Today's Review: People Who Carry Around Large Wads Of Cash

I see it all too often at work. I've rung up a customer's goods, told them the price, when suddenly they present a massive wad of notes, handing me a single £10 or £20. Often I can't believe it. This is 2013, why are people still walking around with several hundred pounds of cash in their pockets? Technology exists now, use it.

I rarely carry much cash on me. I use my debit card wherever I can, but often have around £10 in order to buy smaller items at places that don't have card machines or have limits on how much you can spend on card. £20 is the most I would ever carry around with me, unless I was immediately on the way to paying someone. I wouldn't dare walk around with a large wad of notes for no particular reason, because if you get mugged holding a bunch of notes, they'll be gone, and gone forever. At least with debit and credit cards you can easily get them cancelled straight after the event. All sensationalist media aside, we should be careful nowadays, because people like to pick easy targets, and a person with a wad of money in their pocket is not really my idea of a safe and savvy person.

I understand why some people carry large amounts of cash. Perhaps they've just been paid in cash because they like to dodge tax, or they can't have a bank account because they're criminals. Or maybe some other, perfectly legal thought process that I don't understand. Perhaps they just got a bunch of cash out to get them through the day. But I work in the evening, and regularly see people producing several hundred pounds from some random pocket, thumb through it slowly and give me a single note. It's all I can do to stop myself saying "Dude, put it in a bank. Seriously, they may be run by a bunch of bonus grabbing bastards, but your money's a lot safer in there than it is almost spilling out of your hands"

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: People Who Ask For A Buy It Now Price On My eBay Auctions

I'm not what you'd call a serial eBayer, but I do use it quite often. I tend to start my stuff off at 99p, because then I don't have to pay insertion fees, I'm cheap like that. But a lot of the time this seems to invite a few people to message me asking what the Buy It Now price would be, or would I take x amount if I ended the auction now.

Okay, okay, I often have a rough figure that I expect my stuff to sell for, but clearly if I wanted that figure I wouldn't have ignored the option that asked if I wanted to add a Buy It Now price. I have almost 400 feedback, it's not like I'm new to the site, I know what my options are. But still I get the questions asking me to add one. I don't like Buy It Now prices. They're normally too high, and I prefer an auction style where I can watch people battle it out at the last minute to increase my figure to a more than desirable level. Hell, the first thing I bought on eBay I ended up going about £50 over what I first wanted to spend, I want people doing that with my stuff. 

So no, people, I will not add a button to my auction so you can click it and give me whatever measly sum you are offering. I want to make you sweat, I want the person who buys my stuff to be the victor of a glorious last minute battle of the bids. Survival of the fittest. Or survival of the richest? Survival of the clickest. Survival of the guy who bids good.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: The Person Who Has Been Running Their Car Engine Outside My Window For An Hour

It started out as just a noise. There I was in the living room, and over the hum of the boiler, the whir of the XBox, there came another. I couldn't describe it at the time, I thought it was one of my electronics performing awkwardly. But as I moved into my bedroom I realised it was coming from outside. From a car parked on the driveway right outside my windows.

But it's not parked like an average car, no, the engine is running, and the resulting noise can be heard from any given point in my flat. At first it was annoying. Then it was very annoying. Now it is maddening. The engine has been running for an hour. Why? Why would you do that? Does this person not have any concern for fuel conservation, let alone how annoying it is for me to have to listen to this consistent revving, rattling noise? If your car is parked in a certain spot for a certain amount of time, it's just common sense to turn the damn engine off, and there are two people in there who have been having a conversation for some time. I mean, sure, they may want to stay warm in this cold weather, but as far as I know you can activate all of that stuff without having the engine rev up. 

It's not just the noise that's driving me crazy now, it's my inability to understand what is going through this person's mind. There is no rational reason why I am being made to suffer this torture, why these people think the best place to converse is by sitting in a driveway in a car that is eating fuel and spewing it into the atmosphere. I know I may sound petty, but this has really gotten to me, and it's showing no signs of stopping. It's simply maddening.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: Redneck Jesus

Whilst paying an impromptu visit to my favourite atheism blog (yes, I have one of those), I came across a post concerning the self-proclaimed Redneck Jesus. Well, I say self-proclaimed, in fact God proclaimed him to be Redneck Jesus. So yeah, self-proclaimed.

