Toms View of the World

Occasionally I get these “fake lottery” SPAM email messages slip through the net and actually reach my mailbox - but this one made me laugh…

This is to inform you that you have been selected for a cash prize of £300,000.00 (Three Hundred Thousand Great British Pounds) and a brand new Peugeot 407 Car,From the International online programs held on the 26th of April 2007 in London the United Kingdom .

Now, if I had 300 grand, I wouldn’t be driving around in a Peugeot, I can think of several far more “fun” cars to spend money on… Especially after my previous experiences with Peugeot cars!

The email then carries on with the usual rubbish, including a form to send to an address, which is (not) surprisingly not at a domain owned by Peugeot, but is in fact on Yahoo Mail. The form naturally asks for a ton of personal information normally asked for by people wanting to steal your identity.

I can’t beleive anyone falls for these - simply by the very fact that the “company”claiming you’ve won aren’t even using their own domain, but are using a well-known, free webmail provider.

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but had forgotten until now…

I was in my local shopping centre over Easter Weekend, and noticed that Millies Cookies had out for sales their “Christmas Cookies” - I enquired why they were Christmas cookies, and why they were being sold at Easter…

Apparently they contain the same stuff used to fill that staple of Christmas confectionary - mince pie.  As for why they were being sold at Easter, she didn’t know…

Is that some kind of record - selling Christmas stuff before Easter Sunday?

The BBC is reporting that the fictional mineral Kryptonite has been discovered in a mine in Serbia.

Let’s just hope Superman never needs to rescue miners there…

Well, the roof is fixed. The work entailed lifted a few tiles to “release” the broken one, patching the felt underneath and replacing the tiles, I had two quotes…

One was £360, The other was less. A lot less.

Having called me back (see the previous post - a lot of companies didn’t bother) he then turned up on time to do the estimate (which was £50), and he came back a few hours later to do the work - which took about 15 minutes to complete.

There was no sign of any cause - all I can think of it that when I lost the ridge tile back in the winter storms - it “clipped” this tile on the way down, and recently the tile fully broke. Fortunately I don’t need to claim on my insurance either

So to sum up - if you’re in the Cardiff area and looking for a Roofing contractor - I recommend calling Red Star Roofing.

Why do companies and tradesmen not realise that when someone phones you up having gotten your number from the Yellow Pages, it is their opportunity to make a good first impression.

Saying “we’ll get someone out to estimate later today” is excellent. Actually turning up is even better.

Not turning up is forgivable if you call me and tell me, rather than waiting for me to call you and ask “where are you?”

Not lying would be better still - only say things like “we’ll be there in half an hour” if you actually intend to turn up.

If I’m having these kind of problems getting you to come out and give an estimate, why should I employ you to do the work, if your attitude to the work once you’ve got it is anything like your attitude towards potential customers…

First Impressions count. Bad first impressions will leave you less likely to get the work. Manners cost nothing and count for a lot.

Today I was out in the garden, just finishing off mowing the lawn, when I look back at the house to see this. Yes, a broken roof tile.

So I go through the yellow pages, find a roofer who’s answering the phone on a bank-holiday, and ask for him to take a look.

Half an hour (!) later he’s looking at it - he’s as baffled as me as to how it happened - but it’s clear it’s not an easy thing to replace - a 4ft square section of tiles has to be lifted to patch the felt underneath.

The big question is how did it happen - and it’s a question I’ll need to answer if the insurance is going to pay out. There’s been no storms, there’s nothing that could have fallen on it - but without a clear identifable cause, I’ll have to foot the bill out of my own pocket.

Plus I’ll have to take another day off work…

I’ve been clearing out some drawers and cupboards, and I’ve found a few old memory cards - these are free to the first people to email me or use the contact form to ask… Please state which card/cards you want and if it’s still available I’ll be in touch to arrange where to send it to.

CompactFlash

• SanDisk 128Mb
• SanDisk 256Mb (2 of these available)
• byteStor 1Gb

Secure Digital

• DaneElec 128Mb

It’s very much “first come, first served” - and I’ll try to keep this post up-to-date. The first requests will also get a plastic storage case - although I don’t have these for all the cards.