stop being a heel, you need to learn to toe the line. You have no sole.

complaints from anyone not actually living in a shoe is just meta-carping, no matter how archly spoken.

I shoulda just held my tongue. I guess I should tread more lightly, and find a new balance.

BT (British Telecom) the robbing twats.


*grrrrrrrrr*

I've had the same email for 15+years. I got it when I was still living with J and BT were our phone and internet provider. Up until about 18 months ago, it was still a free email (part of the BTYahoo family of emails, though the btinternet.com emails predated their partnership). Then about 18 months ago (maybe a little longer) they decided to stop free emails for non-customers. Okay - fair enough - they offered instead a 'premium' email service for £1.60 p/mth which allowed existing users to keep their bt email. So - rather than change every login I have with every service, site and whatever, not to mention i'm quite attached the old email and don't like change, I went with that.

I got an email a month or so ago, saying that prices for BT services would be rising in line with their increased service costs and inflation. This happens from time to time. I get the same emails once or twice a year from my ISP as well, and usually it translates to a few extra pounds on a phone and internet package. The amil I got from BT didn't specify what the changes would be, and to find out you have log into my Account and that's a bastard to do on my computer, because it doesn't like their site. I figured it would maybe go up from £1.60 p/mth to £1.99 or something.

Checked my bank today and the bastards have taken £5.60, which apparently is £5 per four week.

£5 for four weeks of email access???!!!! Jesus what are they doing, storing the data in gold plated vaults?

I phoned and complained - because there is no way that tripling the price reflects their increase in costs for a fucking email service.

So - I've opened a free gmail account and am porting across contacts and emails now. I'll be closing my 15+ year old email account down before the next billing cycle.

When I asked the guy what the justification was for such a sharp increase in price, he said, well you are paying for a premium service. I asked what exactly was premium about it? he told me that some services online require you to have a premium email for you to sign up and use their sites. That still does not explain why they tripled the price. It was already sold to me as a 'premium' service.

Well, fuck 'em. I'm not paying £5 p/mth for emails. Robbing bastards.

Don't forget to send me the Gmail address so I can send you naked pictures. :haha:

Dana, I left that paid shit a long time ago. You'll be more than happy with gmail.

Except gmail unaccountably stopped delivering my emails. No explanation. No redress. Fuck 'em.


Sent by thought transference

That's weird, no reason given?

well so far I'm liking gmail. It's a much nicer interface than the btinternet one. slightly unnerved at Limey's experience, but I haven't hheard of anyone else having probs so hopefully it's a rarity!

What is pissing me off this time though?

People of the male variety who seem to think that because they are bored and I am female, my time and attention belongs to them.*

I was sat in the launderette, having put some washed clothes into the dryer and was completely engrossed in a book on my kindle. Random Bloke who had earlier sought my help on how to use a spinner, decided toengage me in conversation. His first gambit I didn't catch - because i was engrossed in my book - so he repeated it a little more loudly to get my attention - what was so important he had to drag me out of my book? A comment about how he had thought he was done with launderettes years ago. Huh, really? Well....ok then. I smiled and said, 'ah right - washing machine broke has it?' He said yes it has. I smiled again and went back to reading. 'So has your machine broke as well?' he asked - I tore my eyes away from my book again, shook my head and said 'Nope, don't have one' Then went back to reading. ..... a minute or so goes by....

'So where've you come from then?"

Fuuuuuucccckkkkk!

Each time I made a visible show of pulling my attention away from my book - kept my answers short but not unfriendly, and went straight back to reading as soon as possible. On a couple of occasions I made like I was os into my book I hadn;t even heard him - each time he just spoke louder until i did.

This went on for 20 fucking minutes. Until he was done and left the launderette.

I was on the last chapter of the fifth book in a sequence that has had me gripped for the last two weeks. The next one isn't out until September. He totally broke up the narrative flow and emotional impact of the book.


*I may be out of line here - I don;t know - is this something that happens to blokes? Because I don't know many women who wouldn't instantly recognise this scenario

But you're such a stud magnet they can't help it. :love:

Maybe if you wore ear buds, better yet headphones. :hedfone:
I know a guy who likes to write fiction at lunchtime, and cow orkers try to strike up conversations when he's writing. Even in restaurants strangers will try. He's trying out the ear buds, and I figure they'll really get the point if the notice the buds aren't plugged in.

I have had it happen to me plenty of times from women, too. They'll give a little self-deprecating laugh and say things like, "Sorry, I'm probably interrupting work there on your laptop," and I'll smile forgivingly and say, "yeah," except then they keep right on talking and asking questions, even as I am actively typing through their words. It seems to be a certain type of personality, males and females, who feels that public social interaction is simply a given.

But then again, I also think males of this mindset are more likely to fight their instincts and leave other men alone if they give off antisocial vibes. And I think social-whore women are more likely to leave grumpy men alone too.

Interesting...I've very rarely had anything like that happen with women. Except at work or uni with people I've known. Not total strangers and not as persistently.

Glad to know it goes both ways :P

I suppose it doesn't help that I find it next to impossible to be actively unpleasant or unfriendly. Some people may just not get the signal unless it is slapped across their faces.

he probably went home thinking he'd had a lovely chat with a friendly woman at the launderette :P

How about "No, it's not broken, but when I get the shits like this, I prefer to wash everything somewhere else"?

To be fair, it's always moms at kid-centered places like music lessons. It may be that they're socially-deprived in general by staying home, so they're out for their fix even when it's apparent the other person isn't interested.

I need to replace a table saw for a job I'm doing; my preferred blade (Forrest woodworker II) got used to cut some concrete forms (do not recommend, BTW) and it needs so much work in terms of teeth replacement and sharpening that after shipping it would be cheaper to replace.

That part doesn't annoy me, shit happens.

What annoys me is when I try to google reviews or comparisons of the sort that consumer reports might do, all the google results I get are buying guides or a bunch of guys on bulletin boards offering 10 year old anecdotal evidence and subjective opinions.

I can't find any type of comparison review anywhere. I once had a problem with google where I got into this feedback loop that I am guessing was based on cookies where I kept getting the same results over and over again that I assume was because I had followed the links to those results, leading the engine to figure that is what I wanted to see, more of the same wrong results.

I had been looking for Curity All Purpose surgical sponges (sort of like a dry baby wipe) I even had the empty box and typed in all description and brand and all I got back were more and more results for some sort of menstrual product. The more - I put in front of search terms the worse the results got. Eventually, I deleted all my cookies and started over.

So, is it possible with all the woodworking magazines and websites that NO ONE has done a head to head quality test on 10 inch saw blades?

If you were to go by google you'd think there were only two saw blade manufacturers; Freud and Diablo which are actually the same company.


The other thing that is pissing me off is why all my image searches lately have been ten pages of Pinterst hits. adding -pinterest brings that down to only 4 pages of hits.

WTF? did google buy pinterst?

And if I type in "Why are all my search results pitnerest links?" All I get are pinterst links.

I've been fooling around with trying other search engines like ixquick or duck duck go but I've yet to find a search engine that seems to give meaningful results. I suspect I may need to relearn how to do searches.