After a post Pub Internet Session
I woke up and as usual checked my email to discover I had blown the best part of £800 on a flight to Tokyo.
I thought It would be a great Idea to surprise my girlfriend at the time with another visit, I missed her loads and had not seen her for a few months.

Checking the confirmation email I noticed the flight was leaving at 3pm that very afternoon from Heathrow terminal three.

I was 100 miles away and it was 1.45pm.

To make it worse the bastards at Virgin refused a refund.

Don't book tickets while drunk kids..
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Fri 22 May 2009, 18:46, 2 replies)

Billy Elliot, Sr.
One day, in a mad terpsichorean fit, I gave a job order to a metal shop to produce a portable ballet barre suitable for the home. That way, despite advancing middle age, I could stretch night and day and stay as lithe as an Olympics gymnast.

The shop produced a bulky, overarmored chunk of metal bars more suitable for fending kangaroos off the grille of a speeding Australian road train. Plus, the top bar was so high it hurt to put my leg on it.

The barre found a useful second career as a clothes rack. Today, it's in the basement, bearing a load of lumber.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 22 May 2009, 18:32, 1 reply)

feeling the force... in Woolworths...
so I'm doing the shopping several years back, and I decide to take a swing through the then still trading crap emporium, Woolies, on the basis that you never know - I've found the odd bargain in there. but today... they had a big stack of THESE in -


and not just the cheap shitty ones, the really good Master Replicas ones - they make all the movie-correct noises when you swing them around (as I'm sure the SW fans here can tell you) and when you switch it on, the LED's in the blade light up in sequence, adding to the effect. regular price £100 ish? woolies only wanted a measly £45.
a bargain, thinks I. but the shop is full of people... they'll all know I'm a geek... stuff it. I am geek, hear me roar.

I strode purposefully up to the counter... well, alright, I shuffled towards it, head down, trying not to make any kind of eye contact with anyone else in the store... to be confronted by a particularly spotty little chav herbert doing the till duty. I'm braced for a sneer or a sarky comment at the very least... till he looks at me, motions me closer, and says 'they're bloody ace these things... the first thing we did when we got them in was go and have lightsaber battles all day in the storeroom. I spent all afternoon yesterday pretending to be Darth Vader.'

So either Star Wars transcends geekiness, or I'd met the only chav geek in Manchester.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Fri 22 May 2009, 18:15, 5 replies)

I have told this story before
But I wish I had saved it for this week.

In March last year, Steve Earle was playing at The Roundhouse in Camden.

Unfortunately for me, I was already busy that night.

I was doing a 4 day Improv course with Keith Johnston (Google him if that means nothing to you)

But becauses of finances and personal issues, I found myself at midday on the Monday I should have been with Keith, alone with ny £400 refund for the course back in my pocket.

So I thought 'Fuck it, I'll go to Camden and see Steve Earle'

So I did.

I spent £55 on a ticket from a tout.

I'd already spent about £50 on beer, taxis, trains fares and food.

Steve Earle did an amazing show.

Then he went off stage for a bit.

Now, we all know that we are going to get an encore. So I buggered off up stairs to the balcony to have a cigarette while I waited.

Then I started to rush back when I realised he had just come back on stage.

I remember standing at the top of the stairs.

I remember looking down.

I remember seeing my shoe laces undone

I remember thinking 'better do them up. Would be embarassing if I fell over'

Then I remember waking up in an ambulance.

Then I remember waking up again in hospital.

I remember seeing the state of my eyes, nose, mouth in the mirror.

I remember speaking to a doctor, but I don't remember what he said.

I remember getting a taxi out of a hospital back to Victoria station (to this day I don't know what hospital I was in)

I remember trying to phone my girlfriend to let her know what had happened.

Then I woke up and my phone was gone.

So I phoned it from a payphone and it got answered.

And four hours later I was spending £50 buying my own phone back from some skag ridden scrote outside Victoria station.

I called the police

And was told this:

'There are no CCTV on the Gatwick Express, and you shouldn't have been on it anyway. And the CCTV here isn't working.'

