Have I reached rock bottom when I use corrupted versions of 1970s sitcom quotes as titles for my postings? Probably. Anyway it was the wife’s birthday just the other day so I got her a nice iPod as a present. I’ve always resisted apple equipment for indefinable reasons but I have to say it’s a smashing little bit of kit.

That’s as close as I’ll get to admitting I’m wrong about something. On the subject of smashing bits of kit, this morning after five weeks of waiting my replacement Leica arrived, so on the whole I’m in a half decent mood. Gadget aquisition mode is in full effect though, I need a new phone….

Oh and look, more horrible ass-hats stealing my photo…

People seem to think it’s ok because it’s the internet – it’s not really stealing is it? Except it is.

A fair bit of my website traffic comes from people searching for “wedding rings” on google images, for which I come up on page one. Around 100 or so visitors a day arrive in this fashion, and most of them continue on their way without any noticeable impact.

Inevitably some of these visitors are searching for a wedding ring image that they can use for some reason or another. One or two take the time to ask nicely which is great.

Sadly a surprising number of people completely ignore what I have said about stealing the picture and simply start embedding it into their own website. When this is some mypsace teen gushing angst and brain sick onto the web, I simply block it. In some cases I replace the image with a request not to steal. Most of the time I simply feel sorry for them, as pretty much nobody actually looks at their webpage.

I decided to have a little scan at who had been coming to my site over the last few weeks.

Take this chap:

He’s happily blogging away sharing his life with the world at large. And getting about 1 visitor a month. Every day when nobody reads his rubbish blog, I imagine a little bit of his soul dies. So I’ll let it slide, and leave the image intact.

This gibbering cretin…

…just makes me feel sad. Very very sad. And slightly scared. “Look how loving and caring I am, I have a picture of wedding rings and a Mariah Carey song on my horrifying web page. Love me please” Um, no. I’ll be watching this one, poised to replace the image with something suitably inappropriate if the traffic starts to increase.

Now it gets a bit harder, over here…

…is a site that’s actually generating a fair bit of traffic, but seems to be one I simply can’t do anything about. It appears to be a website for survivors, presumably of horrible and often terminal illnesses. Can I replace the photo with a picture of a poo? Is that going to far? I fear that may be, even for a misanthropic fury machine such as myself. I have to draw the line somewhere…

These are just a selection of the naughty people who think this sort of behaviour is ok. I’ve got this far without really having a point. Stealing is bad, stay in school kids.

Oh and my replacement Leica should FINALLY be arriving on Wednesday, yay!

update I found some more.

selling wedding rings?

And yet you can’t even supply your own photograph. Very classy, you massive horrible turds. Not sure I can let this particular one slide, after all they are a business, who am I, mr free stock photos? (The answer to that is no by the way, I’m not).

Seriously, what? I’m fairly sure this isn’t even written in English, I mean I only understand one or two words on there. I’m not thick either, so it must be foreign. Zut alors.

Now what? Oh look, another one. YOUR WEBSITE IS RUBBISH. Everything you stand for is a lie. At least I think so but again I can’t really understand the words. I know a thief when I see one though.

When will it end? Oh the humanity. This one just takes the piss I mean, COME ON! The picture doesn’t even fit, if you are going to steal at least have the decency to show the photo properly. Ronnie, is that any way to start your marriage – by stealing? Shame on you Ronnie. Shame on you.

I can’t stand it any more. Except I can becuase this is fun. Hee hee.

That’s all for now.

When the landline rings at half past ten at night, we don’t tend to answer it. Firstly because we don’t give out our landline number, and secondly because if it’s important we’ve both got mobiles people can ring.

So last night we ignore the phone and when it stops ringing I grab it to do the old 1471 trick, at which point I notice there is an answer phone message…

What followed was slightly unexpected but also quite entertaining.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was a crank call – because I find it extremely difficult to imagine the caller actually has done the things he claims to have done.

Please note, if you find foul language or Manchester accents offensive, then don’t listen to this. Or Oasis records.

If you don’t mind listening to the quavering pubescent voice of sweary Manchester troll children then go ahead and listen to the gibbering little cretin child spewing his bile all down my phone line.

Click here for standalone player

My personal favourite bit is “classic doggy”.

I do wish I’d answered the phone now, so I could have corrected the poor little moron and told him he had the wrong number.

Two years ago I switched across to Sky Broadband, the main reason being it was free. This rather easily bettered the £19 I was paying with my existing provider, so I made the leap. I was disconnected by my existing provider a short while later. What followed was 87 days, 17 phone calls, 8 hours spent on the phone, 3 complaint letters and eventually legal threats before I finally got connected with Sky Broadband.

So you can imagine I had certain expectations when the man came to install my Sky+ HD box this weekend. I had previoulsy checked the connections on a friends HD box to ensure that the required connector was there for my TV. It was, so I placed the order. Of course when the installer arrives they’ve changed the box design, why wouldn’t they, the total ass hats. So I have to go out and buy adaptors and cables and so on, but not the end of the world.

Except none of my HD channels are working and my Sky movies subscription is telling me I have the wrong viewing card….. Only two days, one phone call and 30 minutes on the phone so far. But it’s still not working. So basically I’ve “upgraded” from Sky+ to Sky+ HD( – HD) which is the same *%£!ing thing I started with!

At least it’s Christmas as well so I can expect to miss all the films that are on over the next few days. Rage.