Random Thoughts

Job description: Greet visitors to the building, take their name and look up their details on a computer system.  Print them a pass, or if the printer isn't working (as today) write one by hand.

Is a basic grasp of English spelling and familiarity with common names required?  Apparently not.

This was the end result, after a confident first attempt at "Chris" ("so that's K, what?") and then scratching his head at why a search for surnames beginning with "NW" gave no results:

Having finally found it, you'd think copying down the name from screen onto a piece of paper would be the easy part.

This card is apparently a "large letter".  Miserable bastards.

I had to go and collect it too after they left me a card that suggested I had something important waiting for me.

The postman didn't even knock to see if I was in.  I'm sure they try to avoid confrontation with this kind of festive penny pinching.

However I did get a good dose of Christmas cheer when I popped into Sainsbury's on my way home, where I heard this announcement.  Probably for a dare.

"Having a Christmas party?
We'll save you the mither
Cos we've got party food
Two for a fiver."

Brilliant.

Two years ago, Virgin Trains sent me an unexpected Christmas gift: port, cheese, biscuits and mince pies.

Last year, it was just the port and cheese.

Today I got another parcel.  This time it's just half a bottle of wine and a corkscrew that looks a bit like a parrot. 

I don't like moaning about free stuff, but if you're going to make cutbacks like this just send me the bloody mince pies.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance about wine.  I never drink it, so I don't need to know anything about it.

But I did a little research and apparently Sauternes is usually sold in half bottles because it can be difficult to find the half-rotten grapes that it's made from.

Sounds lovely.

I'll either mix it with lemonade or use it for cooking.

I've spent way too long looking at my web site stats.

Here's another top ten.  Not questions this time, just search terms that Google in their infinite wisdom decided to send my way.

As far as I can remember, I have never used any of these phrases as they appear below on my blog.

10. "if donuts could talk"

9. "vicky coren tits"

8. "pokerstars fucks people over"

7. "the gold coast casino makes the bands work a ridiculous 6 sets"

6. "games where you can be a donut"

5. "shit foam"

4. "spork funny pictures"

3. "doughnut disaster shirt"

2. "cinnabon tree"

1. "sims 2 i have looked in the trash and there are not any donuts"

Also an honourable mention goes to whoever searched for "puts baby in -corner" for its combination of randomness and advanced search term formation.  Indeed, if you don't exclude the word "corner" and just search for "puts baby in" all you get is quotes from Dirty Dancing.  But why?

I finally received a response from the Financial Ombudsman Service this morning about the fiasco I had trying to get a refund to my credit card after MaxJet went bust (which is now almost a year ago) and I had to rebook two flights to Las Vegas.

I'd paid on an MBNA credit card, and their position all along was that I couldn't have a refund until I'd actually been unable to travel as planned, despite the airline telling customers that they absolutely would not be flying.  In other words, I had to wait for each departure date to pass before I'd get my money back.

In this respect, MBNA were true to their word and did post the refunds shortly after the start of each trip.  However it meant I was waiting three months for some of it and seven months for the rest and as far as I could tell there was no legitimate reason for them not refunding immediately.

I'd read plenty of accounts online about other travellers getting their money back straight away from reputable banks - including those who had booked on a debit card, which does not carry the same level of consumer protection as a credit card.

So I was having none of it.  After I made an official complaint and MBNA stood firm, I took it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

FOS are slow.  I complained on March 10th, after which I had four separate letters telling me they were very busy and would look at my complaint eventually.  Which, eventually, turned out to be more than 7 months later.

I'd had all my money back in July but being the stubborn bastard that I am, I told FOS that I still wanted them to process the complaint.

I had also suggested that MBNA should still be liable for the difference in cost because of the more expensive flights I booked as an alternative under the Consumer Credit Act, which they have tried so hard to pretend doesn't apply to them.

It looks like it was worth the wait.  The FOS adjudicator has sided with the law, rather than MBNA's interpretation of "MasterCard guidelines".

Although they made an adjudication last month I only received a copy of it today because MBNA have (predictably) rejected this suggestion that they pay me money.  So it's now being referred to an actual ombudsman, rather than a henchman, who will make a legally-binding decision.

This could still take months, but I don't care.