So, the moral is not just 'don't go to a gig on your own on impulse'

And not: 'Don't think you can just get to Gatwick on any Southern ticket'

But also 'You can mug who the fuck you want, cos the CCTV isn't really working'

And also: If Keith Johnston ever wants to charge £400 for a four day improv course again, I will pay it. Cos all in all, it cost me nearly that anyway.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 22 May 2009, 17:43, 7 replies)

Kittens
My boyfriend's mum's cat had a bit of a run-in with a man cat's penis and in three weeks we take two of the resultant fluffballs (aka Bunsen and Beaker) home.

Not so much an impulse purchase as impulse decision by us, but I'm sure I will buy all manner of cat-related crap for them on a whim (like those cool-looking automated feeders).

Click "I like this" and I will post the most eye-bleedingly cute pic of them that I can lay my hands on.
(claireyfairy There's a smell in here that will outlast religion, Fri 22 May 2009, 17:29, 11 replies)

What do you do when you drunkenly purchase a box of a thousand cocktail umbrellas?
Simple - Open them up, arrange them in neat and tidy little rows on the floor in your living room. Then pretend you're Godzilla attacking a poor defenseless Japanese beach resort.*

Worked a treat for me.

*Caution: Must wear protective boots: Getting a cocktail umbrella stuck in the sole of your foot hurts like zee proverbial muthafucka.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 22 May 2009, 17:27, 5 replies)

I have been completely stupid with...
... car purchases over the last 15 years – each one I have had has been replaced with something I thought was better, regardless of if I could afford it or not.

Mondeo 1.8 LX (Company Car), followed by a BMW 3 Series (opted out of company car scheme), then Audi A4 (three of these one after each other, each one with a larger engine than the first), then a Jag, then a TVR (early mid life crisis or the realisation that I did have a tiny cock) another 4 BMW’s one after another. This stupidity culminated in buying a Porsche last year.

The stupidity ended earlier this week when the Porsche was re-possessed as I haven’t been able to make the repayments of £650 a month.

Serves me right, I am entirely to blame. Lesson learned.

*digs bike out of the garage*
(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Fri 22 May 2009, 17:06, 3 replies)

Wheels of Glory
Well I’ve been lurking b3ta for many years, but I decided to post for once as this seemed like a topic that is relevant.

~~~~~~~ *Wavy Lines* ~~~~~~~~

I got to that age that all guys do where seeing Wendy Sue and her high-beam bongo’s bursting out of her uniform made me feel like I had to either get my little fella wet or I was going to explode with hormones all over the school playground.

I figured if I could get myself some wheels I’m literally guaranteed to be swimming in so much poon that I wouldn’t know where to stick it. I knew I couldn’t drive till I was 17, so I started saving I jumped the train to school and skipped lunch every day to save up all the money I could to buy myself something.

~~~~~ *Skip ahead a few years and many failed attempts to play the hairy harmonica* ~~~~~

I’d just turned 17 and was weeks away from getting a driving licence with a nice wad of cash saved up for the minge magnet that I’d dreamed of driving for so long.

I had been planning to buy something with a bit of street cred like a golf, basically anything that would make the aforementioned Wendy Sue drop her nacks quicker than you can say hullabaloo.

Then I saw it! I was on the way home from college (now taking the bus, but still managing to not pay full fare) when out the window I saw her! She was beautiful! It was a navy blue with white leather seats, chrome bumpers, a V6 Triumph Spitfire with a for sale sign on the windscreen.

Now let me stop there to explain something, this wasn’t the 60’s or 70’s, this was actually the late 90’s. You see my father was always into classic cars, and when I was younger I had worked on restoring a number of old bangers with him to full health, and he had instilled in me the idea that no matter how big a rustbucket it is, if it was a sporty convertible, then the bitches would come running.

I had to have it!! I jumped off the bus early and ran to the bank (well it was half skipping half running I had a tendency to be a bit camp sometimes), then I got out more cash then I had ever held in my hands in my life, clutching onto it like it was integral to my survival I skip-ran to the house where it was and gave him every penny without even giving the car a once over.

