Scammed. Need new Reading tickets.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:46

If you’re reading a blog then chances are that you think you’re pretty tech savvy - you know your way around the internet, you can tell your lolcats from your RSS feeds, and you’ve probably become a bit complacent with your security-conscious mind.

“I don’t need anti-virus software, I’ll just be careful… I’d never fall for an internet phishing scam, I can spot a bogus deal from a mile off”, you’re smugly thinking right now, perhaps knowingly stroking your chin as you do so.

Unfortunately, this was my line of thinking until about two and a half hours ago when I discovered that I’ve unwittingly fell victim to an internet scam.

Months ago when tickets for the Reading Festival went on sale, I wasn’t quick enough to get a ticket from the initial sale, but my love of Rage Against The Machine and <i>sticking it to the man</i> by listening to politically-charged rock music caused me to look elsewhere for tickets. I’m sure you can see where this story is heading.

After not being able to find a Nigerian Prince to supply me with some tickets, I ended up the community trading sites, like eBay and Gumtree. On Gumtree I found a woman who was selling a couple of Reading weekend tickets at almost cost-price. Her story was that she’d bought them in the sale immediately after last year’s festival but now couldn’t go. So I sent her an e-mail enquiring.

Obviously I did all of the important checks before handing over the cash, and the signs were good: her e-mail address was at a proper domain and not just at Yahoo or Hotmail or something, the website associated with her domain appeared to be a real company with a real address, and she came across as a friendly person via e-mail.

Having used eBay with success in the past I was of the mindset that people are innately good, and people on the internet are honest. Unfortunately I would later be disproved.

So I sent “Emma” a £100 “deposit” via Paypal-alike service NOCHEX and then waited for four months until earlier this week when I e-mailed her to remind her I’d bought the tickets and to arrange when I can collect them from her (as they only post them out a week before to stop, er, people selling them on). It didn’t exactly fill me with confidence when she wrote back signing off her e-mail as “Gemma”.

Then this morning, I got an e-mail where she claimed that because the card she bought the tickets on had been stolen just after she bought the tickets (<i>hmm</i>), the transaction might not have gone through so she won’t be getting the tickets.

Then the penny dropped and I realised that I’ve probably been scammed.

Checking the domain, the website lists an address in Weybridge, Surrey. The phone number listed is a London number even though Weybridge is outside of the London area codes, and phoning it sends you straight to an answerphone… Googling the address implies that a number of vastly different businesses operate from the same building, and googling the company name results in an eBay shop listing (eBay rating zero) claiming to be based in Northamptonshire.

This is especially frustrating, as it seems the scammers are more sophisticated than I gave them (£100) credit for - and indeed, I’m much more fallible than I suspected (I thought I was infallible)… and now I’m £100 down and not going to the Reading festival. You can probably imagine the stream of swearwords that left my mouth this morning.

So the lesson here that I want to get across is simply: internet scams are real… and it isn’t just your mum who is likely to fall for them. Consider yourself warned.

And if you’ve got any spare tickets for Reading (or indeed, Leeds), for the weekend or the Rage day… please get in touch with me!

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Freelancin’
August 4th, 2008 at 17:29

For the next couple of weeks I’m going to be doing some freelancing at Tech Digest, writing about gadgets and tech and stuff like that. If you’re craving some fresh new James O’Malley material, here’s some links to things that I’ve written so far:

• New iPod rumours
• Panasonic make a big telly
• “Google Street View is okay”, says man
• China censor stuff
• Bike gears or something
• Radiohead are popular
• NASA covering up aliens
• A PC… in a car?!
• Some black boxes that are apparently home theatres
• Yet another new Eee PC

So check out TD, they’re really cool, and that’s just not because they might give me some money soon. They’re genuinely excellent - they’re letting me write like I normally do, but on their popular website!

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Buy My Book!
July 19th, 2008 at 20:35

I’ve reached another milestone. Now, not only can I refer to myself as a “newspaper columnist”, but I also technically qualify as a “published author”. Obviously, this is because I’ve written a book:

So you know what I’m going to ask you to do now: Buy my book! It contains my best newspaper columns from the past 18 months, as well as previously unseen material and directors commentary. Buy it now by clicking the link below:

Oh, go on. It’ll help me pay my ridiculous tuition fees for my Masters.

