Effects of the US recession

The recession in the USA has hit everybody really hard…

My mate got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

Wives are having sex with their husbands because they can’t afford batteries.

CEO’s are now playing miniature golf.

Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.

A stripper was killed when her audience showered her with rolls of pennies while she danced.

I saw a Mormon with only one wife.

If the bank returns your check marked “Insufficient Funds,” you call them and ask if they meant you or them.

McDonald’s is selling the 1/4 ouncer.

Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America.

Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children’s names.

A friend had an exorcism but couldn’t afford to pay for it, and they re-possessed her.

A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.

A picture is now only worth 200 words.

The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.

Be careful, Dublo Seven ...

You'll enjoy this, even if you don't like model trains. Sit back and enjoy the next five minutes.



When I was clearing out some old stuff recently, I came across a faux-parchment document that brought a smile to my face. My Mum must have kept it and it came to me in a box full of her personal effects when she died. No scanner, so here it is, word for word, minus the elaborate curly script:

HORNBY RAILWAY COMPANY

At a Directors' Meeting at the Headquarters in the City of Liverpool, County of Lancaster, on the ...FIFTH... day of ...NOVEMBER... 19 ...57... Richard Xxxx of ...DARLINGTON... was elected a Member of the Company and is entitled to the full benefits of Membership

In Witness Whereof, this certificate has been issued.

Roland G Hornby
Chairman

Membership No.
305487

I was almost four years old.

Sniff.

TomTom Rant

If there was a World award for Companies-with-a-great-product-who-nevertheless-treat-their-customers-like-dirt, then TomTom would win it. Little-red-hands-on-a-bongo-drum down.

A few clarifying things first. I have owned a TomTom since 2005, and I have also owned two Garmins. I like the TomTom product. It is easy to use, the graphics and software are good and, with the usual caveat about applying common sense to everything a machine tells you, very accurate and reliable at routefinding. Many people say the Garmin range are technically better, but my Garmin (bought to tide me over while my original TomTom was in for repair, see below) had me doing a U-turn while on a dual carriageway in Oxford, and it was only because it was early on a Sunday morning that I wasn't squashed by a juggernaut as I nervously extracted myself. The software on the Garmin is less intuitive, too.

My first TomTom GO was one of the old square-screen ones with a deep back like an old television. I think the storage was a mini-hard drive, and I believe that this was the problem, although TomTom never admitted it. The hard drive just wasn't robust enough for the environment of the car. Interestingly, TomTom made sure that their next model was solid-state. The unit kept locking up, and either failing to shut down at all, or going into a loop on startup, where it cycled endlessly through the splash screen and the rest, without ever getting to navigation mode. I first noticed it when it 'forgot' my destination half-way through a journey and had to be reprogrammed by the side of the road. After a while, it started looping and freezing, and eventually I contacted TomTom tech support through their website. Most of the time you are dealing with a machine here, where you are presented with a list of responses, none of which say "the fucking thing doesn't work and I want it mended". Three times I negotiated my way through this, and three times it was sent away (to a location in Fife IIRC) for 'repair'. Each time, they simply reflashed the chip and returned the unit, which lasted another month or two before collapsing.

And, of course, each time they did this I lost all my 'favourites'. This is one of the great things abouyt satnav units. You can save any location on the surface of the planet as a 'favourite', and the unit will faithfully guide you back to it from anywhere. So all my regular destinations (family addresses, bike shops in distant cities, certain remote petrol stations, and so on) were set into the machine. And each time the unit was re-flashed, it went back to factory settings and I lost the lot. (Before anyone says I should have saved a backup, by the time the unit locked up, connecting to the PC was an impossibility.) I put up with this when it happened, mainly because I could re-enter most of the places I wished to from my (paper) address book.

In 2006, we went for a holiday in Italy, to the area of Tuscany just South of Florence. We had a fantastic time, and found a lot of superb places that we might wish to return to one day - spectacular views, nice little trattorias, nooks and crannies off the beaten track - which were all entered faithfully as 'favourites' in the TomTom. And then, half-way home through France, the unit packed up for good. I went through the usual website routine, and got them to take it back for 'repair' once more, this time with the plea that they save the favourites as I was unable to back the unit up to do so myself. Of course, it came back squeaky-clean and I had lost the lot. At no point in the process was I able to speak or even write to a human being.