It's super satisfying (assuming the ombudsman does reach the same conclusion) because if MBNA had simply given me a refund straight away (like they were meant to) I almost certainly wouldn't have bothered doing anything to recover the cost difference.

The adjudicator also decided I should have the amount rounded up by about £150 as compensation for having to wait for the refund.  Which is nice.

The only reason I still have this credit card is because I can earn BMI miles on everything I spend, but with the Lufthansa takeover looming and the possibilty of Diamond Club getting swallowed up by their programme as well as the cancellation of BMI's transatlantic flights next year, I'll probably be doing away with it soon.

Sadly, MBNA won't miss me as a customer.  I've never paid a penny of interest on that card.

Anyway, if you're interested in seeing what FOS had to say about these shenanigans, here are copies of the letter I had today and the adjudication sent to MBNA (click to enlarge).

I had a bit of a scan through this web site's usage stats to see how people are getting here from search engines. 

Many of the searches are phrased in the form of a question, or at least in a way that suggests they are looking for a specific answer.

So, for those visitors, just in case you didn't find what you were looking for I'd be happy to answer your questions. Here's the top ten, in no particular order probably.

10. "7/5 odds pay out on $1"

Let's start with an easy one.  $1.40, plus your $1 back.  Good luck on that dollar.

9. "how much is a cab ride from imperial palace to binions"

Bank on $20-25 depending on how generously you tip.  It's a 6 mile journey, which at $2.40 per mile and a $3.30 drop charge would be $17.70 on the meter, assuming you get green lights all the way.

8. "poker hands what is good"

Umm... a flush is pretty good but a full house is better.  Does that actually help?

7. "how far is harrah's rincon from the airport"

Assuming you mean San Diego airport, it's 47 miles by road which will take about an hour on a good run.  Oceanside airport is a little closer (33 miles) but you'd probably need a private jet to get there.

6. "neteller difference between prepaid card and net prepaid card"

God alone knows.  Neteller's card is touted as the prepaid card you don't have to load and I'm afraid I still haven't figured this out.  Use a real bank instead.

5. "i earned 250 base credits over the weekend at casino will i have cashback waiting for me"

Sounds like a Harrah's question if you're talking about base credits but I may be wrong.  Cashback doesn't wait for you, it comes in the mail.  You get a voucher which either has to be cashed at the cashier or inserted into a machine.  However, 250 base credits is nowhere near enough (you have to earn 4500 reward credits in a month) and you don't get any cash back from Las Vegas casinos any more.

4. "what is the least common demonitator of 18 and 27"

That's a fairly random maths question to somehow end up here looking for an answer.  Demonitator is my new favourite word, but ignoring the awesome typo the answer is 54.

3. "is there a way around being able to take money from my account and put it into a online poker site"

In most of the free world you can just use a debit card on your bank account, so it sounds like a USA-oriented question.  Post UIGEA, you'll have to slip some money to a dude at your local cardroom who says he can make it happen and hope that he remembers your screen name correctly.

2. "what if i charge 3000 dollars on my credit card and say it wasnt me"

It's a coinflip: either free money or prison.

And finally, I'm just going to file this one under rhetorical questions.  It's depressing enough that Google thought I might have an answer.

1. "why do children like violence"

You're all very welcome.

Thanks to NFL Gamepass and the triple-bill of football action today, I'm getting to see a lot of Thanksgiving commercials.

I've already been subliminally programmed to wake up at 5am tomorrow to go shopping at Sears.  Seriously, 5am?

Anyway, this one made me double-take and because I'm incredibly immature I rewound it to take some snapshots.

So what's the UPS man drawing on the whiteboard today?

It's a turkey obviously.  What were you thinking?

I just can't say no to free stuff, so when I had an email from a blog directory I'd signed up for asking if I'd like to test some new products and write reviews of them it I was in there like a shot.

So last week they sent me a "9 bar" pack.  The name's a bit misleading though, cos there was only 3 of them.

I just finally worked up to eating one, and I was like "meh".  Which, honestly, must mean they're pretty tasty considering what's in them.

Look at the facts.  It's made of seeds.  Seeds.  What am I, a fucking canary?

