Money for Christmas

Seasons Greetings

First things first: We need to have that Christmas conversation. You know the one. You have it every year and you know you do. It replaces the weather conversation. Got it figured yet? I am of course talking about the conversation we all have every year at this time of year when we haven't even had Halloween (trick or treat or whatever you call it) but the shops are full of Christmas and the TV starts getting in to the perfume ads. It's been gathering pace since the last weeks of September and it will only get worse. Between now and the first week in December our favorite topic of conversation will be... 'I can't believe that Christmas is starting so early this year'. 'Can't they just let us get October out?' Then in December we can start our next favourite topic which goes 'doesn't really feel like Christmas this year does it?'.

Back to Black

I seriously need to find some way to make some money. The wife and I both have hard working decent paying jobs and I swear we've not had two pennies to rub together all year. Every time I look at the money something else comes up to steal it from me. It's the car tax, it's insurance, the caravan, the dishwasher (that ain't even fixed yet), it's endless that's what it is. I've been reading Poets blog about her attempts to work from home and, whilst she's finding it a bit up and down, I'm wondering if I could get a second income from it. I'm even considering getting a couple of back shifts in a shop or something just to have that feeling of having spending money again instead of just paying bills. People say 'at least you still have your health' but actually it's mentally and physically draining constantly trying to figure out what can and can't be paid or trying to learn to do things yourself because you can't get a tradesman to do it. Actually sometimes that bit can be quite rewarding when it works but, it' got to work.

Yep I've got to figure out a way to make some money. Realistically I wouldn't be able to maintain a second job for any length of time unless it was something I could do at home. What I need to do is find a way to market my existing skills and use what I have. I can knock out professional presentations in minutes, on more than one occasion my user guides have been chosen in preference to the official version from the software vendor. I can put together courses on telephone skills, sales, debt collection, complaints, train the trainer, all that kind of stuff and more. God almighty a bunch of Canadians even managed to teach me to train reliability engineering to engineers. There are some problems however:

First everybody thinks that they can do great presentations. (Trust me they can't. It's like the start of xfactor when you get the ones whose friends think they are a great singer.)

Second companies need to deal with a registered business. They can't just pay cash to some guy touting for business.

Third I'm at work during the day and these things need scoped out. There need to be meetings etc.

Forth I don't even have any idea how you go about tendering for that sort of thing or even how much to charge.

So that's what my brain is working at just now. How can I turn my skills in to cash. Please put any suggestions you may have on the back of a cheque made payable to.... Only joking but any ideas gratefully received.

Meta Tags

Last week I talked about a new geeky bloggy thing that I had learned called HTML code and I mentioned using meta tags to ensure that google et al would find my site and list it highly on any searches. Well I've been monitoring the site as always with google analytics and I'm pleased to say that meta tags have made absolutely no difference what so ever to the uptake of my site. Visitor numbers have neither increased nor decreased. The most popular way to find my little corner of the web seems to be to google quitzits or any sentence that includes smoking and spots.

QuitZits

Since they bring people to the site I think it's only polite to update you all on them. When I first read about them there seemed to be some agreement that they were a short term (about three months) side effect of giving up. Utter Bull I'm afraid. I gave up in February and I still get them (as bad as ever) now.

How can you tell that they are quitzits? They may look like any other zit but they are actually a bread apart. They can come on from nowhere pretty quick and you'll feel them like a solid lump under the surface of your skin. The problem is that they sit deeper than a normal pluke so can get quite red and angry but be way too thick skinned to burst. Try not to burst them anyway. Not sure about this one but stick with me. If you do squeeze them they don't empty and go away like a normal spot. They stay there looking just as angry but with the added joy of a scab on top. Burst or not they go down by themselves. The problem is that within seven to fourteen days they come back. They come back in exactly the same spot but the second visit is usually the last. They do have a habit of leaving a red area of skin for a while afterwards but at least they are gone.

So there you have the quitzit. Painful, unsightly and abnormal. But bearable and nowhere near as bad as smoking. Since I smoked for thirty years it's hardly surprising that my skin has some withdrawal symptoms. Smoking drys and eventually ages the skin so maybe I shouldn't be complaining about looking like an adolescent.

Until next week...

T

We're Not Satisfied Until Your Not Satisfied

Hi Folks

Another month is about to bite the dust and the frightening thing is that tomorrow is September. What is that about? That's like almost the run up to Christmas. People will be making resolutions to give stuff up again soon. People aren't dieting for their holidays anymore they are dieting for their party dresses.

Predictions
As predicted in my previous post by my right knee....The weather is changing. I think I made the prediction on Thursday and when I got in my car on Monday the morning temperature was 7c at 8am. We've had beautiful clear days where the temp has got up to 18c but late at night and first thing in the morning we're into single figures. Barring an Indian Summer, Which is not uncommon in Scotland, the temperature will continue to drop. Better fire up the heating and check it still works.

Blogging
Regular visitors will hopefully be noticing some changes to the blog recently. I've purposefully kept the advertising to a minimum but I've been trying to use more images and beef up the content in the side margins. My two main topics (cigs and iPhone) now have rather cool (I think) picture links and I found a non flash (iPhone friendly) news gadget just to give you our British slant on world affairs.

I've been doing all this to try and make the blog a bit more appealing because I worry that now that it's not just about smoking it's a bit harder to market and make appealing. If you've no idea who I am then why would you want to read what is essentially the diary of a grumpy git in a cold climate who misses his fags and drinks a bit much? I welcome any feedback as to how I can continue to decorate the place to your taste so do use the comments button to let me know. Maybe you could put a link to your blog or one that you know as an example.

