've ran my own business for the last 4 years. One of my creations is still treated as one of the best 100 pieces of freeware ever written. I don't really have to worry about money. I've jumped from job to job, been fed up with IT several times. I don't really keep up to date with all of todays technologies, not only that but from time to time I even have to TRY to learn and take things in. Still I've done ok for myself despite making it up as I go along.

What has become of my friends that stayed on at school to do A-levels? Well most as I said went on to Universtity and eventually returned to the island. You'll find the majority now in paper shuffling none job government positions. Exactly the same as the majority who left school at 16 with bugger all. Bitter me? Perhaps a bit. But wouldn't you be if your "first job at 18" taxes were paying to put your peers through University only for them then to get dead end jobs. If they had drive, a goal, any career ambition - no worries. Then 10 years later I have the increased taxes from my success helping keep them in jobs whilst all the time getting screwed all ways up by a left wing government. Do I have any right to be a bit bitter? This was all my personal choice wasn't it? Yes it was, born out of a sense of wanting to contribute to society. My dad, school of life, remember?

Anyhoo this isn't about me blowing my own trumpet. I don't give a flying fuck what people think, never have, never will. The trumpets that deserve blowing are the people that did their A-levels at school but then spurned University to take jobs. I can't tell you how much respect I have for those people, to have turned their back on Uni must have taken massive balls. I don't know anybody who hasn't gone on to have a successful career in whatever they decided to do. Remember they left school (when I left college) at a time when the economy was tits up.

So when I turn on the TV and all I see is news program after news program filled with students who can't get a place on their social studies with post modernist drama course all I can think is fuck you. Shut the fuck up, knuckle the fuck down and get a fucking job.

Why Oh Why...

...would you go to the effort of picking up dog shit only then to dump the plastic bag? You've just handled dog shit, is it really that hard to chuck it in the nearest bin?

FU Gadget Show

I like lists, lets do a list-

1. Where the hell were the actual gadget reviews in this your first episode of a brand new series, have there been no new gadgets out in the last few months (excluding Apple toys of course)?

2. You can't give the iPhone 4 a 5G rating so instead you don't give it any rating, nice.

3. When testing the iPhone against its competition you put it in the hands of an experienced user whilst giving the new device(s) to somebody who has never used them. In what way is this a useful test?

4. I have no problem with people making commissions from promoting a product, fuck me I've made a career out of it, however please be open about it. Rave reviews about average products followed by a positive call to action (check out our website where you'll find the best prices for the iPhone4) is not what you expect from a mainstream consumer program. FFS just be honest about your relationship with Apple.

5. Exactly how does a challenge which involves using agencies to market the Gadget Show help your viewers make informed gadget buying choices? Seriously?

6. Suzi is not great looking. Lovely girl but she's average looking. Stop fucking letching over her like a couple of sex starved teenage tossers.

7. Your program is a pile of shit. I gave the new series a chance, you've blown it. That will be the last episode of the Gadget Show I ever watch.

I would buy an iPad, but . . .

I hate the frickin' adverts. What a bunch of knob-jockeys . . .

Public Sector Whinge

Blah blah, low paid, blah, whinge whine blah blah, not fair, blah blah, bastard bankers, whinge, I work hard, whine whinge blah blah

Just getting this in early before the UK budget is announced.

The reality is:- Gravy Train - Choo Choo

And the bankers weren't entirely responsible for the problems the UK has found itself in, you might have to look a little closer to home. Muppets thinking they can afford £250k houses (as well as the holiday, well you deserve it, and new car every few years) on a £20k a year job MAY have had something to do with it.

Disclaimer:- I don't work in a bank, I'm just somebody whose family lives within their means, who averages 50-60 hours work every week, who hasn't had a bank holiday off in 3 and a half years and whose annual leave is counted in single digits. But that's my choice, if I'm not happy with it I can always try and find another job - the world is strange like that.

Man With Invested Interest In Something Suggests We Need More Of It

http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=45653

Personally I think we need more internet advertisers, every company should advertise online. I'm not just saying that because it would benefit me personally, I just believe it would make the world a better place.

Ha Ha, You Are More Fucked Up Than Us

Just to put things in to perspective, YOU are letting a party that represents less than 25% of the population hold YOUR country to ransom until it gets its own way over something that LESS THAN 25% of people voted for. The party that came a very distant 3rd holds all the power in the UK. You've got to laugh. On what planet is that democracy?

In any other country there would be protests, riots, things would get ugly. In the UK you get angry e-mails to BBC news. Well done.

Note: On the plus side now the dust has settled you seem to have a government that actually realises the massive financial shit storm going on and is determined to do something about it. Whilst ours concentrates on using less pens, no seriously

Shock As Thousands Of Work Shy Tree Huggers And Students Are Too Lazy To Vote

Is it really a shock?

TV crew turns up at a random University and asks the students how they are going to vote. Note: The reporter has made the effort of going to the University, i.e. not expecting the students to do ANYTHING. 90% say Liberal Democrat (why wouldn't they, they are promising to distribute far more of the wealth from the people who DO work to those that don't).

