beib’s blog

where great things happen

Jul
04

The Tale of Steve, the Scuba Saab and Sat nav

Posted by beib

My father drives a Saab estate. Recently he bought a boat, to go with his new house back at the coast. He’s always had a boat this was just a bit of an upgrade.

We’ll call his Saab, Steve, because it begins with S and makes the title of this blog post more “flowy”.

Anyhoo, so him and my brother (who’s name happens to be Steve, fancy that!) would take it out on weekends. Steve’s friends would tag along and they’d stay out in the bay all day fishing. I hate fish. But anyway, dad would back the boat down the pier into the sea just a tad, to unload the boat from it’s trailer. Same for taking it out.

One faithful evening when preparing the boat to bring it in, he backs the car down towards the boat. Can you see where this is going? :) He miscalculates where exactly he should reverse to, somehow. Reverses the car deep into the sea, yeah for real, to hook up the boat. When I say “into the sea”, I mean INTO the sea.

Opens the drivers door to get in to drive away, and you could go for a swim inside it there was so much water. hehe

They get the car started, which is a shock in itself, and manage to get it off the pier and up to the road, park and get out fixing up connections and getting changed into dry clothes etc., etc. Get back in, car won’t start!

Car fk’d! Hence, the scuba Saab.

Had to leave it there for 3 days ’til he could get it towed. Was lucky we were all back at the house that day and all had cars so he was able to get the boat back to the house at least!
So he gets the car towed to the dealers, where they investigate. Been there 3 days meant it had dried up so it didn’t appear anything water related, lucky.

Few days go by and the dealer calls him saying it’s only the starter and easy to replace. Day later he calls back, the immobilser is also gone (whatever that is :p) and asks if the car got wet. So my dad blames my brother, said he had it for the weekend and didn’t know what happened hehe. My poor bro.

It’ll be a while before he lives this one down, there’s already jokes about Saab bringing out a new scuba version, and if his satnav drove him into the water, which is another story, which I may as well tell.

Back when satnav was new and a novelty, my dad had it installed in his car. He didn’t really need it, he’s been driving the country for 30 years he knows where things are, but he goes to England a bit so got it for that, and the new roads they put in here, etc. Anyhoo, my aunt and uncle are visiting at the time and he takes them off for a spin with my mother, showing off the new satnav and what not :)
Driving along, “turn right here”….”turn left here”….”take the 3rd right” blah blah….all looking very fancy and ooh’s and aah’s coming from the back. Very nice :)
Until the satnav takes them on a road my dad hasn’t been before, no harm, it knows where it’s going right?! It’s satnav after all!

Unless no one tells the satnav about new walls being built, oh yes. “Turn right here” turned into “drive into a wall”. hehe, worst luck.

If my dad had ducks, they’d drown.

Jul
04

uh oh

Posted by beib

So Unibrow completely pissed eveyone off here, including a customer.

See, if you tell him to do 1 thing, he will do one of two things.

1 - do anything BUT the thing you ask him to do, even if it’s the boss who tells him to do it, or

2 - only do that and NOTHING else, nothing.

Now, I know in general men can’t multitask that well, but in fairness you can do more than 1 thing at a time.

Boss told Unibrow to get new screens done up for a demo on *Tuesday*, so Unibrow decides to be #2 of the above.

A customer calls with a problem that is Unibrows expertise, so to speak, and only he can solve. Rabbit transfers the call to Unibrow and Unibrow goes into a hissy fit about how he can’t talk to the customer as he has to get these screens done. He bitches and bitches at Rabbit that he won’t take the call and can’t do it, he’s concentrating on something else.

Now, doing screens involves moving buttons around and picking a colour for them, my dog could do it. You can talk on the ‘phone while doing it, easily, even without a multi tasking ability.

I was laughing about the hissy fit until I saw Unibrow pick up his phone, ignore the customer and transfer it right back to the Rabbit, while still bitching.

I’m just stunned. The customer always comes first, well boss first, customer second, but overall, you sort the customer out, end of story. The boss has told us this numerous times and it’s pretty much just plain common sense.

