Be Excellent To Each Other

Two minutes after deciding, Devilman, TWO MINUTES.

Yet GJ asked us to go for lunch and we changed our plans in 10 seconds with no complaints. How's that for short notice?

You posted on here at 2am and text me at 10am! Maths fail.

Talktalk make me yay.

After being at the mercy of BT's old lines for three years we finally got an LLU in our area. Now granted it's only a partial LLU but it was cheap. In 2008 I signed up with Tiscali who offered unlimited downloads for £15 a month on top of our BT line rental. It was a decent service, but basically it was throttled in the evenings. Not a huge problem but it got to the point where I couldn't even watch a Youtube video. I pressed on for a few more months, then went with O2 who I had heard magical things about. O2 was the worst experience I've ever had. Not only was their unlimited severely * limited (80gb a month, £17.50 for 6 months then £25 for the remainder of the 18 months) but they also used to change their policy at random.

I got one warning from O2 for going over 80gb (I'd been with them ten months at this point, and lost my DVD rips of South Park seasons so decided to download them again). Then about three months later I got another warning for going over 60gb, and when I phoned them to ask about it they had changed their "fair usage" policy. I got my last warning and disconnection after the 18 months were up (completely deliberate, god bless the Steam sales !).

At that stage I decided to throw money at the problem hoping it would go away. We were already paying £19 a month or so for BT's daytime calling so I decided to give Zen a try. No contract, supply your own modem, £35 a month for 100gb. Yeah it's a lot, but I was hoping that it would remain stable and I would be able to use my 100gb if I felt like it. For 8 months Zen were immaculate, providing the 6mb my lines could handle. Then all of a sudden it started to crawl, and after a week on the phone with their amazing customer service reps we realised that there was simply no fixing it. After a new wireless N modem and several different wireless dongles they finally admitted that BT had oversold the lines in my area and there was nothing they could do.

At that stage Talktalk finally installed a partial LLU in my area. It's the old BT lines to the exchange, then it's Talktalk. I was offered a 9mb service complete with phoneline and all the trimmings (caller ID, call waiting, answer machine ETC) for £29 a month with completely unlimited internet* (* they block torrents, which I didn't care about as they are for kids, plus I have access to a diamond news account when I need it).

So we switched, got more on the phone line (everything you could wish for, unlike BT who wanted extra for call waiting and caller ID etc) and were paying £29 a month instead of £55. The internet has been absolutely brilliant since they installed it and I was only paying £15 a month for it, leaving the phone line to Mum who paid £14.90 for that instead of £19. Everyone's a winner.

Then last month Talktalk sent me an email telling us that if we paid the year's line rental in advance it would be £9 instead of £14.90. So we did that, saved about £50 or so. Then today I phoned to asked a question about the billing and at the end of the call they said that if we signed up for another 18 months (and let's face it after the BT horror show we weren't going anywhere !) then they would cut the internet in half for six months. So basically for the next six months we pay £7.25. At the end of the six months we pay £14.99 for the internet (as the line rental is paid) and then after that for the final six months we pay the £29 again.

Love it. Absolutely love it. I know there is a lot of bad said about Talktalk but for us they have been life savers. TBH when we initially got it I couldn't have cared less if it even worked properly. For over a year I had been paying £35 a month solely for the internet and it was a pile of shit. So I figured that even if it was a bit shit it was only £15 a month. To my surprise it's been amazing. 9mb constant with 980k on downloads and they even tripled my upload bandwidth.

Funny thing is that most of the complaints the internet over about Talktalk are usually because of torrents, or, that they are getting wireless interference and don't have the brain power to switch channels in the router. Customer service is as you would expect (The Bombay bad boys) but if you know your way around a router then you should never need to call them any way. Unless of course there is an outside fault, of which they would have to repair.

Viva Talktalk !

Look who arrived yesterday!

Baby TheVision... Just in time for fathers day.

NEVER dress your baby like that! It's like a homing beacon to The Goblin King!

Apart from that, congratulations

Whee! Congrats, man.

I never even noticed that! Amazing!

Fantastic mate, contests to you all xxx

Congrats!

Praisebot v2.0. has arrived!

Congrats dude!

Congrats, lad!

Fuck. Your baby is Blofeld.

