Archive for the ‘Chatlogs’ Category

Since it’s now a bit more than three months since the election and the BBC still haven’t got round to replying to my email about the coverage, here it is in isolation:

Thank you for your impartial coverage of the general election which focussed on the important parts rather than frivolous nonsense.

This was exemplified by your coverage of the two high-profile Liberal Democrat losses, Dr Evan Harris and Lembit Opik. While large photos of each outgoing MP were on the screen, you rightly ignored Dr Harris’ place on the Science and Technology Subcommittee. You rightly paid no heed to his campaigning against religious interference in abortion law. You wisely didn’t mention his campaigning against NHS spending on unproven and disproven forms of alternative medicine. His work on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was surely dismissed, as was his outspoken opposition to the sacking of Professor Nutt. I thought you might have been taken in by his campaigning to reform our absurdly draconian libel laws, but no. Not you. With your superhuman wit and journalistic integrity you cut straight through all that tedious bullshit and reported the far more important fact that Mr Opik might have had sex with a minor pop star.

Twice.

Sirs, I salute you.

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NHS Scotland are advertising a job for a ’specialty doctor in homeopathy’, which pays up to £68,638. They are also letting go of hundreds of other staff who have actual jobs. Obviously this is fucking stupid, and so several bloggers have applied for it already, and obviously so have I. You can read their supporting statements at the following URLs, and you can read mine below those links.

Update: there’s no point us both maintaining a list, so here’s Zeno’s.

Statement in Support of Application – please tell us your personal qualities, skills and attributes, experience and any major achievements and show how they match those needed for this job.

While I have had no formal training in homeopathy, I have a very good understanding of the theory and practice of, and the evidence base for, the discipline. While I understand you may be reluctant to hire a specialty doctor with no formal training in the field, I should point out that my outside viewpoint grants a certain clarity, and I am therefore unencumbered by various misconceptions which are common within the industry – such as the idea that homeopathy has any power to heal illnesses or injuries. My research background will be useful in keeping up to date with the latest research in case anybody ever proves that it does – as will my Master’s degree in physics, which allows me to see through the misguided and fraudulent appeals to quantum strangeness which riddle much of the published literature on homeopathy.

My second degree allows me to call myself ‘doctor’, however I am not a medical doctor. In fact I have a PhD from Manchester University’s award winning School of Dentistry. I believe this non-medical doctorate would be very useful to this role, categorised under “medical and dental”, because homeopathy cannot be considered ‘medicine’.

I would be a valuable supervisor to the Tayside Postgraduate Homeopathy Group as I am passionate about raising awareness of homeopathy. Indeed, I have already participated in a large-scale campaign to this end, known as “ten twenty-three”, in which healthy volunteers (including myself) deliberately swallowed massive overdoses of homeopathic arsenic. This has been reported as an ‘anti-homeopathy’ demonstration, but in fact the result was quite balanced: the volunteers suffered no ill effects, and indeed no effects at all, thereby demonstrating both the safety and inefficacy of homeopathic preparations.

I understand you may also be reluctant to appoint a specialty doctor in homeopathy who does not believe that homeopathy can be used medicinally, however the guidance handed to the NHS from Parliament suggests that homeopathic preparations may be offered not for their efficacy but to provide patients with a greater range of choice. I would be the ideal candidate for this role because I offer a yet greater choice than more mainstream homeopaths, since I will ensure that patients’ choices are informed by all the relevant facts, including the fact that homeopathic preparations are pharmacologically inert.

I appreciate that this is an unorthodox application, however I hope you will consider it given the unorthodox nature of the position being advertised–that of a doctor of non-medicine. This happy alignment of post and applicant seems apt given the first law of homeopathy, and I am keen to apply the second law to my work as soon as I start.

Obviously I’ve got this post pretty well sewn up, but in case I am unavailable you might want to apply here.

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I have been writing to companies again.

Hi,

I just found the “Meebo Bar” on the website at https://fusefm.co.uk/podcasts and I thought you could give me more information about it. I guess my question is, what the hell is it for?

Possibly I’m outside the target audience. I think I might be a bit too web-savvy to really get the full benefit. Certainly I didn’t find the chat panel useful, because I have an IM client installed to handle that and I wouldn’t normally think to visit a small University radio station’s podcast download page if I want to check if my flatmate will be home for dinner. I suppose that’s just a quirk of how I happen to use the web, and other people might not have an IM client installed, and instead rely on every website they visit to support chat individually. I’m not sure how these people ended up with instant messaging accounts, but I expect they filled in the Windows Messenger sign-up page before their children uninstalled it so they would stop downloading viruses from robots posing as teenaged girls.

I guess the Twitter button is the same. Being a nerd, obviously I have a Twitter account (@Andrew_Taylor – follow me!), so I don’t need a button on every website I visit showing me its latest tweets and would ideally like a button that allowed me to follow them using actual Twitter, but I realise you’re going for a more ‘newbie’ market than that so your solution is probably best. Adding any kind of interaction to the Twitter panel would doubtless only confuse them. They would probably tweet their bank details or something. I imagine people who don’t really know what Twitter is probably click it and think “ah yes, I’ve heard about this on the news, it’s what all the kids are using. And now, so am I! Wow, it looks like a tiny version of the site I was already looking at, but more inane and with little gibberish weblinks all through it. Not really sure what it’s for but I do feel very modern”. I imagine they enjoy that.