Here is the website. While it is a bit of a mess, I'm surprised he's got the technical capacity to place a video on the front page. In the video he explains all of the different ways he can change your life, and believe him, he can. You can meet up with him, you can ask him questions, or you can read his books. Of course, all of these things cost money, especially the "interesting pricing" on his latest book. Redneck Jesus tells us to explore the website to find out the reasoning behind pricing his book at 74 freakin' dollars. You see, G and D are the seventh and fourth letters in the alphabet, ergo he needs to charge that number because that almost spells God. I get it now, it's so simple! The reasoning behind the pricing is fuck you, he wants money.

It doesn't stop there, you can book events with this guy. The most eye catching is the Limo Meal outing you can buy. For the small price of $1,000 you and some friends and family can crawl into the hummer limo Redneck Jesus inexplicably has, and you can go and eat a meal with him. Oh, you've gotta pay for the food too, Jesus doesn't pay for his food. As if I wasn't sold already, there are several benefits listed that you will gain from this event. One of them is having a great time, so I guess that's guaranteed. Also, you can take pictures and videos with the one and only Redneck Jesus, in his signature hick gear. The best though, is the "lifetime memory" you will take away with you, of the time you spent over $1,000 to get in a massive car to go and eat with a crazy person, something which could've been easily accomplished by taking a couple of bagels to the slums.

There's really too much to talk about on this website. Let's just say Redneck Jesus is pretty sure of himself. He WILL boost your sales by being your spokesperson, and you WILL be blessed for giving him your money. Because he talks to spirits, and the spirits can apparently sign his book for you too, with their ghost hands or something.

But hey, it's not all bad. All the money he makes is going to God, Inc. Because God needs Earthly money in order to make the change we all need, it's not like he's all powerful or anything. He needs the dolla, apart from all those corporate jet trips and hummer limos he's paying for. But hey, that's what Jesus needs to spread the word nowadays.

I would say it's not worth paying too much attention to him, but I'm sure there are people out there who will actually fall for it, and that makes me sad. They'll be joining his mob and doing some crazy but fun things in Little Rock, Arkansas. They'll be paying to take this guy to play golf or watch football games in a corporate jet, and they'll be contributing to the shit eating grin you can see form on his face at the end of the intro video. His name is Redneck Jesus, and here's here to screw you over.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: Kids Who Steal Pick 'N' Mix At Work

I get the appeal of pick 'n' mix. It's all just sitting there, sitting in loads of tiny tubs, ripe for the picking. And hey, no one's gonna miss just one sweet, right? You'll probably see the odd adult having a sneaky grab at some raspberries and blackberries, but most hold off because they know it's wrong to steal, they have been folded perfectly into society.

Kids, though, have no shame. In fact they take the piss. Normally I wouldn't mind too much, I might air the odd "tsk" when I see another's child swipe a jelly bean, but nothing more than that. But when I'm at work, that pick 'n' mix stand is my responsibility, and the fact that some parents just leave their children to wander over and tuck in bewilders me. My daughter doesn't raid the pick 'n' mix. We told her no when she looked at the sweets longingly, and she listened. Probably one of the few times when she actually has listened, so I guess we're lucky there. My son, I fear, will be harder to handle. But I shall try my best, and I won't keep my eye off him when I'm around.

I can't say the same for other parents though. A woman once came into the store, and her son proceeded to run towards the sweet sweet candy. His mum said "I know where you're going", but then, nothing. So I was subjected to a few minutes of the kid running over there, coming back with his face full of something, then going back over when it was time for another, all while his mother stood on the other side of the shop looking at DVDs. This pissed me off a little, so when he went to grab another I ran in front of him and kept the flaps closed, and whispered "no" to him when he tried to reach for it. He wasn't happy with that, and as soon as I had to go back behind the till he was diving in and helping himself again.