I’m just speechless at his behaviour, dumbass.

Jul
04

unibrow

Posted by beib

hehe this was so stupid

Unibrow was talking to some company on the phone and they asked him to spell something so he’s spelling it going all like “S for Sugar” etc, comes to Q and goes “Q…….for Q”

lol

oh I’m easily amused

Jul
03

sick n stuff

Posted by beib

I was just drinking tea and I missed my mouth! For real. Never thought that was actually possible, I mean, MISSING your mouth? Not while sober anyway.

I’ve been off sick for 6 days, came back to work yesterday, and was away for the weekend. When someone passes away here we hold a service for them 1 month after so I was at Martin’s month’s mind. Not as sad as the funeral, but still a heavy heart.

My father and uncle were going around (not at the service) wearing big bright red cowboy hats, giggling away to themselves. Until someone mentioned “Brokeback Mountain”, that ended that pretty quickly.

Haven’t been at work until yesterday, but heard unibrow is pissing everyone off going on the way he does. Nearly came to blows with my boss on Monday. Boss told him to call a certain company to find something out, he spent 2 days calling eveyrone BUT that company, just wouldn’t do it. Finally did it yesterday afternoon and got the answer in seconds hehe.

I was recently interviewed for the Warhammer Vault by Warhammer Geek and Warhammer Conflict. If you’re interested in hearing me sound like an idiot, go here: http://www.mmogeek.com/?page_id=135

Jun
24

amazon #2

Posted by beib

Just to keep it short and <3 copy/paste

  1. Lifoirnda Said,do you really think anyone cares about your letter? I think anger management would be constructive, sending them a letter is pointless.
  2. beib Said,Why was it pointless? For one, it worked and I got my goods. For two, I also got an apology and a help chat back and forth with someone about how I can use Amazon for my benefit.

    And anger management? lol

Jun
16

amazon.co.uk sucks

Posted by beib

So (hehe), mega pissed today. With amazon.co.uk…….co.yuck more like.

There is a EU law, about electronics and returning/disposing of them. I suck at explaining this (I already tried to someone else and lost them!) so I’m going to quote from a website, http://www.weeeireland.ie/legislation.htm

The WEEE Directive 2002/96/EC is an EU Directive founded on the principle of “Producer Responsibility” and its general objectives are:

  1. to prevent waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and to promote the reuse, recycling and recovery of such wastes
  2. to improve the environmental performance of all operators involved in the life cycle of electrical and electronic equipment, e.g. producers, distributors and consumers and in particular those operators directly involved in the treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment.

Got it? OK.

Off I go today to amazon.co.uk to order something in particular, and do a little browsing. When I browse I spend a lot, a LOT. hehe.

Anyhoo, found the thing I wanted to order defiitely first (screen covers for the iPod Touch/iPhone) and added to basket. Went off browsing, found a couple of funny posters that’d be hilarious at work, ordered them. Then a random link got me onto bed linens, which I have a habit of buyiing a lot of whenever I ge the idea that I need a new *one* :p Find a few I liked and added to basket.

Went to the checkout and got told that half the things I just ordered including BED LINEN and SCREEN COVERS could not be added to my order as they couldn’t be shipped outside the UK.

What. The. Fuck.

Seriously, why? That makes 0 sense. They’ve nothing to do with the Wee charge. This happened before, funnily enough on bed linens also. The supplier was Textiles Direct, so I went to their homepage and I ordered the SAME ones from them NO PROBLEM.

And screen covers? boggles the mind.

Anyhoo, amazon got a letter from me just now. Very disappointed. Amost everything I browsed (Man United poster?!?!?!) couldn’t be shipped outside the UK.

It wouldn’t be *that* bad if fucking amazon.ie didn’t redirect to amazon.co.uk. I mean, seriously.