He said something that was probably important, but my brain drowned it out because it was way too busy thinking about how much space there would be to get Wendy Sue aligned in the back seat so that my head wouldn’t hit the window. I knew that if there was anything minor wrong with it I could fix it with my superior fix-it skills.

I didn’t care if it was illegal, I was gonna drive it home, maybe even swing by Wendy Sue’s house and beep the horn just to see if it really would knock the pants off her!

I hopped in, revved it up, drove 20 seconds down the road and smashed into a brand new beamer at about 45 mph.

.....Fuck!
(Panda_z is sweating like a chav in dixons, Fri 22 May 2009, 16:54, 8 replies)

I can't believe
I have been so stupid.

I just bought this:



Here is the link: cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250427096753&_trkparms=tab%3DWatching

At £15, you'd think it was a steal. And then I noticed one teensy-weensy problem.

Faulty- screen damage.

Fucksocks.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Fri 22 May 2009, 16:40, 9 replies)

TRUTS
I love my boyfriend Dante very much, however like most males whose company I attract it is believed that he has a couple of parts of his internal head-sponge missing.

Now we're both fairly generous people: if I am your friend, you're in for a treat on your birthday because I tend to spend time and money on getting you a thoughtful, sentimental and appropriate gift. So does Dante. So imagine Christmas, Valentine's Day, anniversaries or anything that could involve simultaneously giving each other gifts.

It was Valentine's Day last year, and I was searching for the perfect gift. I had my eye on a nice camera: a decent make, good amount of mpxs, and a nice shiny red; his favourite colour.

I bought the camera, insured it for a year (I know what he's like with fragile equipment) and toddled off, safe in the knowledge that I was probably a pretty good girlfriend.

And then he goes and buys this (or rather, these):





Say hello to Soupy (top) and George (bottom), the impulse buy of the decade.

He was allegedly full of ideas as to what to get me, but when he drove past the local aquatics centre he couldn't resist going straight in there and ordering two baby African Sideneck turtles, ready for me to pick out myself.

He knew I loved turtles; I can honestly say I don't think I'd have ever got them as pets if he hadn't bought me them. I love them with all my heart, and in turn they love food, shiny objects and a warm, dark slipper to tuck themselves into.

Dante did love his camera very much, although bugger knows where it is now (his house ate it).

Length? George is a fat turtle now.
(theneet began to cut her hair and long for balls, Fri 22 May 2009, 16:31, 13 replies)

EBad
Oh dear

Reading through these posts has sent me onto Ebay 5 crunking times already. .

Length? 6 page credit card bill

/pop
(mrbubber buggering buggertasch, Fri 22 May 2009, 16:30, 1 reply)

There was a Miraclefish who swallowed a fly...
I had a few quid spare so I bought an Xbox 360. Ace, I thought. ‘This’ll save me loads of cash,’ I convinced myself, ‘I can stay in and play instead of spending countless quids on booze.

And for a time it was good.

But….my 21” shonky old telly really wasn’t doing it justice.

So I bought a Phillips 42” plasma TV for £1100.

Wow! A DVI cable later and everything’s in high definition!

What a difference. Pity the sound is just coming out of the stereo flat-panel tv speakers.

I should really get myself an amplifier and a pair of speakers.

One £400 Yamaha amplifier and a set of £300 speakers later, I’m content. I’m blowing aliens to shit and it sounds and looks heavenly.

Only…

This amp and the Xbox can do Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. I guess a centre speaker and rear speakers would solve that. And now I’ve got the capability, it’d be pointless to squander it.

So another £300 turns into three more speakers.

This is perfect. I’m dodging bullets in Call of Duty and being called a ‘Limey douchebag fag’ by Americans. Whatever that means.

Hang on a moment, 5.1 means that it can operate a subwoofer, too.

So I bought one. I am Thor, I can create thunder! Oh, and I upgraded the rear speakers, too. They were the weak link in the chain. So long £200.