It’ll also be available on Amazon and the like in a few weeks time with any luck. But I think if you buy it from Lulu I get more money. At least, I hope I do.

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Graduation
July 17th, 2008 at 18:56

I had my graduation ceremony yesterday, which was rather exciting. I got to dress up like an old-timey teacher, sit in a big hall, and listen to a long list of names being read out. My only regret is that I didn’t encounter any Victorian school-kids to boss about whilst I was dressed for it.

Here’s a picture of me looking pretty chuffed at the fact that I’m demonstrably more intelligent than vast swathes of the uninformed masses:

Presumably now I can win arguments using the trump card “Hey, look at this certificate? You see those words? They mean I’m better than you!”, even if its in an area well outside my expertise. Just like how my hero, Richard Dawkins, does.

There ceremony was fun - one thing I’d completely forgotten to consider was the fact it was going to be somewhat ceremonial - so not only was I dressed up, but all of the heads of various departments went up on stage dressed as if we were about to put together a fellowship to return the Ring to Mordor, rather than dish out some degree certificates. The head of the politics department was up there dressed in robes coloured like that of West Ham.

At the start they gave an honourary degree to the bloke who wrote Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières. The university’s vice-chancellor gave a ten-minute long biography of the man, before he himself gave a speech accepting the award. Unfortunately, this set my expectations a little high.

“I can’t wait for my speech”, I thought - though in the event, all I got to do was walk across the stage, literally doff my hat at the university’s chancellor, and then shake hands with the vice-chancellor at the other side.

So it was a little anti-climatic, maybe. It was worth turning up though, as I got a degree out of it.

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Results Day: The Movie!
July 3rd, 2008 at 00:48

I’ve had a rollercoaster of a couple of days, to say the least. I’m going to explain it in such a way that I’ll drip-feed you the information selectively, to heighten the dramatic tension and make it a better story. Though to be fair if you’ve been keeping up with the annoying Twitter feed to the left, you probably know the story already.

To give you some backstory, a few weeks ago I received a conditional offer from a Top University (I’m not going to name it because this is the internet, and the internet is full of nutters), for a Masters course - to get on the course, I needed to get not only at least a 2:1, but at least 67% to get on the course. A tough thing to do.

It didn’t help that I received the conditional offer a couple of days after my last exam, and with about six weeks to go until results day - so basically my fate was already sealed, and there was no way I could work harder to get it. I felt like Vernon Kay, in that even if I were to cure cancer or stop global warming, there was nothing I could to stop people thinking I’m a gurning twat with an irritating face.

Leading up to results day, it had been a close approximation of a hell where the eternal torture is unbearably tedious - I wasn’t working or doing anything productive, meaning I had little else to do than wait for the results and work my way through five King of the Hill box sets (this latter act in itself unfortunately culminated in me pissing off a genuine American by asking her if she stands in the alley drinking and saying “yerp” and “that boy ain’t right”). What made this more unfortunate was that because I’d finished uni, the stock-joke was that when asked when I was free to do whatever, I was able to reply that I’m free for the rest of my life.

What I needed was direction and purpose.

So yesterday was results day - my university puts all of the results online at the same time (resulting in the obligatory annual self-induced denial of service attack). Barely being able to sleep the night before, I logged on, whilst praying. I’m not a religious man, but so desperate was I to do well that I’d taken Pascal’s wager in order to cancel out the fact that I’d walked under a ladder and a black cat had crossed my path the night before whilst I was walking through a graveyard (true story).

I saw my grade. I’d got a 2:1 - excellent - but, and it was a big but… I’d only got 66%. That’s right, 1% less than what I needed. Its times like that you wish you’d not forgotten to hand in that bibliography, or, y’know, worked 1% harder.

The results went live online at 9:30am. At 9:31am I was on the phone to the admissions administrator for the Masters course. Balls, it was the answerphone. So I typed up a polite begging e-mail, and then rang up again for good measure. “I just got your messages”, said the woman on the other end of the phone, who sounded a bit annoyed that I was bombarding her with communications. She told me that she’d send my application for “review”, and would hear back “in the next couple of days”. There was still hope, but I was feeling pessimistic.