The YouTube integration’s the same, isn’t it? You don’t need a button to subscribe to, or even view, their YouTube channel; just show the videos and let them watch a bit of telly in a tiny box at the bottom of a website. Us major web-nerds will be able to find it through the player-integrated menu or a normal link or Google or maybe we can just regexp the whole internet or something.

Presumaby you’ve taken the same attitude with the RSS button. Its purpose, clearly, is to flash up a message saying “Sorry, RSS is not supported in your browser” so that they can feel like they’re engaging with Web 2.0 without having to learn anything. They no longer have to say “I don’t understand” when their colleagues or children mention RSS! Now they can just say “yeah, but my browser doesn’t support it” and when asked what browser they use I imagine they say “Google” or “Dell” or something. Everyone will laugh at them behind their backs, of course, but they know better than to laugh in front of people that ignorant because then they’d have to explain what a browser is and that would be like explaining what a planet is to a crab. The Meebo Bar has granted them an illusion that they understand the modern internet.

Have I got this basically right?

One thing I did like about the Meebo Bar is how you’ve implemented a way to view tweets and RSS updates from a website without having to leave that website. Normally if I want to view all my Twitter updates I have to go to Twitter and read them all there, whereas with Meebo I can simply view every website and blog individually and click the buttons on the Meebo Bar, except for the websites that haven’t got a Meebo Bar which is all of them.

In a similar vein, I use a bookmarklet to share webpages with my friends. Sometimes I use a browser extension or copy-paste the URL, but mostly I use a bookmarklet. Meebo Bar allows me to do it without my bookmarklet, and instead to search each webpage I want to share for an individual button to share that page in whatever services it happens to support. This is clearly far more convenient, and I’m thinking of removing my bookmarklet, but before I do that would it be possible for you to add support for webpages without Meebo Bar (which as I say is all of them) by either having a page on your website listing every page on the internet with a share button for each one, or else some kind of bookmarklet?

Thanks,

Andrew

I hope they appreciate my comments.

Hi there. Thanks for your interest. Some quick answers:

  • The idea of placing the bar on a site is so a site visitor can access these features without leaving the site. If there was something on a site you liked, you (and more to the point anyone else, regardless of whether they were using their own computer or had a chat app) could chat to a friend about it without firing up another application.
  • The RSS button does not work in Chrome because Chrome does not support RSS. It should work fine in IE or Firefox.
  • The Twitter/Facebook Friend/RSS/Youtube button allows the site’s publisher to let site viewers access the site’s Youtube/Facebook Friend/RSS/Twitter feed without leaving the site. The idea is that people who are looking at a site might be interested in seeing more information about the site (for example seeing if the content on the YouTube/Twitter feed is worth subscribing to for them).

We appreciate your interest and your comments!

Chris

Oh, good.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

The idea of placing the bar on a site is so a site visitor can access these features without leaving the site. If there was something on a site you liked, you (and more to the point anyone else, regardless of whether they were using their own computer or had a chat app) could chat to a friend about it without firing up another application.

Ah! Sorry, I misinterpreted “leaving a site” as “closing the tab”, but thanks to the magic of multi-tasking operating systems I can write a short novel without in that sense leaving a website. Obviously what you meant is that one can share a webpage without deflecting one’s attention or mouse pointer from the webpage for even a nanosecond. Now that you mention it, it does enrage me so when I find a webpage I want to share and have to move my eyes and mouse pointer to my Google Reader bookmarklet or Shareaholic extension button, which can be anywhere up to six pixels away from the webpage. Aside from the sheer Herculean effort of moving my relatively light mouse the extra millimetre required to achieve this, there’s a constant irrational panic that the webpage may be gone when I allow myself to resume my otherwise unremitting stare. I shouldn’t have to put up with this in the twenty-first century.

With the Meebo Bar I can share any webpage I want without any of this danger, provided that I only ever want to share the FuseFM podcast download page.

The RSS button does not work in Chrome because Chrome does not support RSS. It should work fine in IE or Firefox.

Okay, I think I understand this. I’d assumed Chrome didn’t support RSS because it’s a web browser, and a web browser no more needs to support RSS any than it needs to support iCal or zip files or coffee filters but obviously we expect more than that from modern browsers. Meebo’s servers shouldn’t have to read the RSS file, extract the post data and compile it into browser-readable HTML when it can simply sit back and wait for Google to write this code and bundle it into everyone’s browser, any more than you should have to write an entire website when you could just put <website intent="sell the meebo bar" awesome="true">Unfortunately, your browser does not support the 'website' tag yet.</website> and wait for Google to learn how to parse it.

Some would say it’s not Google’s problem, but obviously if Google expected webservers to parse RSS feeds into HTML previews with convenient subscription buttons for popular feed readers they’d have bought FeedBurner or something. Although FeedBurner’s not a good solution because you can’t use it without glancing momentarily away from the webpage whose RSS feed you’re viewing. Some people might suggest that by the time you’re looking at the RSS feed you no longer have any need for the original webpage to be on your screen, but those people will change their tune when they see the Meebo Browser which I assume is the next step in your business model and which I assume will run within the existing Meebo Bar and allow users to view entirely different webpages without “leaving” the FuseFM podcast download page. And the best part is that it will be easy to build because Chrome already supports webpages.