I’m in the Matrix now, I have light and sound like you wouldn’t believe.

Games look so good it’s unreal. Shame about DVDs though. They look pretty poor when blown up this big. Oh, hey, that HD-DVD player add on is cheap. Only £130. It’d be silly not to. I’ll just order Transformers, too. And these other nine films…

Look at Megan Fox! In high definition!

Hmm, hang on, my TV can’t handle black properly, it looks speckley.

I think I need a better one.

£1000 later, a similar 42” plasma has replaced the older, ever-so-slightly inferior one.

Ace, it’s much crisper and it handles dark images perfectly.

Oh, but it’s suffering with the component input – it really ought to be a digital signal over HDMI cable. But I got an early Xbox, they don’t have an HDMI port.

But the new, Elite one does. £260? Well, mine will likely break soon, so it’s really a sound investment.

Wow, this is perfect. All I need is a set of leather, recliner sofas to go with my God-like AV setup. £900? Bargain.

And this is where I am now.

Although, I’ve just realised that my amplifier is Dolby 6.1 ready. And Sky HD is getting awfully cheap...

God help me.

It started off as £200. It’s currently past £4800.

Oh, and I sort of moved house because the living room wasn’t awesome enough. I’m not even going to think about the costs for that one…
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Fri 22 May 2009, 16:30, 18 replies)

drunk footie manager
I once bought Teddy Sherringham for £10,000,000 on Championship manager when I was drunk. He was 38.

ok its not real money but i was not best pleased in the morning.
(snarf81, Fri 22 May 2009, 16:06, 6 replies)

Field.
I bought a field. I don't know what I would do with a field, as I have no animals to graze on it, no desire to spend many months clearing it to plant vegetables, or need to camp on it as I live within walking distance of it.

I wouldn't get planning permission to build on it, and frankly its not in a particularly desirable area anyway. I doubt anyone would want to buy it from me for the same reason.

But yet I have a field and it makes me feel all Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstallish despite the obvious lack of homesteadiness.
(Captain Skippy pooed in a bag and left it on your doorstep, Fri 22 May 2009, 16:04, 2 replies)

Camera kit
A few years ago this was my biggest weakness.

Went down to Jessops to buy a digital compact camera. I had a DSLR, a Canon EOS-300D, but decided a few weeks prior to this when I went to a friend's birthday party and realised there was no way in hell I could take a camera that big with me that I needed a compact camera. Something that would fit in my pocket.

A friend had just bought a Powershot A75 (3.2Mpx) which I rather liked the look of but wanted the model up, the A85, otherwise identical but with a 4Mpx sensor instead of 3.2 (I like to be able to zoom, crop and generally muck about with pictures in Photoshop so the extra resolution is nice to have). I'd spotted the A85 for £189, the next model up (A95, 5Mpx) was going for around £249. I also didn't like the look of the twist screen on the A95 as this looked like it was going to break.

So the Clifton branch of Jessops had the A75 in stock but not the A85. However I had a look at the A95 and discovered 3 things about it which I liked:

1. The twist/rotate screen was a hell of a lot stronger than it looked in the promotional photos so wasn't likely to break. Which means you can actually use this feature to hold the screen out when taking normal shots and you can flip the screen over to take a self-portrait.

2. You can flip the screen over and fold it back in so the screen isn't exposed when the camera isn't in use. (The LCD screen basically folds flat into a recess in the camera body with the screen against the back of the camera and the metal case facing outwards.) This feature sold me on the camera instantly - no danger of the screen getting scratched when it's in my pocket!

3. Jessops had the A95 on sale for £199, only a tenner more than I was planning to spend on the A85. Worth an extra tenner for a 5Mpx camera over a 4Mpx and the twist/rotate screen.

So I ended up buying this one. But that wasn't the impulse purchase. Oh no. That was just spending a tenner more than I'd originally intended (an extra 5% basically) and getting a much better product.