Face Book
I've also recently taken the chance of blowing my cover a bit on face book and trying to drum up a bit of trade from a site they have on there about Champix. I'm slightly edgy about this because it links the site back to the real me. The one that people who know me can easily identify. When I started this blog it had absolutely no intention of being a place for friends and colleagues to find out about my life. If they want to know they can just ask. The beauty of the blog was anonymity. Only my mum and my wife were even aware of the blog as far as I know. As I'm new on face book, most of the people who would have ever searched my name will already have done so and not found me and given up so I've taken the risk safe in the knowledge that I can erase the links quite quickly if necessary. Early signs are that the risk has paid off as analytics shows that fifty referrals in the last four days came from face book.

Statistics
In the last 30 days the site has had 523 visitors looking at an average of 2.5 pages per visit. (Must find the page that they only get half way through and delete it). Recently, up until face book at least the search engine searches that bring new folk are Quitzits (I knew I couldn't be the only one affected by those wee bastards) and Jail breaking IOS4.02. Incredibly 24 separate countries have provided visitors this month. With the exception of Russia and China we seem to have all the rest covered.

Tennessee, Utah and Texas are the biggest followers outside the UK. In all the USA brought 57 visits last month followed by Hong Kong with 28, Australia with 27, Canada with 26 and Ireland with 25. After that you get to Singapore with seven visits and so on.

Smoking
I intend to keep pushing the smoking part of the blog on Face book. The Champix site that I've discovered has just reached 500 members and I'd love them all to view this site as well. I was surprised when I searched face book that there were lots of anti smoking sites but that most had very poor following or were hopelessly out of date. The Champix one seems to have it's heart in the right place but, for me at least, it all seems a bit ignorant of the facts. It's full of the sort of advice that I personally found annoying like,'Take it a day at a time' (does that mean I can smoke tomorrow?) and 'Concentrate on something else'. If someone said that they were sitting with a meat cleaver in one hand swigging from a bottle of strong malt whiskey whilst deciding which of their hostages to kill first I get the feeling they would get some twee encouragement like 'at least you wont smell of smoke in prison and your lungs will be nice and pink'. It's the Allen Carr thing all over again trying to convince you that you actually don't want to smoke and that giving up just involves not lighting the thing. Is it possible that I'm the only person in the world that gave up against my will because I wanted to live?

Car
So what's the title of the blog all about this time? Well it's stolen from a fantastic site called despair.com. What they do is take all those motivational posters you see, like 'there's no I in team' and twist them into something less pleasant. I think the latest was: 'BP, Bringing oil to American shores'. Anyhow I chose 'Customer Disservice' for a reason. This is a cautionary tail for all of you customer facing folk. Especially those of you who may be slightly wired to the moon through lack of nicotine.

For the moment we have a conclusion to the car wheel story. On the surface it represents, not so much a win win situation as, a 'this allows everybody to save face' deal. The offer sits like this: I will be getting a brand new front wheel at half price, my 45k service at half price, a wheel (already replaced but showing early signs of corrosion)completely free and my front fog lights (used twice in the past three years) replaced again completely free. Each wheel replaced gets a new 2 year warranty meaning that this particular garage could be replacing wheels for some time to come as they appear to start showing signs of corrosion around 14 months or earlier (their problem not mine).

Here is a very brief history of the problem and, I hope, a stark warning to all those who handle customers (For 15 years I was a retail manager).

Crime number 1: Lack of empathy. When someone has to bring a three year old car in with a major fault it does no harm whatsoever to show some empathy. I'm choosing the word empathy carefully. Prior to an investigation into the cause of the fault you don't want staff to be agreeing that such a thing is a disgrace. They just need to be saying that they understand how the customer might feel about such a problem occurring. This is where the dealer fell completely flat. They were almost confrontational about it.

Crime number 2: Imply that fixing the fault was some sort of good will gesture when the car was still in warranty. Investigation done, fault found, now you can admit guilt and sympathise, even apologise. Instead they were looking for me to thank them for fixing the problem and learn my lesson that I should have allowed them to service it in the first place.

The above fault was identified and fixed. It was a serious fault that shouldn't have happened and I'd be lying if I said that I would have been delighted with an apology. But, had they not behaved as described above, I would have walked away. Instead I decided to bring up every petty complaint about them and the car that I could think of.

The fog lights have condensation in them. They work but they shouldn't have condensation and I found out through the Internet that the manufacturer agrees with me. If I was to replace both units as a customer I would expect to pay between £60 and £100.

The front wheel shows signs of corrosion. It's hard to see these signs because I kerbed the wheel very badly shortly after buying the car. (I was gutted at the time). I had never even tried to claim my warranty as, even I thought, it was a bit of a push given the damage. A life of retailing however taught me that 'where there is a proven fault there is a case even if the fault is not the only damage'. To replace the wheel (which I had planned to do this year) would have cost £164, now it will cost £82.

The signs of corrosion on the rear wheel are very very early and, had I not had another wheel replaced for this in the past, I wouldn't even have noticed them. In about 3 years time however they will become unsightly. In about three years time I would have them replaced at my cost. They'll be replaced next week. No cost to the dealer unfortunately but a cost to the manufacturer.

Finally a half price dealer service. To the customer this amounts to a cash value of between £120-£160. I could save that by going elsewhere but it's always good to get those dealer stamps in the book.

In all that fault should have cost the dealer nothing but man hours. The manufacturer would have supplied the part and the dealer would have fitted it. In addition to that this dealer has paid for a hire car for a week, a set of fog lights, 1.5 wheels and half a dealer service. Cost to them is probably just under £200 plus whatever hassle they've had from their director as he's had about six emails. To me it's a saving of about £400. If their service manager had handled one ten minute conversation differently... Cost to them, whatever it cost to replace the part and probably the cost of the hire car. Saving for me, Nil.

