Introduction
This is a blog about all the things that bug me. It will contain my own opinions about a range of subjects and I'll update it when I think of something new to add. The views expressed are entirely my own and on the whole are not meant to offend.
To Be Announced (Xmas)
There is always a race to see which paper can be the first to produce their Christmas TV Listings guide, and today the Daily Mirror printed theirs. It lists from 23rd December to New Years Day, but only one channel has a full day of scheduling over that period, namely ITV 3 on New Years Day. All the others have at least one entry of TO BE ANNOUNCED, but some have up to seven on one day. With the channels listed, there's an average of 22 TBA per day. They only list the five major channels (BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV 1, Channel 4, Five) plus ITV 2, ITV 3 and Film 4 from the Freeview channels, plus some other cable/satellite channels. Some days they have the best of the rest, which include BBC Three (but not BBC Four), E4 and More 4. There's no listings for Five US, Five Life, Virgin 1 or Dave.
I subscribe to DigiGuide, which gives me TV listings on my PC, and allows me to set reminders for programs or series, and today they only list up to the 22nd December before they get to the TBAs. They don't try to say that they give you details of all the television over the Christmas period when they clearly don't. It's like a train timetable. If you asked what time a train was, it would tell you, but if it didn't say where the train was going, then it wouldn't be much help. Of course, even if you did get the complete listings, you might not want to see repeats of Christmas specials and lots of old films!
Too PC
I happened to come across The Mail today, and kept noticing strange news headlines. In fact, I found four, where they had numbers written like 60pc or 85pc. Read the whole of the headline and the article beneath, I know they meant 60 percent, but they didn't write the word percent (or per cent as some might prefer) or, the way I would expect it to be written, 60%. It seems the type setters for the headlines can't use the shift button on their keyboards with the key marked '5' to get the % sign. Unless there has been some new political mandate that papers cannot use the sign, why on earth do they use pc instead? They use the pound sign (£) without any problem, so the combination of shift + 3 still works, and when you get to their puzzle section they still have questions that use the % sign, so what gives?
Non News Articles
I'm sure this happens in other papers, but the example I have is from the Night & Day section of The Daily Express. This part of the paper gives the gossip about stars, and at the bottom there is a section called Out There. This part of the paper tells us exciting things like Tara Palmer Tomkinson was seen wearing to much perfume (how can they manage to see that I don't know) somewhere, or Rod Stewart's daughter is taking about her latest projects in London somewhere. It gets better, with other articles saying Paul Weller wearing a some clothes (and they give a detailed description of them) talking on a mobile phone or Natasha Kaplinsky walking somewhere. Chances are that these people live in these area (i.e. London) and do walk around or use a mobile phone. Why is this deemed to be printed in a newspaper? You might as well say Jonathan Ross spotted travelling towards BBC Television Centre or Trevor MacDonald seen breathing and standing still somewhere. Now unless they are seen doing these everyday tasks hopping on one leg, or wearing no clothes, what's the point?
Game Adverts
With most television commercials, when the companies are trying to selling you something, they show you the product and what it can do. Game console games are the same, and with some like the Nintendo Wii or DS, you see the game being played. The trouble comes when the other major game consoles are advertising their games. It is well know that the Wii has less graphics ability, but with it's controller it makes the games more interactive. The other two push the fact that they have powerful graphics, and even a Blu-Ray or HD DVD player. While you look at the stunning visuals and hear the voice explaining the virtues of the latest game with exciting shoot 'em ups or car chases, four magic words appear on the screen. Theses words are 'not actual game footage', and what this means is that the footaage you are looking at does not appear in the game, or is not a playable part of the game. Many games have video clips to set the scene of the game, and certainly with PC games, these clips can look great, but nothing like the graphics you get when you actually play the game.
Now if you saw a trailer for a film with lots of exciting action and visual effects, and you then went to the cinema to watch the film and none of them appeared or the film looks as if it was filmed on a old home movie camera, you would be pretty disappointed. The makers of these games seem to think that they can do this with games and no one will mind. Some of them use the excuse that the game has not been finished and the advert has been made before the ingame graphics has been completed, but they're not fooling anyone. I remember reviewing the X-Box when it came out and playing Project Gotham Racing. The graphics looked great, what got me was that when you finished a race and did a review of how you did, the replay graphics were better that the game. Sometimes I couldn't tell I was playing a game, I thought I was watching a video of cars racing on the streets, it was so realistic. I presume the ingame grpahics got better with newer versions of the game and with the improvements to the new console (I had to give back the review console). Games can look incredible on these consoles, but if they don't show what you are going to be spending £40-£60 on, you might as well have a screen with just words on it instead.