The Twitter/Facebook Friend/RSS/Youtube button allows the site’s publisher to let site viewers access the site’s Youtube/Facebook Friend/RSS/Twitter feed without leaving the site. The idea is that people who are looking at a site might be interested in seeing more information about the site (for example seeing if the content on the YouTube/Twitter feed is worth subscribing to for them)

This is a good feature, to be fair. On my website, presently devoid of a Meebo Bar, Snap Shots, or any other obnoxious JavaScript pop-up books, my Twitter integration is a bit of a kludge: I have a hyperlink to my Twitter page in the navigation bar. Users interested in my Twitter page are expected to click the link and see my tweets in the annoyingly familiar environment of Twitter.com, and if they want to follow me they will have to go through the confusion and hassle of clicking the large “follow” button underneath my name.

When I have installed the Meebo Bar, on the other hand, they will be able to read these tweets in a smaller font in a pop-up layer at the bottom of my website, and if they want to follow me all they’ll have to do is jot down my username, leave my website, navigate manually to Twitter.com/Andrew_Taylor, and click the large “follow” button underneath my name. And they can do all this without leaving my website except for the part where they have to leave my website!

Andrew

Apparently they have stopped appreciating my comments.

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For those of you who missed it, the climactic moments of Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who were interrupted by an on-screen graphic of Graham Norton which appeared to promote Over The Rainbow. You can see the moments in question here:

Thousands of people rightly complained, so I thought some balance was in order.

The current series of Doctor Who is a triumph. Steven Moffat is a superb writer and Matt Smith is uniquely suited to his new role. I cannot praise it enough. Last night’s episode was particularly exciting: a two-part, mid-series story featuring the brilliantly creepy Weeping Angels from Moffat’s “Blink”, which won the Hugo Award, the BAFTA Cymru and the British Academy Television Award and was nominated for the Nebula Award, and Professor River Song from the sublime Silence In The Library story, also nominated for a Hugo Award. And I thought it lived up to all of that. This is genuinely world-class television, of exactly the kind the BBC is best at and ought to be making.

By far the best part was a gaudy yellow graphic pasted over the climactic moments to advertise an extended audition show for whatever musical Andrew Lloyd Webber reckons isn’t making enough money on its own merits. I suggest you implement this on the radio too. My enjoyment of Just A Minute would be hugely enhanced if while Nicholas Parsons read out the final scores a continuity announcer yelled over him that things look bad for Brian in The Archers next.

I no longer visit the cinema because I can’t enjoy a film unless there’s something to ruin the immersion. At home I get my gran walking in, seeing me rapt on the sofa leaning in toward the screen, and saying “it’s only a film, love”. The BBC have taken great strides to accommodate that. The magenta logo pasted over every single second of Being Human was genius. Aidan Turner’s portrayal of a man devastated by his betrayal by the one person he thought could save him, for a while, from the murderous hell that his vampyric life has become is hugely enhanced by the bright pink logo whirling away pointlessly in the corner because you’ve shunted the show onto a fringe digital channel to try to make BBC Three seem less of a mindless, chav-focussed waste of a frequency band.

I expect these graphics are very effective too, because usually people interested in science-fiction drama are the same people who are interested in brightly coloured singing competitions. I found myself thinking “oh my, how are they going to get out of this? What’s the Doctor’s plan going to be? Can River Song die in this if she’s already ooh look, it’s Graham Norton. There’s a show about the Wizard of Oz on? How exciting, I must watch that. Why did nobody tell me about this program before? Come on, you tedious Time Lord, hurry up and save the day so I can see which Dorothy will be leaving tonight!” Then I think there was some water or something but mostly I just wanted Graham Norton to come back. It was especially useful because I don’t really care about expertly written sci-fi drama. I can get that at one of the many science-fiction-drama bars in Manchester City Centre, but there isn’t really anywhere I can go to hear fairly average members of the public sing popular songs they haven’t written and then cry.

I was dismayed to read that “thousands” of people have complained about these graphics, perhaps because the graphics don’t also have sound. I think if the graphic also made noise it would be more effective. I was glad that when forced to apologise you didn’t pretend the graphic was an error or promise to stop using them, and that you restricted the apology to the timing of the graphic and routed it through a news report of an anonymous spokesperson.

When you get talent like Moffat to helm your flagship program, it’s important to make sure he knows his place. If you show his work as he intended it to be seen instead of spilling the plot all over the internet the previous week and using the climax to advertise dross then he might start to think you respect him and demand a pay rise or the budget cuts to be reversed or something. Obviously we couldn’t have that.

Keep up the good work.

*send*

Thank you for your e-mail.

The ‘Over the Rainbow’ trail in ‘Doctor Who’ should not have played out on Saturday and we apologise to all ‘Doctor Who’ fans whose enjoyment of the show was disrupted. We recognise the strength of feeling that has been expressed and are taking steps to ensure that this mistake will not happen again.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.

Regards

BBC Complaints

Well, they might at least play along.

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[?]

The conversation I just had

October 12th, 2009

Me: Hello?

Steve: [in a thick, perhaps German, accent] Hello. I’m Steve, and I’m calling from Save My Bill. Okay?

Me: Okaaay…

[pause]

Steve: Is that okay?

Me: Yes.

[pause]

Steve: What’s okay?

And then I hung up.

[?]

Okay, so…

Andrew_Taylor I did consider changing my Twitter username to @ndrewtaylor but it looks stupid in all other contexts. 23 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor lol @andrew_taylor is a nonce 21 minutes ago from web

It’s worth mentioning this account was set up purely for making-this-tweet purposes.