It's also worth noting that I intend to have all this done and be all smiles and charm till it is. But from the outset I've been clear that I wanted them to feel the pain I felt about that fault. So far I've dealt with the dealer. Once the dealer makes good on their promises. I thoroughly intend to start on the manufacturer and their new owners. Can't imagine there will be any point starting at any level below the director for European operations. It will be next year but, if your here, watch this space...

The iPhone Update
Finally, I'm giving you this months statistics a day before I have the full months figures. I'm doing this because tomorrow 01/09/2010 Apple will be holding a press conference to tell the world what they are up to next. It is widely rumoured that coinciding with this will be a new and improved software update. Given that my IPhone bears almost no resemblance to any other on the planet in either appearance or functionality I may be quite busy over the next couple of days trying to keep my phone the way I want it. The worst thing that happens is when the software is updated but the Dev-team can't break it straight away. That leaves me hopping from foot to foot for days. I feel that there may be an iPhone blog before the week is out. Incredibly people find those blogs despite there being thousands of competing iPhone blogs some of which update hourly.

Watch this space

T

Like, Comment, Add to wishlist, Ignore

Comment

Ok so I've spent a fair bit of this week trying to decide what I really think about this facebook lark. The whole thing is puzling me a bit because it's not really a blog as such. You don't really keep a diary or tell a story. Also it seems to work differently based on your age.

For folk my age and above it all seems a bit random. It's like some sort of bizzare tourettes. Someone posts a comment like: 'My dishwashers broke and I've got no dishes' and then all the friends of that person swarm on to the site to either 'Like' this bizarre proposal (which I am taking as a form of support)or comment with something tongue in cheek like 'I thought you only ate fast food anyway'. What do you need dishes for? (Oops forgot to put the LOL at the end). Imagine sending a text message to everyone you know just to update them that you are now shopping and you've got the idea.

I am however now 'Friends' with my teenage nieces and they seem to use it all differently. Not quite so under pressure to make sweeping statements they seem to be going more for the full on conversation. We've been friends for two days and I've learned more about them in those two days than in the past 16 years. They also seem to spend a fair bit of time sending out quizzes to all their pals. What did you think the first time you saw me? Who would you secretly like to snog? If I died tomorow what would you say? I have to say it seems innocent enough and even quite a good way to get into others thoughts but is this not wide open for the bullys to attack individuals?

Like

Then there seem to be some sites set up with no other intention in life than to be liked. What's that about? One said that if it could get 2000 people to 'like' it by a certain date then their dad would give up smoking. I didn't 'like' it by the way. leave the guy alone. Pressuring him in that way is poitless. Find a site like this and let him read it. that would work better.

Add to wishlist

In her most recent blog Poet talked about house prices where she lives. Well house prices are pretty high everywhere but there are always bargains if you search. A two bed flat in the city where I live will start at over 90k however look at this one that I discovered:



On the market for 162k. 162k!!!!! That's something that a normal couple could afford. Granted the estate agent describes it as needing modernisation inside and out but 162k. Take a look at what you get by clicking here. You would feel like the lord and lady of the manor. If three or four rooms were OK you would live in them and then get the place watertight. That may take the price through the 200k barrier but, theres more than an acre of land, you could sell some land to a developer to pay for some of the repairs. Provided it's wind and water tight then you can take years to do the rest a room at a time. It makes me feel good that a pleb like me could realistically one day own a place like that.

Ignore

Yep it turns out the car dealer had been ignoring me. They had the cheek to do one of those courtessy calls to say they thought it was about time for a service but had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned my complaint. I went via 'Contact us' on their web-site and asked when I should expect an answer. I got an email straight away to say there was no record and that I would be contacted shortly. Within about half an hour the directors PA had contacted me to say that she had been on holiday and then the director had been on holiday. My complaint had gone missing but was found now.

So what now???

Watch this space...

T

Bloody vandals

Someone just wrote on my wall and someone else poked me. What's more the first I knew anything about it was when I got an email.

Yep I'm learning a new language that you probably all recognise as face book. Don't laugh but, when you don't know how it works it's all a bit bizarre.

When I got back from the caravan I thought I'd check out Poet and Zoe's blogs to see what had been happening. Nothing it would appear. I am beginning to suspect from Zoe's last post that someone has indeed seen her with a ciggy and shot her. Only herself to blame really because that what she said they should do. As for Poet! I became concerned that she and K had become locked out of their house. I thought they had maybe gone to the deck, forgot their keys and were now fighting off bears.

In Poets post she had mentioned face book. There was a link to it on her site. I clicked the link but it took me to a log in page. Now I've been confronted by this sort of skulduggery before. My wife once wanted to check someones BEBO page so we had to create a log in and then delete it afterwards. So this was to be my cunning plan. Create a log in, see what was there, and then leave.

Now normally if I'm doing something like that I have the foresight to use my gmail address that I created when I created this blog. It's a legitimate address but allows me to remain anonymous. If I hadn't mentioned it T isn't my first name and Quittin isn't my surname (I'm truly sorry if I've burst any ones bubble with that information). Anyway without thinking I entered my actual email address and clicked the 'create account' button or whatever it was called. This took me to step 2. Step 2 still puzzles me a wee bit so if someone can tell me definitively how it works I would be interested.


Step 2 was to add friends. What surprised me was that there were three photographs of three people I knew already there to get me started. One was my aunt, another was a mate from the pub where I used to stay and still catch up with every so often and the final one was a bloke that I went to college with to do a course in 2005/06. Whilst all three have now received a 'friend request' (only my aunt hasn't accepted. What is it they say about blood being thicker?)but I have to say that they were an odd collection to turn up by default. How did it know that they knew me? I think these three may have allowed face book to access their email contacts and I've been lurking there from some dark and distant past.

