The Curse of the Black Spot

The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive on a pirate ship, apparently because of a distress signal they received. The distress signal will be relevant later, but given how often stupid shit like that happens in this show for no reason there's no way to guess that.

1000

Day of the Moon

This episode opens with a complete waste of time where they pretend they're on the run and the Doctor has been captured and imprisoned in Area 51. It's not at all clear why they felt the need for this ruse. There doesn't seem to be any reason for it at all, other than to waste some time.

The Impossible Astronaut

Doctor Who's back (actually it started last week, but I didn't realise, so this is a little late) and it's just as terrible as ever.

The Ice Man

I picked up a copy of The Ice Man by Philip Carlo in an op-shop a while back just on the basis that it looked vaguely interesting and cost less than a dollar. It's the true story of a mafia contract killer, which sounds like it should be pretty interesting. I started reading it recently and I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it. It's not that it's horrifying or disgusting, it's just really badly written.

Leave My Settings Alone!

I use the Opera web browser, because it allows a large degree of customioation. I can make it work the way I like it to, not the way someone else thinks it should. This is why it really pisses me off when I install an update and find that it's fucked with my settings.

Buying Chips

It may seem like a simple thing, but buying chips from a fish and chip shop is actually a complex game with rules that no one has ever really defined. They're certainly not sold by weight or volume or number. $6 worth of chips is not twice as many as $3 worth. So how do you get the right amount?

On a Scale of One to Ten, I Hate You

I work for a market research company doing surveys over the phone, and one of the common sort of questions that gets asked in these surveys is the "On a scale of one to ten, where one is strongly disagree and ten is strongly agree..." and I've noticed something about this sort of question: It's complete bullshit. No one answers it properly.

Dead Space

I was playing Dead Space today, and as I was playing it I found myself becoming rather frustrated. It seems like it should be a pretty fun game, but there are just these things that make it constantly irritating.

How to Deal With Cold Callers

Shut Up and Listen

This is counter-intuitive because you're probably going to want to either interrupt the caller or just hang up. Don't do that. Believe it or not, you actually want to hear what they're saying.

During their opening monologue they will deliver three pieces of information that you want. They'll tell you the name of the company they're calling from and what they actually want and who they're actually trying to contact.