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor Yeah? Well YOU LOOK STUPID IN ALL OTHER CONTEXTS! Oh, snap! 19 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor least im not a noncing nonce you fucking nonce 19 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor I’m not at all convinced ‘nonce’ can be used as a verb. 17 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor yeah it can. andrew taylor went noncing 1 day and nonced up a kid. you manchester nonce 16 minutes ago from web

Okay, now bear with me here, because when Friz joins in replies start coming in out of order and things get a tad confusing (more so):

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor I think @ndrewtaylor is going to be my #FollowFriday this week. 15 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle fuck you fatty with shades 14 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor No, I still think that’s ungrammatical. (Also, false.) 13 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @ndrewtaylor You’re an odd individual. 13 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle Let’s see if he lasts that long before being thrown off Twitter. 13 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor id have thought you were a grammar nazi. or a nonci (nonce+nazi) lol 12 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle sorry mate cant hear you over all the pies your fucking 11 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor Gold. Utter gold. Any more pantomime villains you want to call me? You haven’t called me a terrorist yet. 10 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle How odd. @ndrewtaylor is accusing my friend of being a paedophile, and accusing me of having sex with pies. 10 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor why is your profile a drawing are you so butt ugly 9 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle by friend you mean lover gay boooooooooi 9 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle Explicitly, or did he mistype and call you a piedophile? 9 minutes ago from web

I appreciate that this is not the best advert for Twitter.

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor Well, he seems to be a fan portmanteaus. Did you SEE the “nonci” quip? Had me on the FLOOR! 17 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle It was a total nonce-sequitur! HAHA! 16 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle I wouldn’t mind if he’d at least follow me and add to my perceived popularity. 15 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor sall just words mate. 15 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle yeah you thought american Pie was a documentary fatty 15 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor Some of it isn’t even that. 15 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor I think he’s just F5-ing the @ reply page. 14 minutes ago from web

garethpwatkins @Andrew_Taylor What’s the deal with@ndrewtaylor? 14 minutes ago from Tweetie

ndrewtaylor @garethpwatkins ha more of his bum buddies coming to white knight him. leave him to nonce, mate 13 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor words words words words words words words words words words yeah i can type words 13 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @garethpwatkins How should I know? 12 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor @garethpwatkinsso what are you three like the three nonceketeers 14 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor So I see. Maybe one day you’ll master sentences. 14 minutes ago from web

garethpwatkins @Andrew_Taylor I assumed he was your nemesis/evil twin. 6 minutes ago from Tweetie

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor yeah i bet you love being the master and you want me to be your slave gay boi 3 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @garethpwatkins I personally hope it’s actually@Andrew_Taylor. Like a sort of Fight Club ending. 3 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor @garethpwatkins Oh christ, it has some sort of profile pic. 2 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle you on about me mate thats my girllfriend your on about 1 minute ago from web

garethpwatkins @frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor Can’t see it on Tweetie. I’ll just assume it’s a Swastika. 1 minute ago from Tweetie

frizfrizzle I find @ndrewtaylor’s tweets more fun to read in a Welsh accent. less than a minute ago from web

garethpwatkins @Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle Oh God it’s following me. Me and my big mouth.

And this may be continuing…

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The three exclamation marks at the end are my favourite bit of this one:

from: beverley.mcgarrell@touro.edu
to:
date: 14 April 2008 13:22
subject: Contact Mr.Orlando Max For Claims

FROM THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR INTERNATIONAL WORLDWIDE INTERNET USER LOTTERY PRIZE AWARD DEPT.

Dear Internet User,

YOUR WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR USING THE INTERNET.

I am pleased to inform you that one of the best things that can happen to any Internet user is to be rewarded for spending money and time on the Internet. You may not have known that over one hundred billion people daily surf the Internet on regular basis for one reason or other.
These Internet users including yourself, pay access fees to various Internet Service Providers (ISP) all over the world who in turn remit surplus funds to the numerous World Wide Internet Technology Companies (WWITC)for the development and advancement of Global Information Technology.

So much money is generated from people like you all over the World for using the Information Superhighway (the Internet) without your being aware the enormous sum that go to the stake holders (WWWITC). Without your patronage, this would not have been possible. After we conducted a research on the issue, we concluded that Internet users should be
compensated. As a result, we embarked on a worldwide lottery promotion with a sophisticated automated database to randomly select E-mail accounts that frequently surf the Internet. Consequent upon this, your E-mail address was picked for Category “A” ‚Winners.

After the automated computer ballot, your E-mail address emerged as a winner in the category “A” with the following numbers attached

Ref Number: PW EH 9590 OG 0612,
Batch Number: PA  563881545-NL/2007

You and other category “A” ‚ winners are therefore to receive a cash prize of One Million Five hundred United States Dollars
($1,500,000.00)respectively from the total payout of One million US Dollars earmarked in the lottery for category “A” ‚ winners. Your prize award has been insured with your E-mail address, which qualified you for the lottery
and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory proof of  E-mail address ownership.

To file in for the processing of your money, you are advised to contact our certified and accredited claims agent for category “A” winners with the information below:

CLAIMS AGENT.
Name: Mr.Orlando Max
Phone: +447031935556
E-mail:surfpriceclaimsagent014@yahoo.com.cn

You will provide him with the following information:

First name:
Last Name:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be forfeited after a trio repeated forwarding of this message to you without your response. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence. (Ref No: PW EH 9590 OG 0612,Batch No: PA  563881545-NL/2007),

You are to keep all lotto information confidential, especially your reference numbers and the password of your E-mail address. Since we do not know you, if an impostor hacks your E-mail account ID and claims your money without our knowledge, we shall not be liable. Double claims will
not be entertained so be careful. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.

