The Prickly Side of Life

The Ashtray's Full, Better Buy a New Car!

2012-05-14T18:16:00.000+01:00

Do you know what really rips ma knittin'?

Not getting my money's worth.

If something electrical is broken, I'll fix it. If something electrical is broken and I've had many years of good service from it, I'll gladly send it on its way to the great electrical scrapheap (somewhere near Mumbai) and buy a new one.

My car passed the 100,000 mile mark last month, it's only six years old, but has a few years and thousands of miles of good service left in it yet I reckon. Can you imagine getting to 100,000 miles in your car and when you go out to start it one morning an error light illuminates on the dashboard. You phone a garage, they have no idea what it means. You phone the manufacturer of the car and they say, "If you bring it in to a main dealer, we may be able to fix it for you, but it'll cost you £5,000 for us to try and we're not going to tell you what is wrong with it".

You wouldn't be happy would you? Most people would be a bit pissed off and think screw that, I might as well buy another car!

Well this happened to me last night. Not with my car, but with my computer printer. Oh big deal I hear you say, who hasn't had a broken fucking printer, as you close the tab and surf back to hot babes dot com or warm and fuzzy Face-fucking-book, but this is important! It is I tell you! And here's why.

For the last seven or eight years I've had an Epson Stylus Photo R200, it looks like this....

It's been reliable, hard working and is absolutely cool with taking cheap non-Epson compatible ink cartridges. It's not used very often these days and when it broke I was even considering doing away with a printer all together.

So last night, Mrs Jaggy turned on the printer to print a copy of an invoice for herself. Normally it would initialise by moving the print head up and down, shaking the desk and making lots of unnecessary noise. Not this time. The ink light and the paper light started flashing alternately and there was no desk shaking or noise. Strange I thought, it's never done that before. So I put my extensive printer repair knowledge into full swing and turned it off and on again. Several times. All with the same effect, or lack of. I shoogled the print head, it was solid, maybe the motor for it is gubbed thought I, something's actually broken.

So I resigned myself to the fact that I may have to shell out £40 for a new printer, after all, who actually gets printers fixed these days.

An hour passed, and Mrs Jaggy had long since e-mailed her document to print elsewhere and I grew curious, I Googled some key words about the symptoms and as is usual you find many other folk who've had the same issues, but nobody seemed to have an answer to the problem, apart from, throw it in the bin and buy a new one. But after some digging through forums dating back 6 years I found a clue towards the problem.

See that bit with the 2 crosses on it, that's a sponge. When you get missing lines on your print you would typically run the software that came with the printer, this would perform a print head clean cycle, which in practical terms would spray ink through the print head, hoping to clear away any blockages and give you a clean print. The excess ink would be absorbed by these sponges. No problem. As I said, I've owned this printer for a number of years and have done this cycle many many times.

Now, unbeknown to me, my Epson Stylus Photo R200, and many more just like it I expect, keep count of how many times it has done this cleaning cycle. The boffins at Epson seem to have worked out just how many cleaning cycles it takes to completely saturate this sponge and render it utterly, disastrously useless. My printer had apparently reached this number and had completely shut down. Even though it was working absolutely perfectly well one minute, with no degradation in print quality. No smears, no leaking ink, nothing. It was just fine. But because an Epson engineer 9 years ago decided that X number of cleaning cycles would knacker this sponge, we'd better build in a fail safe, my printer shut down. Fucking useless bastards!

I wonder how many people have consigned their printer to the bin because they couldn't get to the bottom of this issue. What a waste. Epson should be ashamed of themselves, but I'll bet it's not just them. The cynical amongst you, like me, would suggest that this is some sort of designed in obsolescence, a problem manufactured by Epson to make you buy a new printer every few years. Some of the forums I was reading had people saying they had phoned Epson about this issue and were told to take it to their nearest Epson service centre (hundreds of miles away) and pay $50 for them to have a look at it. Considering that you can buy a new printer for about that sort of money, who the hell's going to do that?!

To go back to my car analogy I started with, would you stand for Ford or Toyota telling you that your car won't start this morning because an engineer decided 10 years ago when he designed your car that your ash-tray would probably be full by now, so we'd better break your whole car, so they can charge you the price of a new one just to get it fixed, or force you to buy a new one, even though your ash-tray is absolutely fine. Nobody would stand for that!

So Epson, and every other manufacturer who design this sort of crap into your products, Fuck You!

So how did I fix it?

Simple, go here, download the SSC Service Utility software, follow the instructions to reset the counter, turn your printer off then on again, and voilà, Bob's your Mother's live-in-lover and you owe me a pint.

Remember Me?

