b3ta.com user Mr_Rigby
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Profile for Mr_Rigby:
Profile Info:

none

Recent front page messages:


none

Best answers to questions:

» Cheap Tat

Soldering Screwdriver
Pound shop in Ilford. Found myself a lovely cheap soldering iron, I thought what could go wrong? It only needs to get hot right?

Opened the packet to discover I had in fact purchased some kind of futuristic multi-tool: a soldering iron with the head of a screwdriver! Genius. Presumably it can be used for unscrewing screws made from ice or something ...
(Sat 5th Jan 2008, 16:59, More)

» Ripped Off

Estate Agents
Not me, and not really ripped off ... but anyway. I worked briefly as a paper shuffler in an estate agents where slightly dodgy practises abounded. They had this technique of posting adverts for nice sounding flats in newspapers, like:

"Lovely 26 bedroom mansion, actually inside Liverpool Street Station, full staff of dwarf butlers, £26 per Month"

Of course no such dwarf butler infested property ever existed, so when customers phoned up the conversation would go:

"Oh how sorry I am Mr. X that property has just been taken, but wouldn't you like to come in and see this other slightly smaller property"

Customer is then quickly taken around 1 bedroom grotty rat faeces encrusted hole in Bethnal Green while the agent distracts them with his voluminously gelled hair.

Everything you've ever been told about estate agents is true ... there was this other time when they fought each other with broken broomsticks for clients, but we'll save that for another QOTW.
(Fri 16th Feb 2007, 11:18, More)

» The Worst Journey in the World

Thai Coach Adventure
On holiday in Thailand, me and girlfriend decide to take the "VIP coach service" offered by the nice people at Bangkok station to the South to catch a boat. They seemed so very nice and respectable at the time.

Stage 1: Wait to be picked up by coach with fellow smelly backpackers, keep waiting ... wait a bit more. Coach arrives and drops us off at mystery location still in Bangkok, (suspicions are aroused at this point), another wait, and drop off later we are on the actual "VIP Coach" mentioned above. It is now midnight.

Stage 2: Coach departs. Begin to notice discrepency between descriptions of "VIP Coach" and actual coach. The air conditioning from hell, if hell were in antarctica, in space, with liquid nitrogen in your pants.

Stage 3: The journey begins in earnest. Fellow backpacker sitting behind seems to be having difficulty sleeping - this is expressed by placing legs over the top of our seats (one leg is covered with a bloody rag), he is a sleep-moaner. Thai clone of terminator movie comes on the "VIP Coach Entertainment System", there is no sound, movie contains sub Jean Claude Van Damme style acting, parts are clearly cut directly from Terminator.

Stage 4: Nearing completion. Coach stops unexpectedly in the middle of Thai motorway at another mystery location, dark figures run across the motorway and seem to disappear into luggage compartment, the coach drives on. Exploring the situation while on journey to the bathroom (oh god no), the author discovers Thai tramps sleeping on luggage, thwarting the authors attempt to obtain thermal protection from air-conditioning as frost bite is setting in.

Stage 5: There is no stage 5. We arrive at boat, and escape "VIP Coach" of Doom forever.
(Fri 8th Sep 2006, 16:21, More)

» Work Experience

Chemicals!
Once of my nice neighbours managed to get me work experience in a university chemistry lab .... one of my morning jobs was to refill the lab Toluene containers, carrying round buckets full of what amounted to nail varnish remover was definitely a learning experience.

Oh, and I had to make sure the solid CO2 (dry ice) was filled ... I conscripted the help of a friend in the building of a portable insulating containment chamber (polystyrene box) in order to requisition some, requiring a covert filling of pockets with steaming CO2 and running into the toilets to fill the box while my boss took a giant poo next door.

Lest I forget 'mercury cleanup' involved cleaning up the contents of broken thermometers with a dustpan and brush and pouring it all in an old beaker for later re-use, (super interesting side fact: mercury is surprisingly heavy). I'm sure that was healthy.

I had another work experience placement at a pharmaceuticals factory, that was also surprisingly fun, though I don't they were too happy with my accidental contamination of the Gas-Liquid Chromatagraph ... which caused a whole weeks worth of data collection to be off.

Much woo for chemistry labs.
(Fri 11th May 2007, 18:14, More)