Cape Town IV - Prologue

The cases are packed... we have checked in on-line... all that remains is to have a good night's sleep ready for the long journey ahead.

Making money from blogs

I was just reading an article about making money from writing a blog... the article cited a blog written by some bloke who drones on about personal development and apparently makes about $1,000 a day. UNBELIEVABLE. So naturally out of curiousity I had to read it (www.stevepavlina.com) - What a load of sh*te eh? Jeezus H Christ... $1,000 a day... A DAY!!! for that b*ll*cks. And every so often he mentions his soddin' book and bangs in a link to Amazon where you can buy the bloody thing - and of course you can make donations to him. I really am missing something here. Then of course there is his wife Erin Pavlina (www.erinpavlina.com) who is a also a con-artist (a medium). Look at the photo - certainly been hit by an ugly stick and no doubt laughing all the way to the bank!

If you wish to make a donation to The Hammond Rants then please feel free!

Rant over.

Star Trek Poster

41 today...

Thank you for your birthday wishes!

Guest Rant No. 2

A special guest rant from NRB...

Thought you may like to put this on your blog.....I recently took my car into Evans Halshaw in St. Albans for some "minor" work. Please bear in mind that my car is a "Y" reg worth about £1,500. About an hour after dropping my car off, I received a phone call stating that I needed "additional" work doing on my car to make it safe and so it would pass it's "MOT" which was due in a couple of months. Amongst some other (non-MOT related issues), they found the following;o/s front coilspring broken - £364.55n/s read coilspring broken - £281.45Grand total : £646.00 (which I think included VAT)The non-MOT related issues would have cost me another £719.19. There were additional costs that were not MOT related issues.Now, I took it into a "local" mechanic to get it MOT'd today and all they picked up were the coil springs which cost me £42 & £40 for the coilsprings and about £50 to get it fitted (it was a little more than that, but included another minor piece of work that needed doing, which came to £70 in total). So, my point is that for the same work - replacing the coilsprings, Evans Halshaw wanted a total of £646.00 whereas a local garage charged me £106.26, including VAT. So, Evans Halshaw were going to charge me more than 600% more than the "local" guy ! How can they justify such grossly inflated prices. So much for getting "value" from the big-named garages.Ignore me if you like, but I thought it might make a good entry.

Rant over.

Staplers etc...

Why is it whenever you are in a hurry at work (assuming you are working in an office), three things happen simultaneously... the printer runs out of paper, the toner cartridge packs up and finally your stapler is empty - and then when you put in a new strip of staples (probably in several mini strips because they have broken in half) you bang in a staple and you find the new wire has been stabbed into an existing wire and the stapler jams. Sigh...

Rant over.

Cat Shit One / Apocalypse Meow

This looks good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr4QBZfjtqs&feature=channel_page

Homecoming Scotland

Just caught another advert... this one seems to be about promoting Scotland. It features several famous Scots - including (Sir - services to his own pocket) Sean Connery. Forgive me, but doesn't good old Sean live in the Bahamas as a tax exile and in 2003, he told journalists he would not return to his homeland of Scotland until it became independent from the United Kingdom. Does the word hypocrite mean anything to you "Sir" Sean? D*ckhead.

Rant over.

Knocking down motorcyclists...

Have you seen that bloody advert on the telly where the car pulls out of the T junction and the motorbike crashes into it?... and they bang on about watching out for motorcyclists? Have you seen the speed that bike is going? Must be at least 200 mph. So let me get this right... don't be an inconsiderate car driver because some tosser on a motorbike who is breaking the soddin' speed limit sixfold is going to smash into to the side of you!

Rant over.

Watchmen

"Who watches The Watchmen"... I certainly did last Saturday!... and I was very impressed. I have only just started reading the graphic novel so I can see how Zack Snyder literally translated each frame on the page to the big screen. Rorschach, Dr Manhatten, The Comedian, Ozymandias, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are all recreated brilliantly by the unknown actors. I say unknown - I have seen Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian) in Grey's Anatomy, PS I Love You and The Accidental Husband. The soundtrack and the whole recreation of a dark 1985's New York work well but it is the characters that make the film. I loved it!!!

Rating: 9/10