Not only that, it's topped with carob.  I can't remember ever enjoying anything made with a chocolate substitute.

So for me to end up feeling pretty indifferent about the product is really quite a good thing.

I also made Claire eat one with me so we could gague each other's opinions.

Already she was like "yay, it's a seed bar" but she gave it a go.  She reacted to the smell first (think pet shop) and then the taste.

"I can't place what it tastes like," she said.  "Probably bark."

If you like health foods, I'm sure you'll love it.

However, I'm holding out for a new brand of mince pies that will need reviewing in the run up to Christmas.

Curry counts as one of your five-a-day.  Who knew?

As soon Ben and Jerry get with the programme and tell us that Cherry Garcia also counts, I'll be one super-healthy individual.

I just got back from seeing a Las Vegas show.  In Birmingham.

Elton John is taking his Red Piano show on tour and tonight was the first night.  In fact, the only other time it's been played outside of Caesars Palace was a one-off at the dome last year for Elton's 60th birthday.

I've seen this show twice in Las Vegas and loved it.  Fortunately, it travelled pretty well.

I wasn't so sure at first, as it looked like a bit of a half-hearted effort to cram in some of the props.  The NIA has about triple the capacity of the Colosseum (13,000 vs 4,100) and felt ten times the size, but the stage wasn't custom-built for Celine Dion and her 20,000 acrobats so it's not quite as accomodating.

Before the show started it was pretty easy to spot where some of the gimmicks were only half concealed.

I'll admit the balloons weren't exactly meant to be concealed.  They drop from the ceiling during Pinball Wizard for a sort of interactive multi-ball kind of effect.  However, what you can see here is exactly half of the total number of balloons that were rigged to go off.  It's like eight on each side of the arena.

It seemed like such a crappy token effort that I wondered whether the touring production of the show would really have the same impact.

Yes it did.

The video screen covered the entire back of the stage and there's no doubt that it's the visuals that make this show something special.  They still looked enormous, even from about three times as far away from the stage as the cheapest seat in the Colosseum.

Elton actually said that the stage was the same size as at Caesars, but it was definitely a bit smaller.  There was visible congestion between the inflatables in the finale, but they did just about manage to squeeze everything in there.

Those amazing blow-up breasts always hung on the stage itself in Las Vegas.  Here they were dangling from the arena ceiling.  You'd totally miss them if you were sitting in the front few rows, and that's a damn shame.

Yes, it needs two spotlights.  One for each nipple.

There were two songs I definitely don't remember seeing before, although there could have been more because the whole thing lasted almost two hours, rather than having the 90 minute curfew in Vegas to make sure nobody spends too long away from the casino.

I presume he included all the songs that have been part of the show in the past, even if they're not part of the latest incarnation.

I'm sure I would have remembered Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and the bizarre - apparently autobiographical - suicide-leads-to-dancing-bear-incident visuals for Someone Saved My Life Tonight.

The previous link is for the full film that was projected in the background during that song, but you'll have to confirm your age with YouTube to watch it.

Which brings me on to ... kids.

Don't take them to Vegas.  And don't take them to a Vegas-themed show.

To be fair, the blurb on Harrah's web site does say this about the Red Piano show:

Please note that The Red Piano is designed with a Las Vegas theme and mature audiences in mind. The video imagery that accompanies the music may at times be considered risqué, and includes montage style scenes that include brief frontal nudity.

However all I could find on the NIA's site is:

The theme throughout The Red Piano is love, symbolised by the colour red and articulated through the songs and state-of-the art effects and high-end imagery.

So that could explain why parents might think it's a great idea to take the family to see this show.  It isn't.

Firstly, "brief frontal nudity" is something of an understatement.  There are a lot of naked boobs in the show.  It's all very tastefully done, of course, but the tit count is high.  Almost every song has at least one pair.

Then there is plenty more blatent sex, drugs and other such rock and roll shenanigans.  Pamela Anderson does a pole dance.  Among the neon signs that litter the stage is one that simply reads "sluts".  And I already mentioned the suicide bit.

I saw several families with young children in the audience.  I didn't see anyone walk out, but there might be one or two awkward questions before bedtime tonight.

As for what those 16 balloons actually looked like during Pinball Wizard, I just don't remember.