2011-12-03T23:57:00.001+00:00

It's hard to imagine that I once posted here at least once a day. Perhaps I used to have more time on my hands, or maybe a proper blog was the most logical outlet for what I wanted to share. Times have moved on and the social network is king. While you could argue that Blogger IS a social network, it's becoming less and less relevant to your average everyday guy like me. I'm not like some who want to delete everything from the past and forget it ever happened, I still enjoy reading through some of my old posts. I'm not even putting this blog to sleep, as some services that I try out in the time honoured fashion of them being the next big thing auto-post to various places, and this blog will inevitably be a landing space for those type of things.

However I don't really expect to be writing many more long-form posts like I used to. I don't think folks have the time to read that sort of shit any more. Well, some do, but not me, so I'm not going to expect others to in return. I don't read other's blogs in the same way I used to, so no need to expect the favour in return.

I do still post my views and opinions here and there so I'll give you a little run down of where to find me.

On Twitter mainly a few times a day, @mrjaggy

On Facebook, normally a place where I ignore and scorn people who I actually know, but a couple of trustworthy blogging chums have slipped through the net. The least used of all my social networks. Kevin McIntyre

On Google Plus, or + if you prefer. I like Google +, good engagement with local people and long posts are accommodated. I can see Blogger eventually being merged into Google+. If you're going to try anything new this year, then try this. It's like Twitter in that you can follow strangers, but also like Facebook in that you can share personal stuff. Get me here Kevin McIntyre

Google Latitude, some find it too much like overshare, I think it's excellent. You get it through Google Maps on your Android phone, iPhone or Nokia and you can see where people are in relation to you and their check-ins at popular places. Find me on your phone using my e-mail kev.mcintyre2010@REMOVEMEgmail.com . It also keeps a private history and mileage of where you've been. I've covered approximately 36,000 miles in the last 2 years and apparently I spend an average of 28 hours a week working but I doubt I spend anything close to that actually working.

Another location service I use is the popular Foursquare. The gameification of social networks where you keep score and become the mayor for one-up-man-ship. This is something you'll use on your mobile, but you can find me here https://foursquare.com/mrjaggy Purile, but fun all the same.

I've also got another blog where I put paid-for posts. To be frank, they're not very interesting and they're blatantly sycophantic but if you click the links on them then the buyers will feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Welcome to the Machine

See you around.

I've currently got a squirrel clinging to the roughcast under the eaves of my house, he's been there for hours.

2011-07-28T18:40:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at FM Transcription Services in North Lanarkshire.

Posted via email from Mrjaggy's posterous

I've gone on the offensive, it's now on the back of my car.

2011-05-25T18:48:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz.

Posted via email from Mrjaggy's posterous

I can't wait for wasp season!

2011-05-23T17:44:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz.

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My turnip has.... an unusual feature.

2011-05-21T17:57:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at FM Transcription Services in North Lanarkshire.

Posted via email from Mrjaggy's posterous

Had a cracking day on the West Highland Way today.

2011-04-22T20:41:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz in North Lanarkshire.

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Getting a cracking view of the full moon tonight through the Telescope.

2011-04-17T23:12:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at FM Transcription Services in North Lanarkshire.

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Feck! That's one helluva bright moon tonight.

2011-04-17T01:07:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz.

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Unfortunate Shortening

2011-04-16T18:40:00.001+01:00

I can reprogram the name of the inputs on my Hi-Fi amp to reflect something more meaningful than AUX1, AUX2 etc. So I thought I'd name one DVD Player Analogue, to differentiate it from the digital input. I did that months ago, and I've only just realised that it has shortened the title to fit on the screen, which has given it a slightly different meaning.

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Down at the docks.

2011-04-15T17:44:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at VisitScotland Ocean Point in City of Edinburgh.

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@MrsJaggy is employing her green fingers, I'll employ the taste test in a few months.

2011-04-10T17:32:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at FM Transcription Services in North Lanarkshire.

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I've got fishy fingers.

2011-04-08T23:29:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz.

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Who are you so wise in the ways of science?

2011-04-05T23:38:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz.

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Enjoying some of the good stuff.

2011-04-03T01:39:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz.

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Stonehaven Sea!

2011-04-02T23:54:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at Stonehaven Outdoor Pool in Aberdeenshire.

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Loving the Macro mode on the Nexus S camera.

2011-03-30T19:52:00.001+01:00

Taken with picplz at FM Transcription Services in North Lanarkshire.

Posted via email from Mrjaggy's posterous

It's Raoul Moat, dummy.

2011-03-12T01:01:00.001+00:00

Click the link to this girl's Facebook profile below. Two questions come to mind.

1. Why appear to idolise a cowardly murderer by having him as your middle name?

2. If you think he's so great, why not spell his name correctly?

Gemma Mackie

Can't work this one out.

