ntl:Virgin No Longer Showing Sky One

Well the deadline passed a few minutes ago and Sky One is no longer broadcast on ntl:Virgin (and Sky will soon no longer be broadcasting any programs on Freeview unless you sign up for them).

At first when I heard about this, I was upset and annoyed.

But as I thought about it more, I realised I wasn’t going to miss Sky One. It shows mostly repeats and I’ve been using it in a lazy way, watching any old junk rather than surfing the myriad of other great channels and shows, or (as a truly outrageous suggestion), turning the damn TV off and doing something else instead.

I’ll buy the DVD box sets of the shows I’ll miss. They’re cheap enough online and come out soon after the show broadcasts anyway, so what’s the big deal?

Trident Soft Advert

Not sure exactly what it is about that advert for Trident Soft chewig gum that irks me, but I think it might be the comic’s style. Telling an audience what annoys him for laughs hasn’t been a popular comedy style for five years.

It just makes an annoying advert even more annoying.

The Dog Poo Fairy

What is it with some dog owners? They let their dogs crap on the street and just leave it.

What do they expect? Some magical creature comes swooping down to clean it up? Let me make it clear to all dog owners who do this.

Someone always steps in it! That’s how it get’s “cleaned up”!

One can only image that the dog poo fairly must be related to the cigarette end gnome, who goes about cleaning up all the discarded cigarette butts dropped in the street, and is probably a distant cousin of the chewing gum elf.

Bottom line: I don’t crap in your hallway, please don’t shit on my sidewalk.

Virgin slams BSkyB in TV dispute

BBC NEWS | Business | Virgin slams BSkyB in TV dispute

That Rupert Murdoch is a four star act. Those four stars taking the place of the four letter word I’d like to call him.

Virgin’s Responce

Sky basically have tried to increase the cost to ntl:Virgin by almost doubling the price. I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable. Are they increasing the charge to their own subscribers by the same amount? No.

As one person on the comments section of Virgin Media’s website put it:

Sky said last month it planned to withdraw its channels from Freeview viewers – offering them instead on a terrestrial pay TV service.
So Sky wants to hold all us television viewers to ransom, pay up or else! Isn’t it about time that the government stepped in and told Sky that they are not able to hold a monopoly?

Not likely given Murdoch’s strong connections to the government. But they do have a reputation of bullying other companies into getting their own way.

Frankly, I’m goosed either way. I don’t want to miss out of my favourite shows like Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. But I don’t want to be bullied into changing my television provider. Like most people in Edinburgh, I would be charged extra for a non-standard installation. The roof is over four floors up and because most of the city is covered by a protection order, the dish can’t go on the wall. It needs to be attached to the chimney, if it’s strong enough to support it.

It’s basically £300.

I’ve got two words for that plan: Screw That.

Although those aren’t the two words I’d use to Mr Murdoch’s face.

Worst Junk Food Ad

I’ve just seen what I think is the worst advert for junk food I have ever witnessed.

When I say worst, I’m not talking about badly made, or annoying or innacurate. I’m talking about completely irresponsible.

It’s an ad for a microwavable burger, and shows a kid going to the fridge and looking for food. He dismisses the sausages as too much hard work, the red pepper as tricky, the fish as an unknown food and settles for the burger.

What the hell kind of message is that sending to kids? Forget healthy food, go for quick and easy? Exactly how hard is it to cook sausages anyway? Five minutes in a frying pan, 15 minutes under the grill or 30 minutes in the oven. How hard is that? Peppers tricky? Maybe for an idiot, but stuffed pepper is one of the first things I learnt at school cooking class and it takes fifteen minutes. And if he doesn’t recognise fish and the importance of protein, then he’s in for trouble later in life.

Ever Changing Norton Anti-Virus

That was the problem with the old version of Norton Anti-Virus. Although its program would often be changed with updates it downloaded, it was always at a loss to understand that this process could occur on other applications.

Every time my Star Wars Galaxies executable was updated by a patch, it had to be told to allow this program internet access. This consisted of deleting the entry to the program, allowing Norton to capture the outgoing connection, then allowing all instances of that program, so it would remember.

What have PCs and Grandfather Clocks got in common?

They’re both less agreeable when you move them.

Doesn’t matter how many carefully you move it, the darned thing never works just right the first time in its new location.