I was like, totally melancholly - I was pleased on one hand that I’m not technically a graduate (and can presumably sign letters “James O’Malley, BA (Hons)”), but then frustrated that my future membership of the liberal academic elite was shakier than Christopher Hitchen’s membership of the same club.

What amplified this was something horrible. Due to a quirk in timing, I’d been invited to an open day at the Masters university, for post-grad applicants, that took place today. As they were still reviewing my applicationtion, I had no idea whether I deserved to be there or not - I didn’t know whether to go just in case they let me in, or not go because technically I failed to meet the criteria they were looking for.

My mum is something of a pushy mum - though not the sort who lives out her dreams through her kids. Her male kids anyway. Which I guess is why I was never forced to join a choir or whatever it is my mum dreamed of doing. But anyway, she insisted that I go today on the basis that if they’re reviewing me, I need to create a good impression, and turning up is a pretty good indication that I’m enthusiastic.

I didn’t want to do this though - what if I didn’t get in, but had already had a look around at how wonderful and brilliant it is? It’d be like waving a delicious fish in front of a cat, and then taking the fish away, and then kicking the cat in the face.

So I woke up this morning with a sense of dread - a feeling that I was about to do something unpleasant. And not the sort of unpleasant thing you can get over, like standing on a dog poo, but something psychologically unpleasant, that would torture me for years to come as I lament my failure to enter into the upper-echelons of academia.

Just before leaving for the open day that I didn’t know whether I deserved to be at, I gave them a quick ring just to check what was happening with the review - if they’d already rejected me then it wasn’t worth me going at all. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded annoyed - probably because I’d rang up again - “I’ve just e-mailed you… you’re in”, she snapped.

I literally punched the air. Multiple times. I can’t really put into words how delighted I was, but basically, I was pretty fucking happy about it. And then the delightful pay-off was that I got to look around my new university only a couple of hours later.

And fucking hell, it’s a bit posh compared to my old uni. Walking through the entrance, the first thing I saw were three blue plaques on one wall - I think that’s more blue plaques than there are in this entire county.

The uni buildings, fitting in with the rest of central London, were of the old-timey variety, with all of the imperial opulence of Whitehall, making for an interesting contrast with my old uni’s flat-pack modernity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking my old uni on its content (it was decent), but architecturally, my new uni wins hands down.

I mean, just look at the library:

Christ on a bike. Bit much, isn’t it? Not even The British Library looks that important.

The best bit was quite possibly the Student Union bar. Not only did it have a pool table and an itBox, and not only was it not a nightclub, but the view was phenomenal. In that it is positioned on the bend in the river so you can look in one direction and see Tower Bridge, and look in the other and see Parliament and the London Eye and all that. I’m wondering what would be more appropriate in there: drinking or presenting local news?

The only slightly dodgy bit was that, inexplicably, on the tour of the campus, just like every other tour in London, there was an irritating American asking tonnes of stupid questions. But this was only a minor annoyance.

I think I’m going to like it here.

(Oh, and on the way home, I stumbled upon a man giving a lecture at the station about the High Speed 1 railway line… things like this are why I love London. It was almost as good as bumping into some ska.)

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SEO Close, yet SEO far away…
June 26th, 2008 at 16:23

So at the moment, I’m sort of looking for a job, or at least activities that have similar properties to a job: specifically the acquisition of money and filling up the time when I’m awake and not rocking out at all the gigs that I go to.

Trawling the jobs websites is a bit disappointing if you’re looking for a really specific job - no one seems to want a “new star columnist to replace Charlie Brooker” and instead, all of the writing jobs seem to all be asking for people who can write “SEO” copy - or “search engine optimisation” as its known to people outside of the Marketing Wankers Guild.

What this basically means is that writers have to be able to write stuff in such a way that it gets a high-rank on Google, so people will click it, and then get bombarded with adverts that will earn money for the company. Tactics for getting a high rank include referencing brand names, such as SONY PLAYSTATION 3 or APPLE IPHONE, as much as possible, and putting keywords in bold, or headings. I can’t bring myself to write for something like that - not least because I’m incapable of writing in any style other than the one you’re reading now (even my academic essays are like this). I don’t think a prospective employers would be too impressed if I were to try and promote their products by making sneery digs at Tories and creationists.