I went utterly ballistic, but of course there is no option for that on the customer service web script. So I found the name and address of the MD in the Netherlands and wrote him a long letter. I didn't hold back; he had a three-page, blow-by-blow, dates and locations, case reference numbers, the lot. I didn't expect a reply, and this was when I bought the Garmin, as I had made the decision to bin the TomTom. A couple of weeks later, I received a gracious and very apologetic reply from someone high up in TomTom BV, with the offer of a brand-new, top-of-the-range unit free of charge. This was the GO720, which I received in 2007 - solid state electronics and a wide screen. He also admitted that they had had 'issues' with the service centre in Fife, and that they were no longer using it. Little comfort for me, but interesting.

This new unit has been superb and totally fault-free for five years. It has rattled around in the car's glovebox for all that time, it has been glued to the Honda and taken to Denmark, has been dropped and abused, and it has never failed me. But after five years, the maps were totally out of date. Bristol, especially, might as well have been another planet as far as the unit was concerned, and nearly every journey had me apparently travelling through green fields whenever there was a new road. So I decided to splash out and update the maps. It was £60 for the update and another three updates over a year, which I didn't think was too bad.

Big mistake.

What TomTom don't tell you while you have your credit card out is that, not only are the new maps so huge that you will need to buy extra storage if you want them all on the unit at once (luckily I had a spare 4GB SD card floating round), but by uploading the new maps you will lose all of your favourites. Yes, I had done a backup, and yes, I had the favourites stored in a secure location. But the new maps use a different file format, and the old favourites file won't work.

The new Western Europe map is vast - over 2GB - and took all afternoon and half the evening to download. Then it said I didn't have enough memory, so I used the SD card. Then it said I still didn't have enough memory, but I carried on anyway, and it seemed to be OK with that. Then I found my favourites were gone - I had loads, five years' worth, some irreplaceable - and I spent the evening on the web looking for solutions. Here's the deal as far as I am able to ascertain it:

There is a file in the Western_Europe folder called MapSettings.cfg. This contains all the user-defined information, such as favourites, recent destinations, the 'home' setting and so on. Loading a new map has always meant (for those in the know) saving a copy of this file to the desktop and copying it back to the new map folder afterwards, as the map installation process will delete it from the unit. First question for TomTom: why did I have to do my own research to find this out?

However, with the newer maps, this won't work. The unit doesn't recognise the file; it's apparently in a different format, although the name and extension are the same. There is a well-known workaround, which involves converting your MapSettings.cfg file to an ov2 file using shareware called Poiedit and then loading your favourites as a new category in Points of Interest, but this is fiddly and inconvenient, both to do and in subsequent use. Second question for TomTom: why did I have to do my own research to find this out?

Third question for TomTom: why the fucking fuck didn't you warn me about this before I gave you my sixty quid? If I had known I would lose all my favourite locations I would not have bothered. I would have paid a bit extra and got a new unit. Keeping the favourites was the main reason for upgrading, rather than renewing.

I assume that TomTom are concerned more with getting the mapping right and the software good than with the individual user's personal experiences. This is OK as far as it goes, but when we use technology like a satnav, we personalise it, and that personalisation is an important part of the experience. If there are technical constraints which necessitate changes that impact on users' personalisation (such as the deletion of a 'favourites' file), then at least warn the users first and suggest ways round it. Otherwise you just piss people off. And they have pissed me off, big style.

This poses me a problem. I am going to get a bike-specific satnav at some point when funds allow. Because of my good experiences with the GO720, I had pretty much settled on the TomTom Rider: cheaper than the Garmin Zumo, comes ready with a headset, and I know and like the way it works. Now I am not sure. I'm pretty much at the point of saying that I will never buy a TomTom product ever again, just because they obviously care so little for their customers. Automated tech support and email-only customer service do not make you feel as if you matter.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to sit down with a coffee and my address book, and start re-entering all my favourites to the TomTom.

Manually, for fuck's sake. In two-thousand-and-eleven.

Winter is icumen in ...

Lhude sing o-fukkit!

I've been commuting on the XT recently, and the Sprint has been waiting patiently behind the house. In fact, it hadn't moved a wheel for about three weeks until last night, when I wanted to take it to the Triumph Owners' club meet. The brakes were sticky and the head races had gone rather stiff. The first was easily solved with a few hard stops, but the head races kept me threepenny-bitting the roundabouts until it eased itself. That's an item on the 12k service which will be due soon, so perhaps I will see to that properly when I tackle the big 'un.