The next bits were also about adding friends. It offered the option to raid my email contacts (no thanks) and then also showed me pics of folk I might want to add based on the three amigos that we started with. Great idea this; If I like someone and they like someone then the someone they like will like me, I think. I'm not sure that my aunt would be all that interested in my mate from the pub or that he would take to my mate from college. Maybe I'm wrong and this is how great friendships now start. It could also start a lot of random stalking me thinks.


Anyhow being a miserable git I declined all future friend requests until I found out what happened with the first three. So I was now live on Face book (did I ever mention the danger of leaving me bored at a PC?). I had assumed that, since I'd used a link on Poets site that I would be taken to Poets page but I wasn't. Instead I had a rather bald looking profile page called after me.

Now I should have just left it that way but, what about the friend requests that I had sent out? They would need some details to identify me. What I should do therefor is check out their pages to see what sort of stuff you should put. This I did. Why does everyone else seem to have a great photo for these things and I never do? Even as kid anything that needed a pic just got a randomly cut out pic from a holiday snap. My driving license has one that I photo shopped the background out of. Anyway I found a pic of me looking a bit dishevelled and dodgy on a bench by the sea. If you knew me and half shut your eyes you'd recognise me. If you didn't know me then you would probably pick me in a police line up anyway. I do look a bit criminal.

OK so now I had a profile that Interpol and the FBI can look up when they want to create criminal personality types. Now I could track down Poet. Might even send a friend request (get me with the lingo already). Nope. Couldn't be found. Searching Canada on foot might have been quicker. Hmm that makes me think of someone else I could look up.... Yep that's what happens. You just keep thinking hmm that's someone else I could look up. I stopped myself from sending bizarre friend requests (based on the fact that I might have had a drunken conversation with you once in a pub but your friend didn't like me)and only sent one friend request to a pal I had lost touch with. I spent about an hour in all and then gave up.

Sometime later when opening outlook.... Between the spam for the Orleans Casino Vegas (why can't they just f**k off) and the job sites that completely ignored the job specs I gave them and send me totally inappropriate jobs I found the following;


'Brian has accepted your friend request' and then another saying that 'Brian wrote on my wall'!!!!! At this point I was only aware of certain walls belonging to me and I really didn't want anyone writing on them. What the hell? Gavin had also accepted me as a friend but had the decency to leave my walls alone. Well I thought he was decent until I got to my home page and discovered that he had 'poked' me. (Couldn't they have come up with a different term? Nudged? Nodded? Poked just sounds wrong). I had the option to 'Poke back'. I selected this option assuming that it would open up a message box for me to write something witty. Nope it just said that I had poked Gavin. I feel a bit guilty now. Should I have said something? I've no idea? How do I even know if he's online or if he poked me hours ago

To make matters worse I then wrote on Brian's wall. I tried to be witty but then thought.. He'll see the funny side but will everyone else who ever views his profile? I haven't found a recall button yet.

I also discovered that you can 'like' things in face book (FB to it's friends). Around 2 million people apparently like Cheryl Cole but I settled for liking a site called Big on Glasgow. What happens is that it and another site that I've mentioned on here, Redmond Pie, appear blog like as news whenever I open Face book. I must sound like someone from the stone age here but it's all a bit confusing. If I wanted to see those blogs I'd just go to them via favorites. Why do they appear in my news.

I'm filing this post with tags for both blogging and PC in the hopes that anyone who uses those links at the side of this blog feels my pain and leaves me some tips to help me out.

Later

T

Back to reality

Well, that's me back in the real world once again. Today is the last official day of holiday and then it's back to work on Monday.



After joking about the Scottish Weather, apart from a gray Sunday/Monday at the start, the weather was pretty good and, despite my wife's efforts to get me to wear suncream strong enough to protect vampires in daylight, I even have a hint of a tan. It's funny because we've been going up and down to the same region every year for the last seven years and yet we still discovered a forest trail that took us to a bit of deserted beach that we hadn't been to before. (The flies and insects in Forrest particularly loved my suncream and I ended up like that character out of Peanuts, Linus I think, that had a permanent cloud of bugs around their head). Also although we didn't get out fishing quite a few folk did so we had mackerel for tea on several occasions (note to self: look up mackerel recipes online because we're needing to get inventive if we're having it every second or third day). For some reasons the locals in the local town have now decided that we aren't caravaners anymore but are actually locals ourselves. It's very flattering but hopefully it doesn't get too obtrusive as we quite like our privacy. So all in all the holiday did exactly what holidays should do...we relaxed a lot. We stayed for nine days and then had a few days back at home at a slow pace to catch up so all good.

When I got back I checked the blog. The traffic slowed a bit without updates but still gained some visitors from some far flung places. Outside of the UK the USA now sends more visitors than Canada (need to get your friends involved Poet, Hi to Wisconsin, California, Ohio and Florida) with Australia (The Gold Coast has been loyal for a long time but is now joined by Sydney and Adelaide) out in front of the republic of Ireland (think Zoe has lost interest but Peter might still be keeping the side up).
There's also been some welcome but unexpected additions such as Iran, Romania, Singapore and Malaysia to mention just a few. Since I started monitoring in April there have been over 100O hits from 23 separate countries with the average hit spending 4 minutes on the site and viewing 3 pages per visit. OK so some sites get more hits than that per hour but I'm pretty impressed, not to mention grateful, that so many folk have taken an interest in my decisions to; give up smoking, attack a car company and switch to an IPhone.

So, without further ado, what about smoking, the car and the iPhone?

