BatteryHQ

Cheat the system: eat a cake

For those of you that enjoy the delights of the nintendo Wii console and all the arm flailing, wrist flicking that goes along with it, you may have come across the new ‘Wii fit’ system. Essentialy this is a game (accompanied by special gaming board) that makes the player get up off their sweat-stained sofas and unclog those arteries by exercising in front of their TV.

It didnt work with Mr. Motivator so why should the japanese think that this is a sure fire winner? Well, people love their consoles nowadays, and alot more people are riding the healthy bus, what with the increase of obesity in Britain since its introduction from America in the early 80’s.

But what of the lazy gamer? those folk who just love to drive their cars into other cars, shoot hookers or persuade a fat italian plumber to fight a huge turtle thing?

Well, Nate lanxon over at Cnet.co.uk has devised a genius way of simply playing the game, but still being allowed to enjoy that extra beer, or an entire chocolate gateaux. But is it more effort than simply playing the game? Find out here: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gamesgear/0,39029441,49297871,00.htm

Why i don’t despise Orange

I have been an orange customer for probably 6 or 7 years on pay as you go or more recently as a contracted customer. In this time i have had countless problems with my phone, my bills, my tariffs, my indegestion etc and yes, these problems are irritating.Now it may seem at this point that i am whinging. Not so. For me, these problems were all resolved with a minimum of fuss, and generally with a good natured orange customer service representative. Just the other week i was going through some issues and i was speaking to a great girl who not only sorted out everything quickly and easily but also chatted about university, what i was up to that day, what she’d been up to etc. It was great. I admit that to get through to her in the first place i had to wait on hold hearing the ‘your call is important to us’ nonsense for about 10 minutes, but to recieve such good service at the end made the wait worthwile.

Now this post is really a rebuttal to Mr. Nate Lanxon’s complaints about Orange on his blog here: http://www.lanxon.co.uk/index.php/2008/06/16/why-i-despise-orange/ and i accept that for some, Orange’s service is not always up to scratch. For example, he (Nate) mentions the irritating aspect of being put through to foreign call centres. I believe that this happens when orange’s british call centres close after 6pm, so to other customers: phone before that time. Having said that, i was put through to their indian centre to resolve broadband issues and was able to totaly reconfigure my internet connection over the phone.

My contract itself is incredibly good, offering me unlimited texts, 800 minutes and a free top of the line phone for only £25 a month. And i believe that this displays some of the good service that orange can (but does not always) deliver. In fact, when originaly phoning to find out the date of when i was able to upgrade my handset, my (incredibly friendly) customer service guy not only offered me an upgrade there and then, but noticed i sometimes go over my text limit and so upped me to an unlimited amount, knocked my minutes up to 800 and knocked £5 off my original bill.
I am in agreeance (yes, its a word) with Nate that Orange’s customer service is lacking in quantity (i.e. amount of staff employed), but for the most part, i think they do a very good job. They recognise long term customers and treat them to deals and upgrades that keep the customers returning. They will have lost a valuable customer if Nate decides to switch to a competing company but this is a casualty of the ever changing mobile market, a market which is very much a perpetual battlefield in which there will always be heavy losses and many gains on all sides. There will also be those that should be nuked into the ground (im looking at you, vodafone).
I shall be staying with Orange.

“if you leave it even 1 minute past, you WILL be clamped”

These were the words i was met with regarding parking outside the flat i pay nearly £4,000 a year to live in.

I was phoning up lincoln university’s security department to enquire, quite nicely, about the options of getting something along the lines of a temporary parking permit so that, when i make the 2 hour drive to lincoln for my exams, i have somewhere to park my car. 

Now i didnt think this would be an issue. Surely, they dont expect every student to fork out shed loads of cash they dont have on train tickets/bus fares when so many of them could do the drive up and down on less than 20 quid.  And i was more than happy to pay a few quid for a temporary pass or the like to allow me to park in the perpetually empty car park outside my building.

So, out came the phone and before long, i had been put through to lincoln’s security people.