Small Print Ads
Now this isn't the size of the print in adverts in magazines and papers, it's what is revealed in the small print. In adverts for a particular music store they are advertising two classic DVDs for £10. A bargain you might think, and a while a go they were selling some DVDs for £4.99. However, in the small print you read that it applies to a selection of 100 titles for a limited period whilst stocks last, and bearing the 2 for £10 sticker. It then states that individual DVDs may appear elsewhere in the store priced differently. What that means is if you find Casablanca and Gone With The Wind with a 2 For £10 sticker, you'll pay £10 for both of them, but if you find them without the sticker, you'll probably pay more for them, or even less if it's in a bargain bin. This offer is not on their web site, so the discs are selling for £5.99 on line. They do have a 2 Warner classics for £8 offer, and both of the titles I mentioned are in this offer. So, go in store and buy two classic DVDs for £10, go on line and get the same two for £8 (with free delivery) or buy them individually for £5.99 each. What a bargain!
It gets worse with a certain phone company offering broadband for £9.99 a month. The small print reveals it's for three months, then its £19.99 a month. It states up to 8Mb speeds (so you may get considerably less) and includes wireless LiveBox (for playing on line games with the X-Box I presume). However, the offer price includes £2.08 for modem hire, and is subject to an 18 month contract. If you cancel before the 18 months have finished, you have to pay what you would have done for the full contract. So you buy an 18 month contract and pay for it in full even if you cancel it after a couple of months. Also, if you don't pay by direct debit you are charged an extra £1 a month. It also says unlimited downloads, but that is subject to their fair use policy. Just in case you're looking for a calculator, that's £329.82 for a one and a half year contract. I don't have a live box but my Internet provider would charge £270 for the same term (although they charge by the month for a year, not 18 months).
Digital TV Channels
Now we all know that the analog TV signal is going to be switched off all over the U.K. by 2012 (in time for the Olympics) and that existing televisions and video recorders will need to be changed, don't we? The television adverts with the little metal character doesn't give that much info, and even though new televisions have a digital tuner, video recorders still don't. Some DVD recorders have them, but quite why the shops are selling equipment without digital tuners is beyond me. But for those of you who do have a new television, DVD recorder or set top box with a digital tuner, you will realise that every so often the channels change. New channels appear, new digital radio stations are added, and some channels disappear (remember Men & Motors?). What gets me is that instead of added a new channel number, so you just search for the new channel and it slots in with all the rest, the powers that be decide to reorganise the channel list. When Film4 started it was on channel 32 or something (I can't remember, but I do recall that the first film shown was Lost In Translation). A few weeks later the channel moved to 29, and all the adverts for the channel were changed to reflect it. Later on we had Film4 +1, which was handy if you switched on to Film4 and missed the beginning of a film, as you could turn over to Film4 +1 (which is the same channel a hour behind) to catch the start. Well recently Channel 4 decided to scrap Film4 +1 (which was on 32) in favour of Channel 4 +1. You may have seen the adverts on Channel 4 for this marvellous new idea for a channel, except for E4+1, ITV2+1 , etc. Instead of putting it on 32 where Film 4+1 was, they put it on channel 13. More 4 gets moved from there to channel 14, and E4 gets moved from there to channel 29, and Film4 goes to 32.
I have a set top box with all the televisions that don't have a digital tuner, and a DVD recorder with a digital tuner, so when the channel line changes, I have to re-tune all the different devices. Some of the devices have a favourite list (I'm not really into the shopping channels) which gets wiped when you re-tune, and one set top box changes the RF output (for televisions without a SCART socket). All in all it really is a pain when the channels gets reorganised. Now there isn't much room for the digital channels along with the analog ones (the BBC Parliament channel was a quarter screen for a long while, and the multi channel BBC News is four small screens so it may be that they have to reorganise when they make the changes, but seeing as the last change was effecting Channel 4 channels, it really was annoying that they made so many changes.