2011-02-09T20:07:00.000+00:00

This backyard BBQ loving, fizzy pop guzzling, sword swinging ninja is making a proper tool of himself. The problem is, I can't work out if it's an attempt at comedy genius by ripping the pish out of the famous Star Wars kid or he really is so deluded as to think that smacking milk cartons off a bench with a blunt replica sword somehow endears him to his peers. And what about the William Tell antics toward the end? I can only hope that his neighbours, having seen him from their overlooking bedroom windows, have kept their pets and children indoors. And judging by the kids play kitchen in that garden, he has obviously managed to get a woman drunk enough to sleep with him and put up with having ninja weapons lying around the place. Or maybe she's into that stuff too.

Thank the spaghetti monster he's wearing a mask so that when his daughter grows up she won't be taunted by "that video" of her Dad on the Internet when she's older.

Breaking News

2011-01-25T22:44:00.000+00:00

Scotland's independent TV channel STV has splashed out recently and seem to have employed a Social Networking Guru who thought it would be a great idea to split the "Scottish News" up into lots of individual little town areas to make it super local. So now surrounding me in Newarthill I have @STVBellshill to the West, @STVMotherwell to the South, @STVWishaw to the East and STVAirdrie to the North. All on Twitter and Facebook and all with their own individual little websites full of hyper local, fact packed, fast paced and super interesting news.

Eh no.

Let me give you an example of the sort of news that I've been reading on these sites this week. I've substituted their headlines for my own copyrighted cynical headline view in order to convey how I see these stories. Click through to the story on their site to see if you agree with me.

Small children meet man in big hat while accompanied by criminal record checked responsible adult.

Man who leads a very sheltered life unknowingly sees a Chinese Lantern for very first time, and is ridiculed.

Nothing unusual happened, go about your business.

Local man can write.

Stay at home and check out the latest Internet Porn.

So you see, nothing of very much excitement happens around here, and to be honest, the young journalists who have been handed the role of filling their pages while legitimately claiming a wage have a difficult job ahead of them. Best of luck.

The age of Dick Turpin has returned.

2011-01-17T00:00:00.000+00:00

The BBC this week did a feature where their reporter Brian Milligan drove a brand new electric Mini from London to Edinburgh. And the BBC's reasoned analysis at the end of the experiment was that the age of the electric car had arrived and everyone should get one. Typical BBC and their "pro green stance". (Did you know a shit load of BBC pensions are in green stock?)

Would anyone like to guess how long it took Brian to get from London to Edinburgh, considering he was only using publicly available charging points and using word of mouth to find out where they are as there is no current national database of them? He drove the car as soon as it had received a full charge.

4 Days.

That's right, 4 days to drive from London to Edinburgh, a distance of 484miles. A distance that could easily be done by any conventional family saloon car in around 8 hours give or take. The purveyors of electric cars will tell you about all the high technology that's gone into them recently, intelligent batteries, computers and range analysis but at the end of the day, not much has changed in respect of range and efficiency. Electric cars were invented long before petrol cars, nearly 200 years ago in fact, and had a range of about 20 miles and a maximum speed of 68mph. Todays modern electric vehicles let you get to about 50 miles before giving you a condition known as range anxiety, where you are only thinking about getting to a recharge station, they can also do about 70mph, for short periods.

So tell me again, where has all the high technology, 200 years of development gone? The Mini used in the BBC test has no space under the bonnet where you'd think there'd be tons vacated by the engine, it's all taken up by electrical switch gear. Neither are there any back seats, they're all taken up by the batteries. So you're left with a 2 seater with a Mini sized boot that'll hold a laptop, a small one.

Considering that an electric Mini costs in the region of £12,000, the price of a "normal" car, and it can only be used to go places less than 20 miles away when you consider the return journey and the chances you may have to use the headlights, wipers, and heater, it doesn't seem to be very good value for money to me.

300 years ago it would have been quicker taking the horse drawn stagecoach from London to Edinburgh, the only downside being the occasional hold up from Dick Turpin. Brian had to stop in Milton Keynes after only an hour on the road and fill 8 hours recharge time by reading and presumably masturbation until his car had regained its breath enough to continue its journey.

So this leaves me thinking, where is the future? I'm not going to pay £12,000 for a car that is as good as taking a horse, I could have done that 2000 years ago, or whenever it was that horses were domesticated. I want something that's better than what we've got today. I want an advancement in technology, as that's the way of the world. Hard drives 10 years ago gave you maybe 40 GB, today you can get 2TB on a drive, a 50 fold improvement. Moore's law states that processor power will double every 18 months, and it's held true since the sixties. So where are we with transportation? Possibly a 20% improvement in mpg since the invention of electronic ignition and fuel injection in the last 30 years.