Well I still don't smoke so that's good. I'm not saying when but I did have a drag within the last eight weeks and it damn nearly blew the top of my head off so I think we're officially safe on that front. I don't remember it being anything like that back when I started smoking because, this time, I couldn't even contemplate a second drag. Didn't want to say at the time because I felt guilty but there you go.

I've heard nothing from the car garage. I'm quite surprised because I thought that going via the directors would have got me some response, even if it was just to tell me to shut up. Watch this space though because I will be following it up. I am a member of a forum for my particular brand of car (there is only one major forum for this car). When I got back from holiday I had a 'Friend request' from the forum from someone else in Scotland (my area too). It's only polite to accept such requests, so I did, and then sent him an email detailing exactly what I thought of the dealership. I explained, in reasoned terms, why I wont use the dealer for servicing and even suggested a garage that could do this for him with an average saving of £100 per time. Haven't heard back yet but here's hoping he takes my advice. Through the forum he may befriend other owners and before you know it there shoddy attitude and disgusting policies will be the stuff of Internet legend. I will of course keep you updated on this site but would rather not use this blog to do the actual campaigning.

Bad Apple just a barrel of Laughs

Before I left I also mentioned that Apple were going to address the reception problems of their new iPhone 4. Well they did. They offered every iPhone 4 customer a free Bumper (sort of rubber band that frames the phone) or case (not sure what quality). That's fine I suppose. I would have purchased a case at the same time as the phone anyway because it's a big screen that scratches easily. Despite not ordering a recall they did say that people could take the phone back if they were dissatisfied. In addition to this they issued a software update; IOS 4.01.

Software updates are a pain in the arse for those of us who choose to jailbreak the phone because you have to re-jailbreak and re-install your apps every time it happens. Did this using Redsn0w. Maybe because it wasn't a major upgrade this was easier than last time. It would seem that a major reason for the upgrade was to address the reception issue with the iPhone 4. Apparently it mis-reported reception making it appear that users were getting a better reception than they actually were. To my knowledge this only affected the iPhone 4. After the upgrade however my iPhone 3g shows poorer reception than it previously had. I have to say that this has little or no impact on my ability to make calls it just makes it look like the phone is getting poor reception. If you forget the fact that it works perfectly and gets 3g reception and everything and just go by the bars displayed after the upgrade...It would seem that I'd do better switching back to my HTC touch because it showed more bars. Well done Apple. On the plus side the advertisers have had a field day.
At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That’s why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. For us it’s just one of those things that comes as a given when you’ve been making mobile phones for over 30 years.

Note the reception bars in samsungs 'Hello'

I'll update again before Sunday but that's enough for now

Car, Music, Money

To the UK, US, Ireland, Australia and Saudi I want to say thanks for sticking with me and taking time to read the site. This month has seen visits from 15 countries in all but some don't seem to hang about much. You guys rock. Would love to know who you are so leave a comment sometime.

On Friday I go on holiday for two weeks and it's unlikely, although not impossible, that I'll update so I thought I'd better put something down tonight.

To tie up some loose ends before I go:

The car seems to be running fine. I amn't pursuing the wheel with the finance company but am going to put a strong complaint in to the dealership. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

I love your vehicles but have had such poor service from your service dept that I wont be purchasing anything from you again. The loss of this one customer probably wont damage your business too much but will cost you considerably more than replacing the wheel would have. If I only discourage one other person from using your dealership then I'll have done enough damage to pay for more than three years servicing. Given that people are impressed with my car and take an interest in what it's like to own I think I have a fair opportunity of discouraging at least one potential customer.

Who knows...maybe I might still get the garage to fit that wheel at get to watch the service manager squirm. Even if they do sort things out to my satisfaction they have completely lost me as a customer.

Talking of customers...One somehow managed to phone through to the training department today and got me. Now since a big part of our job is teaching people how to deliver customer service you would think we'd be at the top of our game. Don't want to give too much away but it took three of us to decide what was best to do. In fairness the end result was way better than it would have been with the call centre guys. My boss walked in toward the end and was extremely worried though. The last time he heard me being that polite was at interview. I think he thought I was talking to the police or the press. Nice one.

The music thing with the iPhone... Well I'm loving the app and it is introducing me to lots of potential music that I like but, it's a bit of an effort to keep it up daily. I think it will be one of those things where I'll try it every time I'm bored. I've blogged about it so can keep track of the date started and can then look back in a years time and see how many tracks it spawned. At the minute I've gone from one track to fourteen so it's not bad going. Try this site for downloading the individual tunes. I'd stick with torrent sites for albums but this is good for tunes: www.4shared.com

On the subject of music...Bob Geldoff (The Boomtown Rats) swore at me 25 years ago today. Well me and several million others when he was telling us to 'give us your fucking money' live on TV on Band Aid. Yep I work with people who weren't born then and lots more who were too young to remember. There's a music festival every week from about March to September nowadays but nothing comes close to live aid. I was 17 in a shared flat and a whole crowd of us gathered to watch and drink and smoke etc. Back then we were changing the world..Now 'We are the world , we are the people...' . God I hated that but Live aid was good. Give it another generation and I'm sure something will best it the way it bested woodstock.

Money..Still aint got none. I actually got one of those pre-approved credit card things through the other day. Just sign and return and you'll get a credit card. Given that I'm skint I could be tempted. Thing is they actually weren't even trying to hide the fact that they wanted 39% interest. The UK is usually quite good at catching that sort of scam and stopping it dead (we do do free enterprise but normally in a more civilised way). When does the interest charged become criminal? It seems that world leaders are scared to criticise banks just now because they are so insecure but someone needs to protect the vulnerable. 39% interest should be criminal.

