Washing Woes

My brother’s been after a new washing machine. His old one is a Proaction which is currently shaking itself to bits. After enquiring about size, it became clear that he just wanted something that works at a cheap price. We made enquiries at the local electrical store but the cheapest model that I sold beat their offer and I could get it even cheaper if his machine could survive until the end of the month because of an extra discount weekend. I then had to keep it to one side until the big day. When we sold one, I had to order another one in and hope that it would still be there on the big day. Finally, I stayed up until the first minute of the sale day to put the order through. Then all I had to do was give him the code and he could pick it up himself. And pay me back of course.

Ellen's Stardust Diner

This was a great place to come for a late lunch and we didn’t have to queue. Not only was there a crazy menu but the entertainment was good too! Basically, it’s a traditional American diner but all the waiting staff are wanna Broadway performers; and they sing and dance show tunes in between taking your order and bringing your food to the table. In the middle of the restaurant are two long back-to-back booths and in the middle is a very thin catwalk-cum stage that they use to climb up and perform. I got a peck off the cheek from our waitress as we sang. I had a very bizarre meal; it was a deep-fried chicken breast served on a waffle and it was huge. For our finale, they sang Let it Go and in the final chorus they let loose a glitter bomb. After that they passed the ‘college fund’ bucket round a second time so we sensed that we’d outstayed our welcome. As we left, we saw that the queue for dinner had formed right down the street.

The Bait Box

The mouse was still in the house. At one point, it had managed to scurry upstairs and pop out underneath my wardrobe. I had to wonder whether it was brave enough to make the venture upstairs or did it go through the walls? We also noticed that something had been burying itself underneath the shed. I stuck a hosepipe underneath that for a while but nothing came out. We needed to take further action, so we bought a pre-loaded bait box. This encourages the mouse to have a wander inside the box and take a nibble of the poisoned bait. Over the next few days we noticed a trail of crumbs outside the box but then there was nothing, and there were no sightings either. There’s also a lack of any odd smells, so hopefully the little bugger’s crawled off to die outside and the nest has been evacuated; wherever it might be.

Light em Up!

One of the great things that companies seem to do nowadays is take advantage of their skyline-owned space and do something novel to add to the view. Most companies will just incorporate an interesting design to the landscape (providing the governing body approves). But there’s also the night factor. If it’s a headlining company, it’ll do its best to get its name out there. But with a bit of luck, it’ll contribute an interesting lighting scheme to contribute to the show as well. But there’s a greater cost in this and it depends on how the company is performing. If they can get away with it, they’ll try and switch them off during the twilight hour. This might even be thanked by the locals since they won’t have a neon show streaming through their window every night. Unless it’s a blind company forcing them to buy their products. But if I lived in that neighbourhood, I’d rally round my neighbours and get people to use their lights at just the right time and in the right position to spell out a different message.

Behind the Counter

It’s hard working in a fast-paced environment with little or no room to manoeuvre in. You’ve got to serve your customers as quickly as possible and as accurate as possible all while being as cheerful as possible. You’ve also got to work as a team and let them know as soon as any problems develop. And you’ve got to keep an eye on who’s waiting for what. If you’re young then the older customers are more likely to forgive you; unless they’re regulars in which case they may think that you should know better. And to survive all this, it all comes with experience. You’ve got to keep going and keep the line moving, even when you think that things should be settling down. And at the end of it all, you can take away a tea as big as you want. And if you don’t like it, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

The Big Bus App

As we were on the move, I downloaded the Big Bus app to help us keep track of our buses because even though there was a schedule; we couldn’t rely on it because of traffic conditions. The app was supposed to allow us to keep track of the buses in real time; send you notifications when one was approaching your area; and tell you the sights around each stop. The trouble was that I never seemed to get the damn thing to work. I spent a lot of time trying to steal WiFi and using my data allowance to track a bus and it never seemed to update until a bus was actually in physical sight. I don’t know whether the app was faulty or it was just my carrier trying to adjust to a different country’s network; but we found it quite frustrating. I also found that when we returned to our hotel and logged onto the room’s WiFi; the app wanted an update. Perhaps there were bugs that they were trying to fix. More frustratingly; their rival bus company seemed to run buses more frequently. Perhaps they gave out less information? I wonder what the deal was.

Joe Lycett's Got Your Back

I first took interest in this show when I saw a few clips on Facebook when Lycett replied to spam e-mailers to see how far he could take them. It’s a shame that this wasn’t made the bulk of the show; he could have even made the public join in with his campaigns if they’ve received similar stuff. Instead it’s a self-styled consumer show where they respond with dark humour to issues that Watchdog don’t. Although their response campaigns are very amusing; they seem more like time wasting exercises in my eye and very rarely achieve an actual result. There are also unnecessary guest campaigners on the show; merely big names who read pre-researched facts and do very little to have their own uptake on the show. There’s also Mark S who’s treated as a god but does very little other than press a few buttons and reads a few deadpan lines. His Halifax and Burger King sketches are great to watch, but there needs to be one of these in every episode. I would watch a second series but the format needs to be adjusted somewhat.