“oh, hello, i live in the student village and im driving over for my exams on sunday evening, i was wondering if you could tell me what the procedure would be for parking in the courts car parks. Is there a temporary permit i could buy?”

“no. You cant park there”

“what? at all?”

“you can park between 4pm and 3am, but if you are there even a minute after 3am, you WILL be clamped”.

“rrright, so can you tell me of any other places i could park?”

“no”

“oh. Sooo, what exactly does the university expect students to do when they come in for exams?”

“there are signs in the village explaining parking procedures, you know thatyou cant park there.” - notice how my question is not answered in the slightest.

“So, considering im paying almost £4,000 to live there, why is it that im not allowed to park my car there for a couple of days while i sit my finals?”

“its the universities regulations”

“yes but WHY is it their regulations”

“I can’t tell you that”

“right, thanks”  - i hang up.

Now im no strangers to the complete lack of care and service recieved at lincoln universities student housing. After my hot water was deemed to be at a ‘very dangerous’ temperature and that something will be done “immediately” in november 2007, im told it is still at that temperature in may 2008. One of my flatmates went for weeks with no key for her door as the accommodation service didnt get round to providing her with new ones. We went for months with a broken hoover even after we phoned up for a new one perhaps 7 or 8 times, then were complained at for the state of the carpets. 

Now this is bad, but it annoyes me more when we got a letter demanding money off us, the day after we discharged a fire extinguisher. Fine, i admit, we shouldnt have done it and im hapy to pay for its refill. But i dont like how they ignore all of our problems, fobbing us off with ridiculous excuses but are all over us the moment ANYTHING happens they could ask for money about.

And now the car parking thing is really just the last straw in it all. Dont get me wrong, i’ve loved living there. Ive made fantastic friends and had a whole heap of fun in the area. But the service provided for such a huge amount of money is appalling. Truly appalling.

I really do think ‘shame on you Lincoln.’

Tv lincensing people = pure nasty

Earlier this month I (or more specifically, my flat) recieved a lovely letter from the good people at TV licensing. The letter begins by introducing us as to the reasons of their writing : “Our enforcement division has identified that there is no record of a TV licence at your address”. Fair enough, I thought. They go on to say “You may therefore be watching or recording television programmes without a licence. If this is the case, you are breaking the law”.

Now that annoyed me a considerable amount. We dont have a TV in our flat. We watch dvds through our computers and hook the ps2 up to a projector. We have also, on numerous occasions, phoned the tv licence folks to tell them this. Yet we recieve a letter that opens up, all guns blazing about how we are breaking the law. Nice.

The second paragraph continues in this manner: “Enforcement officers have been authorised by us to visit your address in campus way to interview you under caution in compliance with the police and criminal evidence act 1984” Now what the hell? Firstly: ‘Enforcement officers’? am I the only one picturing the swat team busting in with guns pointed to my chest? And this ‘interview me under caution’? what am i being cautioned for? not owning a TV? who knows. I just love the ending of ‘police and criminal evidence act 1984’ as though theyre having to tell me exactly what im being busted for, yet still having done nothing wrong. Good policies all round.

“if we find that you watch or record television without a licence, your statement will be the first step towards prosecution. Should you be convicted…the magistrate can impose a fine of up to £1000” Great, so they’ve threatened me with what theyre going to do, when i have not done any of the things theyre on about.

The next line cracks me up though: “Officers from our enforcement division catch 80,485 people every year” Here we go with the guns and swat team again. Well done for catching 80,585 people, TV licencing. Did they, like me, not own a TV?

“to avoid a potential court appearance, you are strongly advised to call…now to buy a licence” A much better line would have been:

“to avoid a potential court appearance, you are strongly advised to continue doing everything you are doing now you good little boy”

Half of me wants to laugh at their aggressive attitude to the situation. But most of me is just angry at their ‘guilty until proven innocent’ standpoint. I wouldnt even mind, but weve phoned them many times to explain that we have no tv and told them we’re fine with having someone check our apartment (nobody has). But we still get these, quite honestly, threatening letters through. Shame on you TV licencing. Shame on you.