The backdrop for this song is the most amazing Las Vegas montage of aerial shots, neon close ups and gambling scenes, cut at super high speed around shots of pinball machines going crazy.

I was transfixed: partly feeling homesick and partly trying to work out what's still there and what's been blown up or ripped down since they filmed it!

A few years ago Claire had a birthday cake made for me that immortalised my likeness in marzipan.

Today, a similar honour has been paid to me by Silverton Jim who has immortalised me as an actual walking, talking donut.

Read episode 7 of Stick to Vegas to see what this is all about.  Jim assures me he was not on crack when he wrote it, but I'm not completley convinced...

It's been a while since Sporting Index last sent out a bet refund promotion.  Thankfully the dry spell ended this weekend.

Their new spread game is, as usual, some kind of random number generator apparently based around a computer sports simulation, but with no possible way it could actually be representative of what you see on screen.

This time it's penalty kicks.  The goal area is divided into 35 areas and points are awarded for every goal scored depending on where it hits the net.

That's if you're betting on a "points" market.  You could just bet on the total number of goals, or the differential of goals (or points) between the two teams.  Or you could plump for something much more exotic.

For example, take the shirt number of the striker and multiply it by the number of points for the goal he scores (if he scores) and add them all together.  If that number is higher or lower than some other number, you might win money.

The question is: how do you make your decision as to which way or how much to bet when you have no way of knowing how the trajectory of the football is determined?

Each square on the goal grid might be equally likely to be hit, but there's no reason to assume this is the case.  And even if it was, what is the chance that any particular shot is saved by the goalkeeper?  You'd have to factor that in too to see what the actual distribution of scores is likely to be.

This is all assuming that the RNG is fair.  I'm sure it is though.  Online gambling is never rigged.

The workings of this game are further obfuscated by the fact you can choose two teams from a list of five to play the shootout.  Brazil is most likely to score from the penalty spot and Mexico the least, they say - and who am I to argue?

As you select your teams, you can see the markets move based on how much better one team is than the other.  In fact the values in the markets are the only clue you have as to what's about to happen.

You can also pick the goalkeeper, although this appears to make no difference to the numbers at all.  It's just there for comedy value: choose from Hans Blocker, Dmitri Tipitova or Claude Le Ballawei.  I groaned out loud (GOL?), just like you're probably doing now.

The offer I received was for a refund of net losses up to £50 on this game, providing I placed at least ten bets each with a £5 minimum risk.  Clearly, there's no way you can lose if you do this right.

I chose the total points market to meet the requirements for the refund, purely because of the numbers involved.  For this combination of teams, the price was set at 51 points to buy - meaning that a 10p stake would always have a maximum loss of £5.10.  That's very much a worst case scenario too, as you can only lose the full amount if there are no goals at all scored in ten attempts!

In fact the variance on this bet was pretty low.  After 9 spins I'd had a loss of £2 and a win of £2.60 and seven other results somewhere in between.  Overall I was down £4.40.

The way I usually like to play these things is to take the full amount of money that I can still bet risk-free after meeting the requirements (in this case £45.60) and lump it all on one bet at even money or fairly short odds.

The only bet in this game close to offering fixed odds is the win index, which awards 25 points if the chosen team wins the shootout, 10 points for a draw or 0 if they lose.  I've actually played this same bet on a real football match before.

I simply decided to pick the market which would allow me to buy one team at as close as possible to 10 points, effectively resulting in a fixed odds bet at 3-2 (25-10).  I wanted to make sure a draw resulted in a do-over, rather than a win or loss that would affect the amount I had left to play with significantly.

The bet I chose was Mexico vs USA, backing Mexico @ 9.4 points for £4.85 per point.  Worst case, I lose £45.59 (just 1p short of getting the full £50 refund, when you add in what I lost so far).  The draw is almost irrelevant, but the win is worth a healthy £75.66 for £71.26 profit in total on the promotion.

Mexico surged ahead early, only to choke later on in a frustrating 3-3 draw, which ultimately landed me just £2.91 for the effort.  After I stopped shouting at the stupid little pictures of pretend footballers, I increased the stakes ever so slightly and ran it again.

Unfortunately the USA won 5-4 that time.