@Amazon:

Good afternoon,

I’d just like to comment on how awful I’ve found Amazon.co.uk to be for Irish customers. I can’t order half of what I want to order due to this delivery restriction you now have in place. The site is really gone downhill and does not faciliate for Irish customers whatsoever.

It wouldn’t be too bad if your amazon.ie site didn’t redirect to the amazon.co.uk site, giving false hope as to what you can order.

I was just trying to order bed linens, and it can’t be shipped outside the UK? That’s ridiculous. I previously tried to order bed linens from your site, where the supplier was Textiles Direct, but you wouldn’t ship that time either. I went to Textiles Direct website itself and ordered from there which shipped to me, in Ireland, the next day. How do you explain this?

I can order from every other UK site I deal with (and it’s a lot which, since this restriction, has grown let me tell you) and even from the US!!!! But not amazon.co.uk.

And I just looked, I can order half the stuff .co.uk wouldn’t let me order from amazon.com!!!

You lost a customer today. Very disappointed at what this site has become.

So stupid.

Jun
13

so

Posted by beib

I need to stop starting all my blog posts with the word “so”

Habit :D

Jun
13

chanting!

Posted by beib

So we have this church behind us, some foreign nations, unsure where from or what their religion is, but in the evenings and on sundays they gather and sing their hearts out. It’s actually quite lovely but the other guys here hate it. Anyway, I met their pastor today, he introduced himself to me, think he was trying to convert me :D Which, would be a matter of him needing to get in the que.

My grandmother is trying to save me also. She is very religious, and while we’re the same religion and all, she has this massive collection of religious artifacts, statues, pictures, etc. Anyway, she has this cork board with her favourite (I think) religious pictures on it, and stuck right in the middle is one picture of only one grandchild, me. Right in the middle! 23 grandkids and she picks me! I should take a picture of it someday.

Someone here keeps stealing the water from the kettle. Like, I’ll fill it up to make tea, go back 2 mins later and the kettle is empty. When I find them, I will inflict damage.

Jun
09

oops

Posted by beib

So ok, a tad (tad) worked up over the stuff in the previous post, bit of an oopsie.

For big events, like Euro2008, the boss doesn’t mind us watching at work - once we don’t forget/neglect to do our jobs.

I’m on the phone to a customer, watching France v Romania in the background (I’ve got Romania remember) and Romania nearly score. What do I do? Yell “Oh fuck off!”, right down the ‘phone. Yep, only me.

Thankfully, the guy saw the funny side and was just laughing and will probably make fun of me for the next 3 months over it.

Jun
09

something else i hate

Posted by beib

People who harp on, and on, and on, and on and on about money you owe them, from 2 days ago, when you told them you’d give it to them on a certain date.

Unibrow OFFERED last week to get me gear in the Man United store, since he was going to be over in Manchester. We AGREED that I’d pay him however much it was when it’s charged to his credit card, so I’d know how much they charged him in sterling due to the ever changing currency rate.

He checked his statement on Friday and it had the amount. So I went to write him a cheque but like an idiot, my cheque book had only 2 slips left, one being a “Reorder now!” slip, and the other a ledgement slip, yay. So I ordered one from my bank right then and said I should have the book by Tuesday and he’d get it then. All fine, right? No big deal? Not to me, and certainly wasn’t to him at the time either.

This morning, we’re doing a sweepstakes for Euro2008. We each have 2 teams and everyone gives 5euro and whoever has the winning team gets the lot. So I make a comment about needing that money since I’m collecting it, and gobshite over there makes a smart comment about how wonderful it’d be if I paid my debts. What the fuck.

Fuck off, we had an agreement.

I pretty much told him that. And if he makes one more comment about it I’d kill him, or at least yell a lot or something.

15 mins ago, I’m talking about the match that just started - France v Romania - how it’s me v “the rabbit” in the office as those are our teams (I got feckin’ Romania, typical) and I tell “the rabbit” in a joking way to pay up already. In comes Unibrow with the stupid fucking comment again.

Like seriously. Argh.

I use way more f words in talking to him about bringing it up again than I did in this post. A lot, lot more.