No, the impulse purchase - after I'd bought the camera - I was silly enough to have a look at a lens I'd been wanting for some time for the EOS-300D.

A Canon 10-22mm EF-S ultra-wide lens with ultrasonic focus (USM).

Yours for the very reasonable price of £549.

Let's just say I tried this lens on the display EOS-300D (might have been a 350D actually?) that was in the branch and ended up buying it.

Went in to spend just under £200, ended up spending £750.

Although I still have the lens 4 years later - and even though I've upgraded the camera body (I now have an EOS-20D) still works perfectly. Even better on the new body actually.

Photography is an expensive hobby (or at least the initial outlay is expensive). I'm going to shock myself now:

Camera body: EOS-20D, £475 (bought second hand, got £350 for my 300D and kit lens though)
Normal lens: Canon 17-85 IS USM, £399 (normally £499)
Ultra-wide: Canon 10-22 USM, £549
Telephoto: Canon 75-300, £299
4x 4GB CF cards - these have got cheaper, the first two Sandisk ones cost me £70 each, the last two Lexar cards I bought were £6 a time!
Various Cokin P-series filters ranging from £11 for tobacco/blue/ND grads up to £50 for a polariser

Oh, and ink, paper etc... my printer (Epson R1800) takes 8 cartridges costing £75 for a set.

But it's a rewarding hobby and the few photography jobs I've taken on (weddings, bit of architectural work) have pretty much paid for the camera and kit. It's not something I make money from but the little bit of semi-pro work means it pays for itself.
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Fri 22 May 2009, 15:31, 6 replies)

My sort-of-ex
bought Daisy a few weeks ago:



Guess who's looking after her today.

Just going to take her for a walk as she is wrecking my kitchen and Mooshka (my cat) tried to kill her earlier, hopefully she'll go to sleep when we get back.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Fri 22 May 2009, 15:27, 10 replies)

The Lovers Guide on DVD
Picked it up in HMV on special offer on account of them going tits up. Got home, sat down with the girlfriend and put the dvd on the idiot box.

After a few minutes I got bored of watching all the foreplay mallarky and fast forwarded to some sweet hot cock-in-fanny action.

My girlfriend turns to me and says: "That's EXACTLY what happens with us in the bedroom..."

Tcchhhh... everyone's a critic nowadays...
( SpankyHanky, Fri 22 May 2009, 15:14, 2 replies)

Fantastic
Drunk.......Friday night/Saturday Morning......Ebay....too much spare cash.......results in one thing.

An Asterix arcade machine

Now that isnt sucha problem I hear you cry, well it is when you live in Winchester and the machine is in North yorkshire.......and you drive a Corsa.

Machine = £101
Delivery = £125
Games before completion = 4
Time spent in house = 6 months
Sold for = £50

Brill-yant
(CaptainSpunker, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:58, Reply)

Cars
I bought a Fiat.




'Nuff said.
(Bluffboy South Africa! World Champions!!!, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:55, 2 replies)

Mobile Phones
So its that time of year again, Mudbutton's contract phone is up for renewal. I have thought long and hard about this, after all its just a phone! Due the the current economical downturn, its time to look after the pennies!

So what do i need a mobile for?
well its my main phone (hence contract not pay as you go....thats justified that then)

I dont have a digital or normal camera, so want one with one on! thats that justified.

Now down to the hard work! selecting a handset and tariff that fits the bill and saves me money. Damn this will be soooo easy!

I'm thinking nice and small, dont need all bells and whistles, i never use em. Can i make and receive calls, text and take the odd photo? yes then its sold!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
so my HTC Touch Diamond 2 arrives soon!
Seems that i need a touch screen (nice big one at that)
I need email on my phone (apparently you can PUSH it?)
I need internet on my phone (thats super fast internet too)
and i most certainly could'nt live without having windows mobile 6.1 soon to be 6.5! (It's a revolution so they say!)
I also need unlimited texts, 600mins of talk time and christ knows how much free internet.

thank god for the internet!
(MudButton does not mean to offend but......, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:48, 5 replies)

Giant Marilyn Monroe
I was at an IT auction and a bunch of lots came up from a bankrupt theatre company. One of the lots was an 8 foot tall Marilyn Monroe puppet (bloody huge!). As huge and impractical as it was, I though, "yeah why not" and got her for a fiver. A fiver and a bunch of lewd calls from the guys working in the auction house (and they told me she wasn't shop soiled).