Also on the money front...My wife lost her purse at the weekend. Had to stop all the cards etc and were planning to get new driving licenses and stuff when....Someone phones and says they found it. She got it back cash and all. As far as I can tell no one has stolen her identity (still looks like the same girl to me). So the world can't be all bad. Maybe it's even better than we think but we just concentrate on the bad.

Anyhow that's me for the moment. If you're really dedicated and can't wait till I get back from hols then go back and read some old posts (there's more than 80 now). If not I'll speak to you when I get back.

Did I mention that I still don't smoke?

Next time...

T

Singing a different tune

Ever get the feeling that you sometimes get caught in a rut? I know I do. When it comes time for the monthly shop do you find yourself ordering pretty much the same as last month? You can have whatever you want but you, like me, probably have a relatively set menu that you stick by and only occasionally supplement. Or maybe the change in seasons is the reason that you are eating a little differently this month.

Routines rise out of comfort situations. They are not bad in themselves because they are established using the tried and the tested. Yet you often watch a cookery show and crave the alternatives that they show. Or, Like me, you have sat in a restaurant at some point waiting for your regular meal to arrive only to see something looking far better going to another table.

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to retrieve the contents of a memory stick as they were having problems with it. The stick had their music collection of 30 or 40 songs on it. I created the copy they were looking for but I also took a copy myself. The songs on their drive weren't new. I recognised them all. The reason I took a copy was that I liked all the songs but not enough to have gone out and purchased or downloaded them. Yet having them together made an excellent collection of songs that I listen to to this day.

I remember loving the film 'Good Morning Vietnam' because of the soundtrack yet I didn't have one of the artists let alone the songs in my collection.

Where am I going with this? Well we're all pretty insular about what we actually purchase and yet no-where near as insular about what we actually like. I like a vast range of music, both older and contemporary, and yet I stick to the same artists constantly when I make a purchase. Don't get me wrong I like what I like but sometimes it can become a bit boring. This is where a program called Shazam comes in and a little experiment that I'm going to try.

Now I discovered Shazam via the iPhone. This however is not an I phone blog. A version of Shazam can also be found here: http://www.shazam.com/music/web/pages/explorer.html

For iPhone users Shazam was that cool little program where, you held your phone up to the music and it told you: what song was playing, who it was by and when it came out. The rest of us mere mortals were impressed but fell short of selling the family car to have this functionality on our Nokias. However like a lot of software it has been developing away quietly into something more than just a good gimmick. I got it for my phone. I played a random song from my PC to test it, turned on the phone, selected 'Tag now' and waited. Sure enough it had identified a song by a band called Alabama 3 called 'Ain't going to Goa'. Never heard of them? They sang the theme tune to the Sopranos if that helps.


So this might be good but it falls short of impressive. I knew who sang the song and so did it. A gimmick and nothing more? Possibly not. As well as identifying the song and band it also did something else. It 'Tagged' the song and recommended five other songs that I might like. One of these tags was REM and a song called Stand which I know and really like yet haven't ever purchased. Another was for a song I'd never heard from Baldly drawn boy called 'The time of times'. For each of these tags there was a link to a 10 second clip of the recommended song. After listening to the badly drawn boy song, and liking it, I downloaded both it and Stand by REM. I wasn't overly keen on the other recommendations however (it gave 5 in all). But I did like the idea. Could this little program expose me to music and bands that I have no idea of? I played Stand and 'tagged it'. Bingo. Now I've downloaded Jason Marz and Spin doctors (both songs I could sing along to on the radio but couldn't have named the artist).

So here's the deal. I'm going to follow this wherever it leads. I know the song that started it. From that song I now have two more. I can tag those and I'll get yet more. Within a year i could have discovered a whole new taste in music.

There's a blogger thing online about taking pictures. I can't remember the name but the idea was to try and take 365 pics in a year. For most of us it would provide some sort of voyeuristic insight into their life's whilst for the photographer it would be the ultimate diary. For me this Shazam thing could work in a similar way with music.


If you like this idea access Shazam from the link above. If you want Shazam as an app for your iPhone or other mobile phone then download the paid version as the free version limits you. Remember that downloading music without paying for it is 'a crime'. There's a whole world of music that you already know of but don't have access to. In addition there's bound to be stuff you've never heard before.

I remember once my dad finding me reading a book. He asked what I was reading and I replied. With true feeling he said 'I wish I hadn't ever read that book so I could discover it right now'. He was genuinely envious of the fact that I was discovering at that moment the excitement of a story that he had already been told.

Think of your favorite song. 'shazam' it and then follow the tags. Download the songs that you like. 'Shazam' those songs and download the recommendations that you like. Before you know what has happened you'll have a whole new music collection.

Happy hunting

T

Day 92: The dark days are over

At 9pm tonight I was looking out the window and it was still daylight.

Up until 2008 we always lived in flats. Big nice comfortable flats but flats. Places where it's hard to park your car and people argue about whos turn it is to do what. In the winter of 08 we moved to a house. Don't get too excited we didn't win the lottery or anything but with the worlds banks in crisis we did punch a bit above our weight and moved to a semi-detached house with garden space and parking space etc. Last year was all about making said house a home and was a bit like hard work. This year we get to see the fruits of some of that work. Our garden that, as recently as Easter, was covered in snow is now a spring wonderland. Tulips, daffodils and loads of other yellows and reds and blues. Add a bit of sunshine and it's hard not to be happy.

Yep, I'm hell of a glad I stopped smoking when I did. It somehow seemed easier to cope with feeling like shit when the weather and the daylight and everything else were also like shit.

