Should I Believe in Luck?
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Four. That's genuinely how many times I've won a prize from a competition in Practical Classics magazine since I renewed my subscription ten months ago. I'm not usually one to believe in luck, but that seems quite impressive. The only thing that comes to mind is that they have a low entry rate for their competitions, but even that seems unlikely, as you can enter by e-mail with no cost involved. The financial value of the prizes so far will pay the subscription fees for the next five years or so - I'll keep reading and entering - if luck exists, I might end up with a new engine, or even a whole new car!
Tesco. As much as it pains me to give such a useless company my business, I'm off there in about ten minutes with my new clubcard in tow. It came addressed to a Mr. Telamn. Close? Not really. Not even a K... I'm used to it moving about, but not vanishing altogether.
The woman on the phone managed to spell my name back to me correctly after she had typed it in, so I can only fathom that she was taking the piss or that the data was once again manually re-entered after she had saved it. The address was at least correct, so I'll try my best to live with it and not let it wind me up, but it's bound to before long. An evil typo living in my wallet is the last thing I need...
Posted at 21:42
Huff, Ed and Lost
Monday, December 19, 2005
Hank Azaria. Certainly, not a name everyone would recognise, but they'd more than likely recognise one of the Simpsons characters he provides the voices for. Put the Simpsons aside, however, and you find him in quite a number of acting roles, and he really is a cracking actor.
The most recent thing in which I've come across Azaria is Huff - an American series from November last year. He stars as Craig Huffstodt, a psychiatrist who undergoes his own midlife crisis throughout the series - it's a fabulous show, which really gives Azaria the chance to shine as an actor. The nearest comparison for the style of the series which we've seen in the UK is probably Six Feet Under - hopefully Huff manages to make it over here to get some decent exposure - if you have the opportunity to watch any episodes before it does, it's well worth the watch.
So what got me thinking about American TV? Ed. After messing us about spending the last few years getting through the final two series, Channel 4 today got to the last ever episode. It's an excellently written show, which is incredibly charming and witty - a shame it never really got much attention over here. A satisfying end to a great show, despite taking forever to get there.
Channel 4 aren't the only ones with odd scheduling, mind... they're now showing the first series of Lost, which I followed when it was shown on American TV. I've been following the second series, however, but ABC seem to enjoy taking long breaks between episodes - I've got to wait until mid January for the next episode, the last being shown in November. We'll get there eventually...
Posted at 12:31
The Tesco Machine Working Well
Thursday, December 15, 2005
It took me far too long to get around to it, but I finally applied for a Tesco Clubcard a couple of months ago. I never heard anything back from them, and I have to admit, I'd pretty much forgotten about it anyway.
The Clubcard finally dropped through the letter box today, yet it had come addressed to a Mr Tolkam at a number so much higher than my own that it doesn't even exist, and a postcode with an impossible series of letters and numbers - rather fortunate that my postman recognised the name.
Not that extraordinary in itself, you're probably thinking, but the concerning fact was that I had applied for the card on the Tesco website - somewhere along the line, the computerised data had been manually read and then entered back into the system, with added mistakes. The mind boggles...
Posted at 20:47
Telkman.co.uk - Returning Soon
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Or so the site has said for the last six months... I was tempted to change it to "Returning as a harvested search page when I forget to renew the domain" but I thought better of it. Not that I did anything about getting the site back up, of course - that's just plain silly!
In all honesty, I was bored - despite taking my car off the road for a proper restoration, I'd not done an awful lot to it recently with the cold weather, so I thought I'd find something to pass some time - whilst it wasn't top of the list, I did get around to redesigning the site. Nothing major, but at least it's live again. Now to see if I keep up with the updates. Hopefully past performance isn't anything to go by!
Posted at 13:48