Was worth a shot though.  Ship that refund...

At the weekend I went to see the NFL International Series game between the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers at Wembley Stadium.

There are a million bloggers who actually know what they're talking about when they write about sports so I'm not even going to bother trying to analyse the game.  Except to say that it was a thoroughly entertaining evening and a cracking game and I loved it.

There are some things you can hope to see at a game and some you would probably never dream of.

It was high scoring (67 points on offense) and went to the wire with a hail mary pass at 0:01 remaining and only 5 points between the teams.  There was a coach's challenge upheld, a 4th down conversion for touchdown, an "excessive celebration" (duly penalised) and an onside kick - which was recovered!

Add to that a missed extra point, which almost never happens, and an intentional safety play, which really almost never happens.

I can only remember ever seeing one intentional safety on TV - and that came after a botched punt.  This one was run straight out of the playbook:

Plus the team I bet on won, which never hurts.

Compare this to last year where we got to see a team that hadn't found their form yet slip and slide in the pissing rain against a team who only won one game all season.  I think it must have put some fans off as it was a doddle to get tickets this year.

I'd already decided that I wasn't going to bust a gut to get tickets or pay over the odds to have extremely bored security personnel who thought I didn't really look like Club Wembley material harass me over my heinous plastic bottle.  The "cheap seats" (£55) were still a superb view.

Unfortunately, I only had a compact camera so most of the pictures I took serve only as proof - should it be needed - that "digital zoom" really isn't any better than no zoom at all.  This is about the best of it.

It's official.  These two appeared right next to each other in my Facebook news feed today.

America's favourite sickly sweet, highly calorific roll of lard has come to London.  Hello Cinnabon my old friend!

I discovered this by accident yesterday when I just happened to be walking through Picadilly Circus, killing time after a meeting which turned out to be much shorter than I expected.

In fact I carried on walking right through to Leicester Square past the venue where the World Series of Poker Europe is current taking place.  You'd think I might have been a bit more interested in that than I actually was, particularly with time on my hands.  Apparently not.

It's still a travesty that the Empire's iconic marquee sign was torn down to make way for the dullest casino frontage you could imagine.  At least now that there's a major international event taking place, they made a bit of an effort to hang a nice big purple vinyl banner over the balcony.  Classy.

Anyway, Cinnabon only has a tiny store on the outside of the Trocadero, but it still smells as gorgeous as I remember when you walk past.  Which I did several times before taking the plunge.

"You want four?  In a box?".

I didn't think my order was too complicated, but it took a while to sink in.  The store is pretty new, and this could possibly be the first take-out order they had.  Turns out they did actually have boxes.  I knew this because I'd seen them, right there on the front of the counter.  I can't imagine who put them there though, because the staff seemed oblivious.

They also didn't have any bags big enough for said boxes.  But never fear, I got an awesome improvised handle made out of sticky tape.

I'm absolutely positive that must be how they do it in America.  Yeah great, I'll fit right in walking through the West End with that stuck to my fingers.  Fortunately I managed to squeeze the box inside my laptop bag and it didn't travel too badly.

They were definitely similar in shape to their American counterparts, but seemed to be lacking in the addictive white sugary gunk department.  The stock photo on wikipedia confirmed that I remembered this right: we're definitely getting stiffed on the good stuff.

And the reason for that?  Of course it's the Great British business model of trying to squeeze every last penny out of customers by selling them something extra that costs next to nothing and should already be part of the deal.

In the same vein as Burger King charging 20p for a little packet of ketchup with your £5 meal, Cinnabon have decided that pots of their trademark sugary goodness are 50p each.

It can't be long before somewhere introduces a pay-per-napkin policy.

I'm pretty sure that the last time I had a box like this in America, they just threw a handful of those pots into the bag (yes, they had bags).  I kinda OD'd on the stuff (needing an extremely greasy cheeseburger afterwards to dilute my blood sugar levels) so I remember that there was a lot of it.

Anyway, I ate one at night and I felt my pulse quicken almost immediately and it kept me awake for hours so they still have the same active ingredients.

£3.50 each or £10 for 4, in case you're interested.  Not cheap, but a very pleasant way to get one step closer to coronary disease.