It's the first of May. That means that there have now been two complete months this year where I didn't smoke. Two and half if you count that I started stopping in February. Do I miss it? Well certainly not the way I missed it when I stopped. The way Poet and Kath miss it now. I wouldn't wish that on anyone and guys it will get easier. Nope I miss smoking a bit. Like Zoe said on her blog I sometimes go several hours and then notice that I haven't even had a pang. I think I miss smoking because I really wanted to smoke. Yep, I liked the smelly stuff. So, if no-one was looking and no-one would ever know, would I go back to it? No. I find it hard to believe myself but here's the thing:

I like not coughing
I like that I can get out of the house faster in the morning
I like that I don't need five minutes before I do anything
I like not being short of breath
I like being able to drink a whole pint at the bar (two or three if I want)
I like that no-one can imagine how I managed to quit. They think it's some sort of magic

The office I've been working in is in the middle of bloody no-where. As a result without cigs as an excuse there's very little reason to leave the building. At first that depressed me a bit but now I just go out and walk to end of the car park and back. It's something that all smokers understand. You need to get out every so often.

Now that I think I can pretty safely count myself as a non smoking success I'm beginning to wonder how to develop this blog into something else. I've quite enjoyed blogging.

I plugged in a piece of software called google analytics on 03/04 because I thought it would be interesting. Well I absolutely wasn't wrong. I have always had a counter at the bottom of the page but it only measures each unique IP address that visits and nothing else. Analytics does so much more. Analytics tells me that 456 visitors hit on 1662 pages in a month. Someone from Japan read 19 pages in one visit whilst there is at least one regular visitor from Australia, two from the states and several from Canada. That's in addition to those who have actually set themselves up to follow the site.

With that sort of reach on the world I'd like to carry on blogging. Any ideas for a new blog welcome....

T

Quitzits

Yep....they are called quitzits. Once you know that you can search on that term and you'll find that the acne that is driving me nuts is one of the not so well kept secrets of giving up smoking. Giving up smoking that is and not any medications.

Lots of people suggest that these nasty little gits are the results of the badness (not sure if there is any chemical definition for this toxic nastiness)escaping however I prefer the rationale that: Smoking drys your skin. Over the years your skin starts producing more and more oils to defend itself from your constant assaults. It then takes a wee while after you've stopped for your skin to calm down on the over production hence the spots. For some folk they can last up to a couple of months (but no one seems to be harmed by them so not like cancer or emphysema or anything like that that you get with smoking)

This astonishing peice of research was yet another happy outcome of my favorite stalking software that I've spoke about on several posts now. As well as giving you the numbers that go to your blog and what locations they are from it also has other stuff like how they got to your page i.e. Google or blogger etc. Once you know how they got to your blog you can even find out what the search term that got them there was. Someone got to my blog via a google search for Chantix spots. Cool.

Even better I then tried this search which led me to quitzits. Even even better a search for quitzits led me to this blog which is fantastic and makes me feel distinctly uncool. Unfortunately this guy quit back in 2008 so it doesn't update but it's the best non smoking blog I've come accross. i also cut and pasted the video below from it. It's a bit on the long side but well funny. Enjoy the vid then go to the blog...



The blog is at: http://quittingsmokingagain.blogspot.com

Day 79

According to the counter it's 65 days quit.

If you want to get stroppy and hold that one against me on day 27 it's 53 days quit. That's two months in any ones book. That's a guy who in January was chain smoking 40 a day who now doesn't smoke. Anyone who has spent time with me will tell you that's not possible. I didn't even want to quit. Go read day 1. For me smoking doesn't go away it just gets easier to ignore. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

This weekend I was looking out to the Irish sea in the setting sun thinking that I would love to have spent that sunset with a cig. I would have it's true. I missed that beautiful peaceful cig as the sun went down that told me that all was well with the world. Especially in the quiet of the evening. Apparently the sunset was even redder with the Icelandic volcanic ash. I feel sorry for those who have never smoked as they have no idea what I'm talking about and probably never will.

The 'never have smoked' will also have completely missed out on the joys of a rasping cough every day or the joy that is knowing you're ill but not wanting to raise it as you're symptoms match those of a smoker so will be ignored. Yep, never having smoked means you've missed out on so much.

For every smoke I miss, and there are a couple I'd pay to get back, there's 100s that were just cigarettes. I could describe moments where even non smokers would want to smoke but, what's the point? As recently as two months ago I was dying of a self inflicted poison. I'm not now.

When I got home tonight I went for a beer in the pub. The bar maid was talking to a punter about giving up. I listened to patches versus Carr and cheered them both on. Who cares what works? Just as long as something does.

In middle Ireland there's a rush on red bull according to Zoe. Caffeine's not all bad you know. I'm with you're sister however in that coffee is the best way to take caffeine. 100 Coffees may give you a heart attack (need proof of this)but missing just one in the morning can have the same result.

In the past two weeks this site has been accessed nearly 300 times according to my stalking software. I'm truly global in that we have visits from UK, US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Finland, India and Russia (Finland, India and Russia didn't really hang around but they were here).

Poet and K! Think you guys have to get tough on yourselves this week though you're doing pretty well. Don't know how it came about but my wife has a saying... Some days you eat the bears, Some days the bears eat you. Next week guys...Eat those bears

Quittin smoking is just so 2010. Don't miss out.

Sorry it's a short post but I'm just back. I'll update during the week.

Stay hooked.

T

Just quickly

Hi folks

Just wanted to do a very quick update. Zoe is still alive and in the world of not smoking so jump over to her blog and wish her well. Think she might be getting all anti smoker on us though. But, if it works, go with it I say. I also missed the fact that Peets has been on and updated. 13 days smoke free and sounding like it's going well. That's a fantastic achievement.



I really just wanted to let Poet and Kath know that I've got everything crossed for them. Good luck guys. If I can do it you can.