Fortunately a friend had just moved so I gave it to her as the ultimate in impractical housewarming presents. I hung her in a tree in the front yard and you could see her all the way down the street and the local hooligans eventually blew up her mailbox for being a freak.

Last I heard Marilyn is living in another friend's garage. Lucky he hasn't got a car.
(xixax, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:18, 8 replies)

Mail order digital indoor TV antenna
Fashioned in black plastic and about the size and shape of a notebook computer mouse.

In retrospect I'm pretty sure that it was just a wire encapsulated in a plastic blob, since the reception was just a good if I used a plain wire. But there was no way to tell unless I used power tools to open the blob. And being young and poor I didn't have any power tools, so in the end I threw it away and let the injustice pass.

Some day when I get mutant super powers and power tools they will be in for a surprise.
(spinoza, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:18, Reply)

My Science Degree
This could probably be classed as an impulse buy, since the day I signed up, I had plans of doing something else, and hadn't even considered it. I got the same sort of 'rush' on the way home too.

I had just completed the first year of an Engineering degree at another institute, then moved flat nearer to the University and went to talk to them about transferring for the following years, as most other students did. I'd failed the Maths paper (it could be traced back to just one mis-integrated equation), and the mean lady told me to sod off.

After recieving that, I walked across the street and signed up for a BSc, in Geology.
To this day I've spent more time studying Engineering than I have working in Geology, but it was still a good buy. I love rocks. It wasn't entirely out of spite.

The real kicker came near the end of the BSc, looking for a few extra papers to fill it up by years end. I got a new updated transcript from the previous institute, and next to the Maths paper it said "Conceeded Pass". Thanks a bunch.

Length? 4 and a half years, and a student loan big enough to choke a shark.
(Arsenic, Fri 13 Jul, 2:73 and, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:15, 4 replies)

various cars and shit
In my 18 years of life ive managed to own numerous cars. When it was my time to learn how to drive on the road (i could already drive, just not legally) i decided it was time for another car. So off me and my dad go to Scotland with a van to pick up my new 1967 Fiat 500 :) the week after coming home i saw a Peugeot 205 for sale with a years MOT and some tax for £250, and it wasnt any old 205 it was a Roland Garros 1.4 one, but not the convertable version. Without even checking if an engine was present i bought it, after owning it for a few months i got sick of practicality and stripped out the interior and stuck a rollcage we had sitting arond the house in (thankfully my dad is as mad about old cars as i am) and bucket seats. i used the car for a few more months then it was time for my month long trip to Tanzania. I got home, realised my 205 hadnt been re-MOTd so time for a new car, i was looking for a peugeot 306, then the Golf turned up for sale.....impulse time, im now driving a 1990 VW golf 1.3.
A few months back i decided to sell the fiat 500 which i never used...with cash in my pocket and next to no sense, i saw an ex-police 2002 VW Passat W8 for sale, bought that, what a daft car for an 18 year old to buy! I have used it about twice and its just too modern for me. So my summer plan is to sell it and buy the first thing i see again probably.
Other impulse buys:
Ford Anglia
Mk1 Ford Fiesta
Mk2 VW Golf GTI (when i was 16)
An Indiana Jones fedora from the US
Halo 3 Legendary edition (the one with the fairly useless helmet)
Various music albums that i like one song off
Cheap DVDs from Tescos (not all shite)
My dad has done the same with cars, for example the mini off ebay for a couple hundred quid, if you steered left it went right and vice-versa, it had no MOT or tax funny enough and the electrics were fooked. I believe the line "sure we wont get it for that price" was used as he hit the bid button on eBay, stone cold sober at that.