A few minutes ago I spotted a job advertisement that as I read through it I thought would be perfect for me, but there was a small problem:

…Looking for writers…

Began the advert. “I’m a writer!”, I thought.

…to create editorial style articles…

Yes!

…of approximately 500 words…

Yes!

…on topics related to world news…

Yes! This is totally my thing! This is something I can do!

…through the view of Christian eschatology

Sonofabitchgoddamnit.

After looking up the meaning of “eschatology”, just to double check that it didn’t actually mean “taking the piss out of creationists”, I discovered that eschatology is actually:

The study of ‘last things’: the ‘four last things’ are usually death, judgement, heaven, and hell.

So someone out there is looking for an end-timer version of myself. If I have a southern Baptist doppelgänger, he’s totally just scored himself a job.

Annoyingly for me though, the hunt goes on. Anyone fancy paying me to write stuff? Or better still, want to pay me to republish anything on here? That way I don’t have to write anything new but still get some money.

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Failing on deaf ears
June 8th, 2008 at 23:50

It turns out that having a knackered ear has had an unintended side-effect: it has affected my voice.

I’ve been told by people that I seem to be speaking much more quietly than usual - this is weird because when I speak, I can hear myself just fine. What used to be my normal talking volume has become “talking quietly”, and “talking quietly” is now “mumbling”.

This is especially irritating because of the rate at which I’ll utter witticisms or pearls of wisdom: what if the people around me were to miss an oratorical gem? From razor sharp satire, to biting social commentary - the sort of things I say all the time - all could be lost forever.

What if this is denying me the ability to chip in and offer my opinion when it isn’t necessarily needed because of my… er, temporary disability? This is surely discrimination.

People could be planning to discriminate against me right now - and I’d be none the wiser, as long as they are discussing it quietly. And how can I protest against this discrimination if all they‘ll hear is some faint mumbling? Where’s my orange badge? I want to exercise my right to park on double-yellow lines.

Although this said, I am starting to wonder if this could be some sort of cruel joke to get me to shout at people? People could tell me I’m speaking quietly and I’ll believe them as I can’t rely on my ears to relay accurate volume information to my brain at the moment.

I hate you, hypothetical pranksters.

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‘Ear Ye, ‘Ear Ye
June 5th, 2008 at 19:44

I woke up yesterday morning and immediately I realised something was wrong. All the sounds I heard were in mono.

I was worried that I’d done a John Simm and woken up in the 1980s, prior to the advent of NICAM Stereo - switching on the news and seeing that the Conservative party were actually popular only seemed to confirm this nightmare.

So I switched on my computer, planning to go on to Usenet and claim that I was a time traveller, and warn people about the Gulf War and text messaging slang - my plan was to give these ancient peoples a more accurate vision of the future than that of John Titor.

As luck would have it though, the computer didn’t require me to type “win” to boot into Windows - I was greeted with the welcome sight of Windows XP creaking into life. So I wasn’t back in time - it must have been at least 2001. The mono phenomenon must be caused by something else. Then it hit me: my right ear isn’t working right.

It was horrible - the ringing was nearly unbearable - it was clearly some sort of tinnitus, like you get after going to a loud gig. Only this time, only the right half of my head had been to the gig, and worse still the gig had not actually happened.

This caused me to panic  a bit - I don’t know much about medical things, as unlike my stance on creationism, when it comes to my own well-being, I work from the position that “ignorance is strength”, as I don’t want to know if I’m really ill or not.

I was worried that I was going deaf - which would be a right pain in the arse. I wouldn’t be able to listen to all of my favourite noises: ska chords, video games music played on unusual instruments, or the sound of my own voice.

So I went to the doctors and spoke to the “triage nurse”, whatever that means, who had a look in my ears. I told her about how I turned 21 literally two days before, and asked whether this is it: whether my ears fucking up are the first sign of the long, depressing decline that now faces me. Apparently, it isn’t.

Long story short, I need to put warm olive oil in my ears for some reason. I can’t work out whether this is actually going to be useful, or whether I’m just going to look like a twat. I just hope that if this doesn’t work they don’t move on to recommending ear candles.

So, er, hopefully my ears will be fixed soon. If you want to try and understand what its like to communicate with me at the moment, try reading this again but IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

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