It's all very well putting fancy sat-nav, bluetooth stereos and auto windscreen wipers in cars but it's the propulsion that matters, and that is one area that has very much stalled. The current crop of electric cars are simply not good enough for the average user, so where do we go from here?

Infinite Beer

2011-01-10T22:12:00.000+00:00

I love this new beer pouring technology, no queue, it's frothy and cold, and the best bit? Nobody pays for their beer.

The future's here, free beer for everyone!

On the negative side though, it's Budweiser.

Congratulations Elton John

2010-12-28T23:14:00.001+00:00

Having failed in your attempt at ultimate attention seeking by buying a Ukranian AIDS baby, you have finally managed to make the headlines by paying some desperate woman to bear a child for either you or David. But the question still remains, who's the Daddy?

Games Basement still suck, apparently.

2010-12-18T13:39:00.003+00:00

Some of my more loyal following will remember the "interaction" I had with Games Basement last year. I'm not going to tell the whole story again here but intermittently over the year through checking my web stats I've been getting hits from "Games Basement Sucks" or "Games Basement complaints" Google searches and subsequently getting comments on my original posts. These hits have been getting a lot more frequent recently in the run up to Xmas obviously with people panicking about presents arriving on time.

I don't want to get involved with or conduct any sort of hate campaign against anyone or any business but it would seem pretty obvious to me that Games Basement haven't been awarding any gold stars for good customer service to their staff or carrying out any much needed training in the last year since my last involvement with them. My advice is still don't touch them with a barge pole!

So for anyone who lands here through a Google search and in the spirit of helping the consumer, here is my story from start to finish. Start at the top link and work your way down. As ever, for the uninitiated, there may be bad language in places. In fact there's definitely bad language, all over the place.

Why Games Basement Suck

Games Basement FAIL!

Still Waiting

And on it goes

A small victory and a sad cat

Nearly done, hopefully

I'm getting fed up with this

Closure, thank fuck

Golf Buggy Economics

2010-12-10T21:40:00.006+00:00

Have you ever had a company car or van? Have you ever hired a van for a day to do a move? Have you ever played Golf on a posh course and hired a golf buggy?

I've done all these things, and I've done hand brake turns in empty car parks and in the middle of fairways in all of them. It's great fun and I had zero guilt after it.

Why did I enjoy it so much with so little guilt? Because the vehicles did not belong to me and if I wrote them off there would be few repercussions in the form of cash from my own pocket.

Students eh? I used to be one. Although I wasn't one of the ones you might have seen on TV in the last couple of days. I never wrestled a Police Officer to the ground, vandalised a posh couple's motor or insulted the war dead by swinging from a memorial.

I was being paid to go to College by my employer at the time, if I didn't go I would lose my job. If I misbehaved while there I would lose my job. If I failed to do the work I would lose my job. If I didn't pass the exams I would lose my job. No matter how bad my hangover from the Union bar the night before, or how sick I felt after my liquid lunch, I went. In other words, if I've got a deep personal investment in my education, by fuck I'll carry it through.

Sadly I know several people who went to Uni when they left school and dropped out half way through a year simply because they couldn't be arsed either doing the work or turning up any time before midday. The worst thing that happened to them was that they found themselves an entry level job in a boring office and got on with the rest of their lives.

I paid, like most folk I expect, several thousand pounds for my car, and I'm not about to go down to the local Tesco and do doughnuts around the car park for the sake of it. It would cost me my own cold hard earned cash if I wrapped it around a line of trolleys left by Joey. Not to mention the wear on the tyres and hand brake.

I'm pretty sure you know where I'm going with this. If something is considered free at the point of acquisition then no value is attached to it. My entire music collection is ripped from my own CDs or from paid downloads, therefore I back it up relentlessly and always seek the best quality bit-rate. I know people with music collections made up entirely of pirated music, they don't back up or even give a shit if all of it gets deleted when their computer's hard disk fails. It holds no value for them. Polythene bags from the supermarket are free right? The actual cost is included in the price of the shopping but I can guarantee if you had to pay 3p for every one then you wouldn't leave them to blow around the car park or double wrap every glass item in your trolley.

University Education isn't free. Neither is it paid for by the Government, even in Scotland where it is allegedly free. It's paid for by the taxpayer and in these hard times I could be doing with paying for a few less layabouts with hangovers deciding that a lecture at 11AM is just inhuman "man".

I have no problem with every young person in the UK wanting to go to University, and yes, even the black ones Oxford! But I'm not willing to pay for the social lives of kids wanting to fill in a couple of years before joining real life. So by young people making a contribution toward their own education they'll think harder about giving it a go in the first place. Once they've decided to go they'll think twice about hitting the "handbrake turn" snooze button and actually get up and go to classes.

It's not cruel and it won't mean nobody going to University, it will simply mean that anyone who does go will hopefully be committed to doing the best they can.