Software in the SysTray
It gets me how more and more software manufacturers think they need to put an icon in the SysTray (the bit beside the clock on the right. Now some programs like Anti-Virus, Firewall, Alarms, etc. I can understand, but something like QuickTime doesn't need to be there, unless I spend all day watching mov files. What's concerning is that they are put in the tray be default, and unless you remember to go into the program options and change them, there they will stay, taking memory and system resources. I have ten icons in my SysTray, but I've seen some systems with 18 or more sitting there. Of course, not all programs put an icon in the tray, but they still load on start up. Acrobat has a program that starts when you PC does, which is a waster of resources unless you create PDF files all the time. Ulead VideoStudio also has a preload program and I don't use the program exclusively and all the time, so why is it there? Some software put an icon in the tray only when they are used, like when I plug in my mp3 player. There isn't any software preloaded at start up checking for the player, as when it is plugged in, the PC recognises it as a USB device and loads the software then.
The excuse that some software companies use is that they need to have software running to check for updates. Well, if they wrote the software and tested it before making it available, then they wouldn't need to have a program running every day on the PC checking for updates. I'm more than capable of clicking a menu option in a program that says 'check for updates', and some software have a scheduler to do that whenever the program is running (not all the time the PC is on). If the installation was made with InstallShield they had a global update program that can look for all updates. The next time you complain that your PC is running slowly, just check how many programs are in your SysTray before buying more memory or defraging your hard drive.
Annoying TV Adverts
Well, the title says annoying TV adverts, but at the moment it's only for one product, and that's Sheila's Wheels Car Insurance. The song is really irritating, and seems to be louder than any advert shown before or after it. It doesn't matter which one it is, as they all feature that song and the ladies in the pink dresses and pink car, the adverts just really get on my nerves. Enough said.
Text Services for Mobiles
I could not believe this when I saw it. There's an advert for two mobile services, which cost £1.50 to subscribe to. Nothing bad about that you might think, I mean, if you want to get wallpapers, games or the latest ring tones, then that's how you get them. The problem I have about the services is what they provide. The first one is a baby's names. Yes, subscribe to this service and get a text back with a baby's name; ideal if you're expecting or just trying it for fun, as the advert states. Now if I wanted to find a name for my new baby to be, I would not rely on a random name sent to my mobile. I would check a book of baby names, or choose it according to a family member, uncle, aunt, friend, etc. It may be a modern age, but choosing a name is fairly important.
The second service in the advert (shown on the usual channels, i.e. TMF, The Hits, etc.) is one to get the initial of the man you're going to marry. So it's geared towards women who think a phone company can predict who they are going to meet, fall in love with and marry. Now they're not giving you his name, just his initial. So you're paying £1.50 a week to get a text message of one character. These services send messages automatically, probably from a computer program, so I'm guessing this complex program picks a random letter of the alphabet and then texts it. What a great way to use technology; get women to subscribe to a service that sends them a random letter from the alphabet, that probably doesn't check to see if the letter has already been sent, or worries if the letter is something like an 'x'. The company would probably argue that the repeat letters could be sent because it might predict the name to be Ben one week, then Brian the next, but come on, this is just a joke, right?
Misspelt Words In Song Titles
Song titles shouldn't really matter about how they are spelt, as you're main concern is the music you're listening to. Artists don't seem to follow this logic, and use letter or misspelt words in their song titles. Prince seems to favour this trend, with at least five tracks, Feel U Up, Money Don't Matter 2 Nite, I Would Die 4 You, U Got The Look and The One U Wanna C to name but a few. I like the songs, I just find it irritating that the titles are misspelt. There are several other artists, like Cassie - Me & U, Pink! - U + Ur Hand, The Ordinary Boys - I Luv U, The Pussycat Dolls - Buttonz, Joe - Ride Wit U, Tiga - Hot In Herre and The Beatmasters - Rok Da House. It's not as if they are trying to save space when printing the titles on the covers, or there is a severe limit of the number of characters to use when naming files to download to your iPod/mp3 player. Be dangerous, and run a spell checker on your lyrics or cover designs before they are printed.