Congratulations! Thank you for being a user of the World Wide Web.

Yours Faithfully,
Mary Jones
Lottery Coordinator.
Thank you and
congratulations!!!

!!!

This all seems eminently plausible.

This is amazing! I had no idea that the internet operated this way. I had assumed the excess money gathered by ISPs was some kind of ‘profit’. I didn’t realise there was a “prize fund” of a million dollars, so obviously it comes as a shock that I appear to have won 150% of that money. I presume this apparent contradiction is actually subsidised by the fact that every day over 1500% of the world’s population use the internet. I thank the WWITC and the WWWITC for this amazing and dare I say mathematically impossible prize!

Please Internet me my winnings as soon as possible!

Andrew

This didn’t put him off, but don’t worry, the next bit did.

from: Mr.Orlando Max
to: Andrew Taylor
date: 14 April 2008 15:21
subject: Fill and return Claims Form.
Signed by: yahoo.com.cn

VERIFICATION AND FUND RELEASE FORM

1.FULL NAMES:__________________________________
2.ADDRESS:_____________________________________________
3.SEX:_______________
4.AGE:________
5.MARITAL STATUS:___________________
6.OCCUPATION:________________________
7.E-MAIL ADDRESS:_____________________________
8.TELEPHONE NUMBER:_____________________

9.BATCH NUMBER:____________________ B. REF NUMBER:______________
10.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF COMPANY/INDIVIDUAL___________
11.AMOUNT WON:___________________________________
12. COUNTRY________________________________

Upon receipt of the duly requested data, I will send
you the contact information of the payment office so you
can proceed with effecting the release of your claim after
Proper verification exercise to verify if you are the true
owner of the e-mail address that won this cash price.
Warm Regards,

Orlando Max(Mr).

Everyone loves forms.

VERIFICATION AND FUND RELEASE FORM
1.FULL NAMES:______ANDREW BORIS CRAIG DAVID EDWARD FRANK GRAHAM HAROLD IAIN JAMES KEITH LIAM MIKE NEIL OLIVER PAUL QUENTIN ROGER SAM TYLER_____
2.ADDRESS:___________54354 BOND ROAD STREET AVENUE, MGH453 972FGB______
3.SEX:______FEFEFEFEFEFEMALE_________
4.AGE:___2194794_____
5.MARITAL STATUS:_____POLYGAMIST________
6.OCCUPATION:_________NINE ACCOUNTANTS_______________
7.E-MAIL ADDRESS:________ANDREW@ANDREW@ANDREW.ANDREW.ANDREW@ANDREW@MICOROSFT.HOTMAIL.GMAIL.YAHOO@COM.COM.COM.COM.COM.CO.COM_____________________
8.TELEPHONE NUMBER:_____4815162342-7593875386023774352873988573425843731/1______

9.BATCH NUMBER:_____03875-38975-39809897575039740_______________ B. REF NUMBER:____93832920193-9375960870876/5__________
10.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF COMPANY/INDIVIDUAL____9 FEET TALL_______
11.AMOUNT WON:_______£5,000,000,000,000___________________
12. COUNTRY_______THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN, NORTHERN IRELAND, FRANCE, ANDORRA, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, GERMANY, ITALY, AND THE NICE PARTS OF BELGIUM_________________________

Upon receipt of the duly requested data, I will send
you the contact information of the payment office so you
can proceed with effecting the release of your claim after
Proper verification exercise to verify if you are the true
owner of the e-mail address that won this cash price.
Warm Regards,

Orlando Max(Mr).

Tel:+447031935556

I never heard back, so I don’t have my winnings. This is most vexing.

[?]

No Means No.

April 21st, 2009

Dear Microsoft,

I am writing in reply to your recent correspondence, reproduced below:

Windows Live Newsletter
Dear Windows Live User,

We are contacting you regarding your communication preference settings for Windows Live and MSN.

Currently, your settings do not allow Microsoft to send you promotional information or survey invitations about Windows Live and MSN. We would like to communicate important product updates to you, so if you would like to change your settings, please visit your account profile hereto change your preferences.

Sincerely,
The Windows Live Team

Note: You can also change your Account settings by going to your browser and typing in: http://account.live.com. After logging-in to your account, look for ‘Additional options’ and click ‘Marketing preferences’. Then uncheck the top preference box and click ‘Save’.

Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more, please read our online Privacy Statement.
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond WA 98052

Fuck off.

Yours faithfully,

Andrew

x

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[?]

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while… But I’ve not been able to go any further with it. A while back I got this comment on this blog. It’s an attempt to get me to use my blog to pimp their website, which I have starred out one letter of to (a) hoard Google-juice, and (b) make them appear homosexual:

Author : Johnny Testa
E-mail : Johnny.Testa@askmen.com
URL    : http://As*Men.com
Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=209.71.197.194
Comment:
An article on Penis Fracture by As*Men.com

Hi,

My name is Johnny Testa from As*Men.com – a unit of FOX Interactive Media. As the world’s largest men’s web portal, As*Men.com attracts more than 7 million readers each month.