Apologies for length, its my first time, and im still getting used to this!
(indianabones, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:04, Reply)

Recapturing my youth
e-bay hasn’t always been kind to me.

I bought.

‘easy to program’ Big Trak (because I’d always wanted one as a kid but they were too expensive)

The Big Trak Trailer (less expensive than ‘easy to program’ Big Trak, but not much use on its own. I mean, how can I get the trailer to deliver an apple to my old man without the ‘easy to program’ Big Trak to do all the donkey work)

Anyway, a boxed, mint condition ‘easy to program’ Big Trak cost me sixty quid, the ‘easy to program’ Big Trak trailer was another thirty odd. Including postage, I was down over a one-er.

So, the big day arrives and ‘easy to program’ Big Trak turns up. That’ll be the ‘mint condition’ ‘easy to program’ Big Trak I’ve bought from e-bay, and it was in mint condition, condition that made it look like it has just come off the production line, in fact, ‘easy to program’ Big Trak looked fantastic. There was only one thing missing.

The instructions

The seller doesn’t want to know, claiming there were never any instructions with it, e-bay can’t help me because there are on instructions for sale there and MB Games don’t seem to exist anymore, so it wasn’t like I could write to them and ask them to send me the instructions for a toy they’d not made for 20 years.

Eventually, I get some basic instructions and get the thing going.

It is absolutely rubbish. How they could market such a piece of shit so well to be at the top of most peoples Christmas list is beyond me. It moves – sometimes – it turns – randomly – the wheels don’t like a lino floor, the beeping noise it makes goes from occasional to constant and the biggest bug-bear.

The batteries last about 30 minutes tops.

So, I did what any normal person who bought something from e-bay and has worked out, that, despite its cost, it’s actually useless.

Yeap, over £100.00 of white and black plastic is currently sitting in landfill somewhere.

Mullered
Who was amazed at the level of anger he achieved from a simple white car/moon-buggy type thing.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 22 May 2009, 14:03, 10 replies)

'Fitness'
I used to ride BMX a few years ago but gave it up mainly due to lack of time after leaving college. In those few years I seem to gained a 'bit' of weight so am currently going through a phase of wanting to get fit but never actually getting around to it.
As soon as I had a bit of money come through I immediately spent £225 on a new bike with the logic of "If I've spent that much on it, I'll definately use it".
That was three months ago. I've ridden it twice.
(dubzy182, Fri 22 May 2009, 13:59, 1 reply)

I wonder if he bought it special?
To bring it on topic, i usually buy this paper on impulse, particularly with headlines like this....

www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/greenock/articles/2009/05/22/387727-man-battered-with-tin-of-dog-food/

Greenock, what a fucking hell-hole.

You could do worse than checking this site every few days, it is a total voyeuristic window into the insane and filthy void that is Greenock, and its cancerous runt of a twin, Port Glasgow.

Rot in hell, the fucking lot of them.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Fri 22 May 2009, 13:51, 6 replies)

Frugal Friday
For some years now, I've subscribed to The Motley Fool, for tips about savings and stuff. With the onset of hard times, they've started sending out a weekly email called Frugal Friday, oddly enough on a Friday.

The purpose of these emails is to highlight bargains so subscribers can go save some money.

So far, I've bought a boxed set of Buffy DVDs, a similar one for Angel and the entire set of Peep Show. All were bargains but, and here's the important bit, all would have remained happily unbought had I not been told about the sodding things. I would have saved more money had they not sent me the email.

I have had a little more resolve in recent weeks and not bought a thing for ages. The next email is due soon but I will be strong.

I will be strong. I will be strong. I will be strong. Oooh, that's cheap.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Fri 22 May 2009, 13:25, 1 reply)

A lathe...
I sold my old motorbike... Yay! I've got some cash...

I saw a lathe on ebay... booo! I've got no money!

But I now have a shiny lathe. I just need to learn how to use it.
( Beastie is doing science with his arse, Fri 22 May 2009, 13:17, 1 reply)