Finally, in a fit of messing around I've added a couple of those google ads that you see everywhere. The idea is that it might be money for nothing although I suspect that it's really a clever ruse to get us all to advertise but that actually very few people make anything from it. Anyway I mention it because I'd like you to let me know if it interferes with the site. If it does I'll take it off. Actually a couple of them look quite interesting but I can't click them because I think they pay by click and I'd get accused of cheating so I'll have to rely on you guys letting me know if they contain anything worth looking at.



Looking forward to hearing from everyone at some point through the week. Good luck to Poet and Kath.

Day 72

OK so I've got a blog that, even within one week, reaches across the globe. If I could just reach people from Russia and China I would have an audience from every major land mass on earth. 55 pages of advice and info on giving up with champix not to mention links with Allen Carr and 5 permanent followers (although poet is now following twice). How irritating is it then that a search for 'trying to quit smoking with champix' brings up a link to 'has anyone ever tried champix?' before my site? How the hell does that work?

After a pretty rough winter, one where even the older folk were admitting that it was worse than what they grew up with, today the sun shone and the temperature got up. Only one week ago we were screaming about snow at Easter and yet today I was out in a t shirt. The next few weeks are going to be all about nursing the plants and trees out of the snow damage and into the spring and summer. Love it. Only thing is it used to be great to do a bit of grass cutting and then stop for a smoke to review what you've done. It seems somehow less rewarding when you don't get a smoke at the end.

In just a few hours Poet and Kath will wake up to the world of non smoking. Guys I wish you all the best. It's worth pointing out that most people seem to find it a bit easier than I do. I'm really looking forward to hearing a success story from you guys. Look at Jason who got in touch yesterday. He only waited 8 days to stop but is now 5 days off the cigs. That's pretty impressive in any ones book.

So this is it folks. The sun is coming out and this year I'll not be the pale smoker that I always was. This will be the first year in living memory that I don't need several cigs and an hours worth of coughing to clear my lungs sufficiently to go about the day. I'm looking forward to it.

As always..If anything comes up I'll update you but otherwise I'll speak to you all next weekend.

It's a great week to be a non smoker.

Day 71

Day 71!!!! How the hell did that happen? Who could have predicted that 71 days after starting this blog I'd still be off the cigs?

This is a big week for Poet, Kath and Zoe. Within the next seven days each of them will attempt to go 24 hours without a cigarette. For Kath champix is making her feel sick. Although this wasn't a side effect for me it's the most common side effect of Champix and I believe it can be beaten with nothing more than something to eat prior to the pill. I believe that the act of chewing somehow stops the sickly feeling.

For Poet life might be a bit more complicated. There is some debate whether vivid dreams are a side effect of Champix or of giving up smoking. I didn't get them this time but they were the thing I was worried about. When I tried to give up with patches a few years back I had problems with dreams. I can't speak for Poet but with me it wasn't just bad dreams. We're talking day mares where it became difficult to work out where the dreams stopped and reality started. Poet, I hope everything is OK. The only plus point is that I didn't have dreams every night.

As far as Zoe goes... I'm hoping that the reason she hasn't updated her blog is because she's got a few nights out to get through this weekend. It will be interesting to read her observations on a few beer ridden smoke free nights. No pressure Zoe but Poet and Kath are on your case now so you got to get back to blogging.

From the stalker point of view I'm pretty impressed with my first weeks results. In just seven days this site has been found by: several UK locations, Ireland, Canada, Australia, finland and the US. To be fair the visitor from Finland was probably an accident as they left without vieing any pages. Pretty impressive though. Wish Jo and her friends were still here as she was somewhere with a 4 hour time difference.

For me giving up is now more about staying stopped. It's 57 days since I stopped and 30 days since the last puff of a cig I ever had. It does get so much easier to stay stopped but it's also surprising how often I get an urge to smoke. It's not a daily urge or weekly urge or anything like that. It's just an urge that creeps in when you least expect it. It's almost like a death. You think you're over someone then, in three years time, you go to do something and they are right back with you.

This week I've been working with someone that I've never worked with before. It's been good because we've hit it off and had a good gossip. Although we've never worked with each other we work with a lot of the same folk. The funny thing is that she had no idea that I had ever smoked and only discovered when I made a joke about doing my best work with an ashtray on one side and a beer on the other. It was a casual remark but it's the first time ever that I've found someone who was surprised that I smoked. Most are surprised that I dont.

2010 is fast becoming the year of giving up. I haven't really mentioned it here but another of my addictions is that I like to go for a couple of beers every night on the way home. Let's keep things in perspective. I never had more than three beers and then went home. Thing is at home there would also be cold cans in the fridge. Because money has been really tight, at the start of this year I've had to cut out the nightly visits to the pub. At first that was saving me some money but latterly has just meant that I need more beer in the fridge.

Everybody has a challenge to meet whether it be their weight or their fitness or whatever. For me the next big challenge is drink. Unlike smoking though I don't want to stop drinking. I want to moderate what I'm doing. So now I'm going to be keeping track of my drinking on here as well if no one minds. The aim is that over the next two weeks I'll cut out the weekday drinking. Only once that works out can I decide what to do about the weekends.

This blog should carry a health warning really. Following this on a regular basis could be seriously good for your health.

Zoe also mentioned setting up a chat room for restless smokers. Personally I think that would be a great idea and I'd set it up myself if I knew how. The only thing is that in the early days it might be very quiet. For what it's worth if it could be done and you could get some docs behind it, it could be one of the most successful sites on the web. If anyone has any ideas how to get something like that up and running give me a shout.

In summary folks. Kath, Poet and Zoe stop smoking this week. I'm going to cut down on the drink and you (the reader) are going to figure out how to make a chat room work. I'll probably blog again tomorrow but in the mean time.....

Stay hooked