Damn kids. Eating all my sweets. They are like my treasure, and I am the ordained knight who has sworn to ensure their safety. Only much less glamorous than that. I saw another kid today. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him reach in and grab something, and I kept watching him. It took him a while to notice me, but when he did he clearly knew he was caught, because he tried to throw me off by pulling off some fast punching power ranger shit. Ain't gonna fly with me son, I know what you did, and your mediocre acrobatics aren't throwing me off your scent.

At the end of the day, though, there's not much I can do. I can't tell customers to take better care of their kids, nor do I have the facility or willpower to argue that they should pay for the few cola bottles their spawn ingested. I guess these kind of things are to be expected, there's probably some kind of allowance for it, but those damn kids still piss me off. Maybe I'll just print out some pictures of the hygienically-challenged people I've seen dig their mitts into the sweets and hold them up to the next kid I see. That'll learn 'em.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: People Who Lick Their Fingers To Turn Pages

I served a guy today. He took out a small wad of notes, licked his finger, took one off the top and handed it to me. Gee, thanks. Just what I wanted, a bank note covered in your spittle. It's almost as bad as the people who put their debit card between their teeth before taking it out and handing it to me spit side first. It's still bad though, and a lot more prevalent. Since the beginning of my days, where there has been a relatively older person reading a book or magazine, or going through some paperwork, there has been a nonchalant licking of fingers.

I'm not alone in my opinion, just do a quick search on Google and you'll find plenty of people asking why this is necessary. It's widely assumed that old people have dried out fingers that can't turn pages, so the saliva helps them with that, but there are plenty of younger-ish people who lick their fingers to turn pages all the time. But in my experience none of my peers have ever used such a tactic, and I'm sure I would've called them out on it if I saw it. So in my view it's just old people with incompetent fingers.

I've had a problem turning a page probably only a few times in my life. All it took was a bit of persistence. Trying again, maybe a third time, but I managed to turn that page. At no point did I think "You know what would really help? Shoving my finger in my mouth and then trying." If I was gonna do that I might as well just spit on the page. You know why I didn't do either? Because it's disgusting.

On these very same sites where people are questioning why this happens, there exist several springing to defend it. "Oh, it's really hard to turn pages without licking my fingers. It's only a bit of spit, haven't you got worse things to worry about?" Oh sure, you need to do it, so it's perfectly acceptable, especially if you feel uncomfortable using the alternatives, like a rubber tip on your finger, or using some other form of liquid. Hey, I can't shake hands with someone until I've hocked a big fat loogie into my palm, otherwise I can't get a good grip. Does that mean it's okay for me to do? No it does not, so I reserve the right to call you all filthy people with inadequate hands.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: The Boiler Man

My boiler shut off on Monday. Just completely shut off, without any warning. Because boilers, while being inanimate objects, are actually evil. They wait until you're at your most comfortable with your hot water levels and heating bills, and then they screw you over. Thankfully, I'm too poor to own my own house, so the repair was my housing association's problem.

But of course, it broke down on bank holiday Monday. That's another thing I hate about bank holidays, you can't get anything done. So there we were, waiting through the day, boiling kettles of water to pour in the sink so we could wash ourselves in a rudimentary fashion like cavemen. But the dawn of Tuesday came, and so I called the housing association. They can get someone out tomorrow, they say. We say can you make it as early as possible? The say sure thing, we'll be his first callout. I had grown quite cynical of people helping me lately, but the double whammy of boiler man and Apple have restored my faith in humanity.

I call him the boiler man because I didn't catch his name, not because he's a gritty violent superhero or a serial killer. He didn't call my partner "Love", he didn't stop for a tea break, and he was in and out of the house in about 20 minutes, leaving me with a working boiler. How totally awesome. I think I've been watching too much rogue traders because I am sucked into the stereotype of tradesmen slacking off and charging way too much money. Not that I know how much money it cost, because I didn't pay for it. Mwahaha. But the speed was impressive. And no spittle or butt crack in sight.

My rating: 5/5