I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that AskMen.com recently published an article entitled “Penis Fracture” that I think would be of particular interest to your readers.

The article goes into detail about what can cause and what exactly is Penal Fracture.

You mean, penile fracture? Penal fracture would just be harsh.

I know, the title alone runs shivers down your spine, but rest assured this is real and it can happen. I’m sure you probably know everything about this topic but I thought you might enjoy reading what we have to say about it.

Here’s the linking URL:

-       http://www.as*men.com/sports/health_200/232_penis-fracture.html

Here are some other articles you may be interested in:

-       http://www.as*men.com/sports/health_150/186_mens_health.html
-       http://www.as*men.com/dating/love_tip_300/391_love_tip.html
-       http://www.as*men.com/dating/love_tip_200/209_love_tip.html
-       http://www.as*men.com/dating/dzimmer_100/102_love_answers.html
-       http://www.as*men.com/specials/top_99_women/

Please feel free to post any portion of our articles, or use our content as you see fit, with credit given to As*Men.com. Please send me the link if you do choose to post any portion of our article.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,

Johnny Testa
As*Men.com

Er, no thanks.

 

Hi Johnny,
Thanks, I enjoyed reading the article you sent me. As it happens, I was already aware of Penis Fracture — a friend of mine is a GP and one of her patients once presented with the condition. He was 15, and one of the boys at his school had told him you could use a bagel to simulate sex but he was too embarrassed to buy one, so he found a stale one in the trash. Apparently, stale bagels are pretty tough cookies. I thought she’d made the story up, but she says it’s not the strangest injury she’s ever had to refer.
I was considering putting the story up on my blog, but I ought to check if that would be against some kind of GP-patient privacy rules. If I do put up a post about it, can I use a paragraph or so from your article to get across to my readers that it’s a real condition?

 

Andrew

Thanks to @Estie_Tabernak for that piece of bullshit.

 

Hey Andrew,

Thanks for getting back to me. I’m glad you enjoyed reading the article. You can definitely use As*Men.com as reference as long as we are given credit and that there is a link leading to the As*Men.com article located somewhere in your post.

On another note, I cannot understand for the life of me why someone would use a bagel to please themselves, and I don’t know whether to laugh at the boy’s accident or cringe in pain.

Let me know if there is anything else that I can help you with.

Regards,

Johnny Testa 
Online Marketing Coordinator 
johnny.testa@askmen.com

P: 514-908-2557 
P: 514-908-2552 ext:257

AskMen.com – No.1 Men’s Portal Worldwide 
http://www.as*men.com 
A division of IGN Entertainment, A unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc.

 

You may have noticed that I’ve stripped out the links from this ‘article’.

 

Thanks for getting back to me. I’m glad you enjoyed reading the article. You can definitely use As*Men.com as reference as long as we are given credit and that there is a link leading to the As*Men.com article located somewhere in your post.

Thanks. At the moment I’m looking at using it as a kind of a ‘cold open’ — straight into a blockquote. If I’m quoting a big chunk, I like to open with it. The RSS feed might show a couple of sentences of your article, though, and readers wouldn’t see the credit unless they clicked through. Is that a problem? I can change it if it is.

On another note, I cannot understand for the life of me why someone would use a bagel to please themselves, and I don’t know whether to laugh at the boy’s accident or cringe in pain. 

That was my first thought too. You’d be better off with a donut — they’re softer and cheaper and if you get a cream-filled one it’d be more realistic. Still, hindsight, eh? (Not a jam one, though — I mean, each to their own and all that, but for my money that’s not an appealing visual. Also, jam might have seeds in it. That would sting. Not that I’ve tried it. Obviously. That would be ridiculous.)

Let me know if there is anything else that I can help you with.

There might be. Do you know if As*Men.com has an article on this topic that I could reference: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/lifestyle/healthfitness/menshealth/part1_4-1.html – specifically about the effects of heat? Only there’s another story I was hoping to squeeze into the blog post, about keeping things cool, and it would be good to have a quote to introduce that one too. (I won’t tell you that story unless you ask — it’s much, much worse than the bagel one and people don’t usually thank me for telling it.
Well, you’ll see it if you read the finished blog post, so don’t say you weren’t warned.
Thanks,
Andrew

 

I wonder if he will read the finished blog post.

 

Hey Andrew, as long as the feed leads to our article than its fine.

You might find something about your other topic in one of the two links I provided:

http://www.as*men.com/dating/keywords/sperm-count.html

http://www.as*men.com/dating/keywords/semen.html

I’m curious about the story you’re referring to but I think I will read it when you have posted it on your site.

 Let me know if you need anything else.

Johnny

 

Still, here it is:

 

Hi Johnny,
I’ve been having a go at writing this and here is what I have so far. I thought I’d let you have a check over it before I publish it, to make sure you’re okay with how I’ve used your material and because you seem to know about these things. I’d hate to take a paragraph out of context and change the message or anything. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions. (If you don’t want to read the second half then I entirely understand.) Thanks.

Penis fractures are a reality. To call it a “fracture” may be a inaccurate when talking about the penis, which has no bone, but the cracking sound, intense pain, and immediate swelling and bruising mimic fractures that occur in bones. Sometimes, blood may appear at the urethra, indicating damage to the urethra itself; this is a more severe type of penis fracture that requires involved surgery to repair.
Penis fractures usually occur when the penis strikes the pubic bone or the perineum of a partner during rigorous sexual activity. Rolling over in bed with an erect penis in the middle of the night has also been implicated as a way to fracture a penis. Penis fractures have also been reported as occurring when a man rushes to get clothed when the penis is erect — imagine that scenario.