The run out and back was in the dark and, bloody hell, but the Sprint headlights are dreadful! Dipped beam isn't too bad, with a decent spread, although there is a gap in the straight-ahead position, like a missing tooth in a smile, so you are constantly riding into a black hole. The main beam, however, is strong straight ahead but has nothing to the sides, so if the road bends or you lean the bike (neither being infrequent occurrences), you lose everything. I have adjusted the lights patiently (you need to take the effing bodywork off to do this, grrr), but they are still poor. How poor? Well, the XT is a trailbike with a small headlight, more for legality than actual night riding, and the XT's lights are actually better then the Sprint's. That's how poor.

My run to the pub takes me through a small village and I noticed a tractor with some kind of brushing attachment behind it coming the other way when I was going to the pub. On my way home, I realised what it was: for the space of about a mile, the road was covered from edge to edge in a thin layer of field mud, damp and very slippery. I dread to think what it was like before the clean-up. I kept the speed right down and made it without incident, but it made me think that in a situation like that the XT is much the better mount. As this is Wales, and a rural area, and with more of the same rapidly approaching, I think it's time to give the Sprint a good clean and polish, and put it away for a while. It's a main roads bike, happiest on a charge and with a long journey in prospect. The XT is happiest on back roads, at lower speeds, and on a bad surface gives a lot more confidence. Sliding it around is fun; sliding the Sprint is an underwear-changing experience.

And if I drop it, it will suffer less damage and be fixed cheaper. Not that I plan to.



Go to bed, one of you.

Serge Trousers

OK, sorry, I'm in a Bonzo Dog mood today.

I had a lovely email from a chap called Serge today. He wants to advertise on my blog. Here's his letter, together with the reasons why I won't be taking him up on his offer.

Hello!

Er, hello.

I just want to thank you for your wonderful blog goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com.

The last bit isn't part of the blog title, Serge. It's what happens when you copy and paste from the address bar.

I read the post "No-one will notice, no-one will care ..." and then I spent another hour on your blog by reading your posts with pleasure :) Every article is interesting and easy to read. I really like the "'Tis the old wind in the old anger...".

Good formula: I read the post [insert random post title] and then I spent another hour on your blog by reading your posts with pleasure :) Every article is interesting and easy to read. I really like the [insert different random post title]. Note how doing this without proof-reading it afterwards produces some infelicities which a native speaker would have spotted and amended.

I work for xxxx [name redacted] company, we aggregate job adverts around the world.

My job is to persuade bloggers to link to our site.

Aha, now the pleasantries are over we can get down to business!

I really love my job! We have a friendly team and good management,

You didn't say you had a 'passion' for your work. These days, not good enough.

but unfortunately I have no idea how to convince a blogger to link to us, I'm afraid I might lose my job because of it :(

Yes, and your mother in Azerbaijan is dying because she is too poor to have the operation. If I could only wire you some money ... Nah, I am being cynical. That 'frownie' is totally genuine.

And that is why, instead of sending letters to thousands of different blogs, I am reading yours.

And my message only appears to have been mass-produced and minimally tailored to make it seem personal.

Honestly,

Still not won over ...

I am not really sure if the link to our website in United Kingdom - xxxx.com [url redacted], will be appropriate for your blog, but if you believe it will and it is possible to add it, I would be really grateful to you! Our site is really cool, it can greatly help hundreds of people to find jobs.

Please explain how a job-search website would be appropriate for a blog concerned with motorbikes and the custard-ready properties of the Duck-Billed Platypus. Oh, it's 'cool'. That makes all the difference.

I wish you to have a good day and excellent mood!

And I am in wish reverse same for you, thank your mine already, goodness gracious.

Thanks again for your nice blog. Write more! Thanks!

I will! Thanks!

Best regards,

Serge Trousers
Account Manager
(telephone)
(email)
(skype)

Funny, he spent a whole hour reading the blog (even I don't do that!) and he missed this:

Commercial spam will always be deleted. I don't need the few pence that advertising would bring me, and I don't need new friends. If you are interested in an exchange of links, email me and we can discuss it. If you want me to host a link to your Chinese shoe-selling operation or your wonderful source of replica watches, don't bother.

He's not even offering money, not that that would make any difference. Nothing in it for me, so in the bin it goes. Sorry, Serge - nice try.