Come election day where there is a need for the same students to get of their asses, go somewhere and vote and.....shock horror...the majority can't actually be arsed, or even better turn up at the polling stations late.

I feel sorry for Nick Clegg a bit, courting students and people too lazy to work doesn't pan out too well when having them vote actually involves them having to do something. If only there was some way of exercising your democratic right in a way that involved absolutely fuck all effort on your behalf then I'm sure the Liberal Democrats would be a shoe-in!


IN OTHER SHOCK NEWS: The much warned about by experts, who know these things, run on Sterling that would happen should a hung parliament occur has started. Who'd have thought that?

Dear Gadget Show

Why have you taken what was one of my top 3 programs on TV and turned it into a bag of crap?

Whilst there has been a steady decline in the quality of what you have put out over the past 2 series last nights episode really took the biscuit in terms of utter crapness. Surely the whole point of your program is to test gadgets, at least that's what the original program was about. I'm assuming that something has been said along these lines recently because you now feel the need to mention during each episode that "testing gadgets is at the heart of everything you do". Whilst at the same time dedicating most of the program to some form of ridiculous ego challenge. Here's a small tip for you, why not do some gadget reviews and then you wouldn't have to keep on reminding people that's what your program is about?

Lets take last nights episode as an example. The majority of the program is dominated by a challenge. The first part of this challenge is to see what gadgets can help you RUN 400m the quickest. Except in some act of PC bullshit you have the old man win by wiggling a wii-mote. Because everybody with Wii-Fit doesn't know you can cheat by wiggling the mote instead of running? The only actual running technology on show, worn by Ortis, gets a few seconds of air time. Why didn't you just have him do a peice about his tech and show the time difference between wearing and not wearing it and what effect you are getting for your money? You know, like a real test, how hard would that be? The next 2 parts of the challenge are even more pointless, the cherry on the cake being Suzi flying through the air by crane hoist during the long jump challenge. Why the fucking hell even bother? It's not factual (like Bang Goes The Theory), it's not even entertaining (like Top Gear) it's just a giant ego trip for presenters who have become too fond of their own voices. The PCness of it makes me want to puke, if you're going to do a challenge make it a genuine challenge and if somebody is shit at it, let them be shit at it. They might be that crap that it becomes entertaining? On the other hand why not do away with the pointless challenges altogether and get back to reviewing new gadgets? We live in a gadget rich age, there is plenty of new stuff out each week.

In this respect I wouldn't even mind if you want to get rid off 1 or 2 of the presenters. Last nights episode contained two actual product review segments. The first by John where he looked at noise cancelling headphones was very well done, informative and of great use to somebody looking to buy a new pair of noise cancelling headphones. The second piece about the surround display for gaming done by Jason was frankly, useless. What did it tell us about this new gadget? It's clear that for 3 of the 4 current presenters it's become much more about being on TV, Jason has become his own biggest fan, Suzi has lost all her passion for gadgets, it's easy to spot the difference when you see her presenting a motorbike program. Ortis has clearly never had any interest in Gadgets at all or is a bag of nerves in front of the camera, the somebody telling him "you need to say this about this" nature of his pieces to camera are ripe for a bit of fast forwarding. That leaves John, the only real product reviewer left on the program.

The truth is that thanks to Sky+ the Gadget Show is now a 10 minute watch for people like me. People interested in buying and using the latest gadgets need to know what they're getting for their money, not how many world records a bunch of amateurs can get when backed up by huge teams of professionals! This will be my last series of the Gadget Show, it was good, now you've wrecked it. Wankers.

What Did New Mums Used To Do Before Facebook?

...because all they seem to do now is sit there updating the world with the status of their kids as if they are the first people in the world to have ever brought up a child. I imagine they do it so that the other new mums who they went to school with but haven't spoken to in 15 years can "like" it.

I'm not talking about the people who post the odd weekly update, I'm talking about the collective who feel the need to post updates every half hour about little Timmy's shit/jab/puke status. Either that or what a prick the father has been. Somebody far cleverer than me should do a study into the correlation between women of a certain age using Facebook and their likely hood to get knocked up by some twat that then pisses off.

As Facebook matures it'll get even better, we'll be able to follow the half hour updates for the first 6 months of the relationship and how this boyfriend is the bestest boyfriend in the world ever (luvs u bbs xxx), the announcement of being pregnant, then the next 18 months getting regular updates on what a prick the ex boyfriend now is and how little Timmy is the best kid the world has ever seen, despite having a crap dad.

I shouldn't forget that it's also compulsery as a new mum to let the world know via Facebook how tired you are feeling, EVERY FUCKING DAY. Well you can't have that status left emtpy of a morning can you?

And don't even get me started on 30+ year olds who suddenly feel the need to speak in txt spk

Facebook should have been left for the hot college chicks to post pictures of themselves, it's been spoilt now.