The above is from As*Men.com’s fascinating but slightly disturbing article on Penis Fracture. You might not want to imagine the scenario they describe, but a friend of mine has little choice: she once treated a patient who suffered a penis fracture at the tender age of 15. At his school there was a story going around that the most realistic way to simulate sex was using a bagel. (A lazy Saturday, a trip to Tesco and the rigorous application of the scientific method are all you need to know that this story is clearly not true.) Of course, the local shop soon figured out what was going on after the tenth or so nervous-looking boy turned up asking for a single bagel and a pack of cream cheese. (I rather suspect they put the story about in the first place.) The hero of this tale was too shy to go to said shop if it meant they’d know what he wanted to do with their bagel, and he didn’t think his parents would take kindly to his taking one of theirs. Eventually he looked in the kitchen bin and found one there. He ran off to his room and started to make sweet love to the savoury snack.

He had not eaten a bagel before and didn’t know what they are supposed to feel like, but now we know that the bagel had been thrown out because it was very, very stale. Fortunately, he managed to get to hospital on time, where presumably he was far more embarrassed than he would have been in the shop. I’m told he’s since made a full recovery, although since he was a virgin at the time there’s really no way to know.

Some people find that story a little hard to hear. If you’re one of those people then you should definitely not read the next story. If you’re brave enough to continue, then first you should read this background, again from As*Men.com:

The reason your testicles hang from your body and don’t reside inside it like a woman’s ovaries, is because they need to be a few degrees cooler than the rest of your body. So wearing tight underwear or tight pants that keeps them pressed up against your 98.6° body is not a good idea. As well, sleep naked if you can, to ensure coolness.

Ensuring coolness is undoubtedly important, but there are limits. We all know the attraction of the Cold Shower. But like anything, such things can get addictive. There is a chilling story, told at our university, which has been passed down from one year group to the next. Apparently in 2001 there was a student in the chemistry department (his name was Patrick, but to protect his anonymity I shall call him Brian) who got obsessed with cold showers, to the point where he couldn’t get turned on unless he was colder and colder. Eventually they weren’t enough, and he started rolling in snow or taking ice baths. You could see his skin turning redder by the day. There was some concern over how all this was affecting what remained of his sex life (he wasn’t what you’d call promiscuous; why do you think he was taking all those cold showers in the first place?) but these concerns suddenly became somewhat academic one Friday afternoon.

At first nobody made the connection. Brian hadn’t turned up at lectures for almost the whole next week, and one of the lab technicians found two pieces of what appeared to be freshly chopped pork in dusty corners of the floor. It was known that students would occasionally let themselves into the labs after hours to work on their projects — it wasn’t really allowed but the professors never complained because it meant they got more work done. The assumption was that someone had had dinner in the lab, but after two days trying to find out who it was, a member of ambulance staff told them what the meat actually was.

It seems that Brian had been working on his final year project after the department closed on the Friday evening, but in the corner of the lab was a large insulated container containing liquid nitrogen. Apparently, after a while, the temptation was too great and it overcame him. Of course, once chilled to 77 Kelvin, the nerves were not responsive, and in his numb frustration he got more vigorous until he collided with something and his frozen penis literally shattered.

While he waited for the ambulance, he gathered up all the shards of his manhood that he could find. They couldn’t be reattached, and nobody really thinks he ever held out much hope of that, but he did hope to prevent anyone figuring out what had happened.

Obviously he didn’t manage to keep the event a secret, but if his tale can prevent anyone else from trying such an ill-thought-out method of self abuse then its publication will be worthwhile.

I look forward to hearing your comments.
Thanks again,
Andrew

 

That ought to tip him off.

 

The article looks good Andrew, no complaints on my end. Let me know when the article goes live on your site.

Johnny

 

Ah.

 

Hi Johnny,

Bad news, I’m afraid. My webhosts have said that an article about simulated sex and genital injury would violate their terms and conditions. I tried to explain to them that this isn’t filth; it’s a public-spirited warning about genuine dangers that men face, but they said it wasn’t about blocking pornography but ensuring their sites can be seen behind corporate and educational filters, and that some of the terms I’d used might cause their sites to be blocked. I’ve sent them a new version of the article, but I guess I should ask you to look at it too, to make sure you’re okay with it — after all, many of the disputed words appear in the quotes from your site. Some parts of it don’t make much sense, but it has to look like real sentences: can’t just replace i with ! any more — the filters are cleverer than that now. If you both okay it, I’ll post it up. Also any suggestions for better ways to disguise it would be welcome:

Pen fractures are a reality. To call it a “fracture” may be a inaccurate when talking about the pens, which have no bone, but the cracking sound, intense pain, and immediate swelling and bruising mimic fractures that occur in bones. Sometimes, blood may appear Ulrika, indicating damage to Ulrika herself; this is a more severe type of pen fracture that requires involved surgery to repair.
Pen fractures usually occur when the pens strike the public bone or the palladium of a partner during rigorous textual activity. Rolling over in a bid to elect the President in the middle of the night has also been implicated as a way to fracture pens. Pen fractures have also been reported as occurring when a man rushes to get clothed when the President is elect — imagine that scenario.