Woo hoo

Congratulations, man.

Congratulations !

Congratulations

It is anaw

Congratulations. You'll need an extra column on your spreadsheet for baby outgoings now.

Congratulations! Best wishes to all of you.

Congratulations!

Congrats TV. Best wishes to all the family.

Whole hearted congratulations and best wishes from myself and MrsA.

Yay! Clearly a wee smasher. Congratulations to you both!

Congrats!

Also: congrats!

Got almost £4.5k in PPI money coming to us in 28 days.

PPI? Tax back or something?

Insurance on our mortgage repayments that was wrongfully sold to us.

I'M A VICTIM HERE.

This is probably not a massive yay in the grand scheme of things, but the ex brought Zioette round yesterday morning to spend the day with me, and they'd bought me a Father's Day card. My ex made it clear she'd let Zioette pick the card before I opened it and I soon saw why: it was bright yellow with a big green cartoon pea with arms, legs and a smiley face and above it it said "Ha-Pea Birthday!!!". Apparently Zioette was utterly insistent that this was the card she was getting me, despite her mother's protestations.

Inside it, Zioette had done numerous squiggles, which she pointed at and said: "that says I love you very much daddy!".

And so, basically, I had the best Fathers Day ever yesterday!

They also bought me a box of chocolates and a mug, which made me feel a bit guilty about not buying my ex anything at all (even 'from Zioette') for her birthday last week - but the current girlfriend has major issues with some of the hazy boundaries myself and the ex seem to have, so I figured I should probably leave it. But still, yesterday was a Yay!

I had George too. So I know how awesome it is.

FWIW, as someone who spent six-ish years in a relationship with a girl who had a daughter with someone else (so I have been on the other side of this) -- your girlfriend might be uncomfortable, and you should respect that were possible, but ultimately she has to suck it up. Your daughter has to be your primary concern and that means you have to get along with your ex on at least some basic level.

I can't see anything minor in that yay at all, sounds marvellous

Malc

This is ace!

Another Yay then - I won a limited edition Nintendo 3DS in a competition on Nintendo's website. Okay, there were giving away thousands of them at the time, but still, I is very impressed. So I now have a red & white polka dot 3DS.

Jammy bastard!

Good work.. This means I may be able to double the amount of friends on my 3DS friends list!

Well... I kinda already owned a 3DS (and have done since launch). Are we not already on each other's friends lists? My friend code is in my sig.

I'm planning on doing a system transfer at the weekend to move everything from my plain black 3DS onto the new one and then trade that one in. I suppose the new 3DS could potentially net me a few quid on eBay being as it's a limited design (only 3000 made of that design I believe), but it's really pretty, so I think I want to keep it.

I'll post up a photo when I get home.

Ah.. I'm posting on the mobile forum so I can't see the signatures. To be honest, I haven't messed about with my friends much so you may be on there. I'll check later but yes, I'd love to see pics of the new 3DS.

Where is Animal Crossing 3DS?????

Nay for us having a leak in our roof on Friday but a massive Yay for the roofer we phoned who came out yesterday afternoon and spent three hours fixing it and then charged us just £40.

Last week at work I was informally tipped off as to what my proposed payrise was. I reacted positively - arguably it was below market rate, but given the circumstances (and that I'm unlikely to leave imminently for money alone) was reasonable. Privately, I was satisfied.

Today I was told that it was voted down. Because... someone else (someone unexpected) thought it was too low, and the higher amount has now been voted through. Won't totally believe it until I see it on paper, but will be very happy if I do see it.

Nice one APOD.

Git.

Yesterday Matt Berry (of the IT crowd) tweeted asking if there was a drummer who was available to record something there and then. I replied saying I could do it and he emailed me an MP3 (about 90 seconds) to which I recorded the drums to and sent it him back.

He then asked for another song to be done, which I did and sent that back. All in all, about 30 minutes work. I enjoyed helping him out as he's a bit of a hero of mine since I'm on paternity leave, what else would I do with my time?

Anyway.. he tweeted the following about me:-



Turns out the songs are for a film and this morning the producer of the film has emailed me asking for an invoice as he wants to pay me £200 for my troubles!

Yay!

Result! Get your name on the credits!

Good work!

Cool! Now go work out your Kevin Bacon Number!