The above is from As*Men.com’s fascinating but slightly disturbing article on Pen Fracture (which you can read unedited on their site). You might not want to imagine the scenario they describe, but a friend of mine has little choice: she once treated a patient who suffered a pen fracture at the tender age of 15. At his school there was a story going around that the most realistic way to emulate a NES was using a bagel. (A lazy Saturday, a trip to Tesco and the rigorous application of the scientific method are all you need to know that this story is clearly not true.) Of course, the local shop soon figured out what was going on after the tenth or so nervous-looking boy turned up asking for a single bagel and a pack of cream cheese. (I rather suspect they put the story about in the first place.) The hero of this tale was too shy to go to said shop if it meant they’d know what he wanted to do with their bagel, and he didn’t think his parents would take kindly to his taking one of theirs. Eventually he looked in the kitchen bin and found one there. He ran off to his room and started to whisper sweet nothings to the savoury snack.

He had not eaten a bagel before and didn’t know what they are supposed to feel like, but now we know that the bagel had been thrown out because it was very, very stale. Fortunately, he managed to get to hospital on time, where presumably he was far more embarrassed than he would have been in the shop. I’m told he’s since made a full recovery, although since he was a Virgo at the time there’s really no way to know.

Some people find that story a little hard to hear. If you’re one of those people then you should definitely not read the next story. If you’re brave enough to continue, then first you should read this background, again from As*Men.com:

The reason your tribunals hang from your body and don’t reside inside it like a woman’s nunneries, is because they need to be a few degrees cooler than the rest of your body. So wearing tight underwater or tight paints that keeps them pressed up against your 98.6° body is not a good idea. As well, sleep faked if you can, to ensure coolness.

Ensuring coolness is undoubtedly important, but there are limits. We all know the attraction of the Cold Flower. But like anything, such things can get addictive. There is a chilling story, told at our university, which has been passed down from one year group to the next. Apparently in 2001 there was a student in the chemistry department (his name was Patrick, but to protect his anonymity I shall call him Brian) who got obsessed with cold flowers, to the point where he couldn’t get tuned in unless he was colder and colder. Eventually they weren’t enough, and he started rolling in snow or taking ice baths. You could see his skin turning redder by the day. There was some concern over how all this was affecting what remained of his socks life (he wasn’t what you’d call Prometheus; why do you think he was taking all those cold flowers in the first place?) but these concerns suddenly became somewhat academic one Friday afternoon.

At first nobody made the connection. Brian hadn’t turned up at lectures for almost the whole next week, and one of the lab technicians found two pieces of what appeared to be freshly chopped pork in dusty corners of the floor. It was known that students would occasionally let themselves into the labs after hours to work on their projects — it wasn’t really allowed but the professors never complained because it meant they got more work done. The assumption was that someone had had dinner in the lab, but after two days trying to find out who it was, a member of ambulance staff told them what the meat actually was.

It seems that Brian had been working on his final year project after the department closed on the Friday evening, but in the corner of the lab was a large insulated container containing liquid nitrogen. Apparently, after a while, the temptation was too great and it overcame him. Of course, once chilled to 77 Kelvin, the nerves were not responsive, and in his numb frustration he got more vigorous until he collided with something and his frozen pens literally shattered.

While he waited for the ambulance, he gathered up all the shards of his neighbourhood that he could find. They couldn’t be reattached, and nobody really thinks he ever held out much hope of that, but he did hope to prevent anyone figuring out what had happened.

Obviously he didn’t manage to keep the event a secret, but if his tale can prevent anyone else from trying such an ill-thought-out method of self obtuse then its publication will be worthwhile.

Andrew

 

Is this bad enough yet?

 

Just word it to say fractures of the groin area. For the record “Penis” is an educational term used to describe a part of the male human anatomy, tell your webhosts that it’s human nature and that it could not possibly block anything to do with education.

Johnny Testa 
Online Marketing Coordinator 
johnny.testa@askmen.com

P: 514-908-2557 
P: 514-908-2552 ext:257

As*Men.com – No.1 Men’s Portal Worldwide 
http://www.as*men.com 
A division of IGN Entertainment, A unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc.

 

No.

 

This is from an email from my hosts: “We realise “Penis” is an educational term, but many schools and companies’ internet services filter based on word lists, and “Penis” is a common word on those lists.”
They said they agree that the article should be posted, but couldn’t make an exception to their policy. They did suggest using elaborate innuendo to make the point without using my word substitutions. That might be a good idea. Any thoughts?

 

Apparently not.

But he’s not replied since, so I think this is over.

[?]

A Challenge For God

February 21st, 2009

prayforyou RT @Forestpelt Please pray that @Forestpelt’s 2 atheist friends will find Christ. Pray that God would shine through @Forestpelt to them. 

Andrew_Taylor @prayforyou This ought to be the single most elegant demonstration that prayer doesn’t work we will ever see. 

prayforyou We have a challenger saying we will only prove that prayer doesn’t work. Everyone pray so we’ll prove to @Andrew_Taylor the power of prayer. 

Come on then, God. This should be an easy one. Convince two people you exist. I mean, I don’t want to pour scorn on Your infinite power at all, but I can manage this task pretty easily. I’m almost sure that everyone at work is totally convinced I exist. So come on, God. Pull Your finger out.

Call me cocky if you like, but I’m pretty sure I can win this bet. Convincing atheists of his own existence is one of God’s weakest suits. He’s much better at tasks that only involve committed theists.

Maybe it’s all the praying they do.

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