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Thursday 27 March 2014

School Trips

School trips are cool. You get to get away from school for a bit and see other things for a change.

The day starts fairly normally (if an early start is not needed). Then, at some point, you get on a coach or bus of some description.


This was the fun bit. Being on the bus, looking forward to the day, not having to sit next to anyone except maybe the odd teacher who was with us on the journey. Looking out of the window and singing would be my two top activities on the coach. The worst bits were feeling a little bit coach sick, and, worse, when someone else was actually sick, which made me feel nauseous in response. However, that wasn't always common, and it wasn't a big deal.

At some point or another we would stop, as we were at the location we were supposed to be at. Cue a good likelihood of being impressed by my surroundings, or else the building we were going into.


Then the fun of the day would begin. Whether it was making pictures with sticks or watching badminton or just getting settled there for a couple of days (and doing all the stuff over that couple of days) it would still be cool.

And in any case the bus journey would be worth it.

And the missing lessons was also worth it.

Sometimes there would also be students from other schools who also attended the trip. These were the times when I was hopeful to find a buddy I could swap email addresses with. I didn't particularly have friends at high school (or even at primary) but I was hopeful that I'd meet someone nice (not really understanding that I'd have to Talk To People to do so; if I had realized that I wouldn't have been so hopeful). 

School trips would end on the journey back. The journey back wasn't as good as the journey ahead (unless we'd just gone swimming and were heading back to primary with wet hair, or the time we were coming back from France and ate on the ferry), but it was just about the only decent ending to any trip.

Woohoo.

Thursday 20 March 2014

No, I Don't Want NoNo!

NoNo seems to have a bit of a campaign with that hair removal product. One advert here.

Apart from the 'virtually no pain' and the laughably small sample size to get that - 39 people? Seriously? - and the fact I don't really care much about my bodily hair, I'm not sure it's actually a viable product.

And I'm just reading reviews on the net here so I'll just sum them up.

- Doesn't work properly or as advertised even when using instructions (81)
- Bad customer service/problems with returns (34)
- Burns/Burn Marks/Otherwise painful (26)
- Defective/breaks too easily (10)

These are my results from 100 reviews.

There are 462 reviews here and I used the 100 'Most Helpful' comments. The vast majority of the reviews are 1-star reviews, and plenty of times people mentioned that the would have gone for 0 star or negative ratings if they could have!

One person mentioned that pretty much all the people giving good reviews on Amazon hadn't reviewed anything else and hadn't bought the product from Amazon. Of course, you can't know that the reviews don't come from a reputable source, but I wouldn't be surprised. One common complaint was the smell of burned hair. Also, it takes longer to use than a razor. Also plenty of comments about expense! (mostly in dollars as through Google I ended up at Amazon.com, but enough comments about it to suggest it's too expensive for what it is)

(Which is, a thing that tries to burn your hair off and doesn't really succeed, while throwing around fancy terms to make you feel as if it's actually doing something amazing)

NoNo, your advertisements are what got me looking at you. You're so very loud and proud about this product, and it simply does not deliver. "It's not a razor. It's not a laser. It's not waxing." It's not going to perform even on an equal level to those more reputable methods of dealing with unwanted hair. And you should know that.

Say no to the adverts.
Say no to wasting money.
Say no to NoNo.

Thursday 13 March 2014

Happy 100 Posts!

I love you all!

Yes, all of you!

Especially you.

I don't know why I'm celebrating this 100th post because, you know, it's just a number of posts, but here I am.

100 is the binary for 4.
100 is the square of 10.
100 is a totally cool awesome number.

So, ask me anything. In the comments. Seriously anything.

I don't think I've used that button before.
Who knows? We may come out with a half-decent interview.

Monday 10 March 2014

A Run

I used to be a bit of a talker.

I could spend forever talking about anything, from books I'd read to a possible answer that appeared a couple of times in a Maths Challenge paper (Yes, I literally, actually spent a whole lunchtime talking about the possible answer "More Information Needed" and making jokes about it - for some reason I found it really amusing!).

My pals, who I'll call Alice and Jenny, didn't seem to be fond of this, as evidenced by what happened next.

It was a normal day, and I was gabbling away as usual, yada yada yada, when:

Alice: You should take a lap of the field.

Me: Why?

Jenny: Well, Alice has done one, and I've done one, it's only fair that you do one.

I hadn't seen either of them do one, but I had nothing to say against one, and I didn't have any suspicions that all was not as it seemed.

It was a simple route.

I started running.

It wasn't exactly an easy run, but then, I wasn't exactly a runner. It didn't take too long to take the run, and it filled some time. I got back to my starting point...

...to see that nobody was there.

This puzzled me slightly, but I put that aside. I had to find out where Alice and Jenny were, and rejoin them.

I staggered around the grounds, searching for them, hoping that they would be findable. It was still ages until lunch would end.

I didn't find either of them.

Lunch ended and still I hadn't found either of them. But as Alice was a form mate and it was tutor next I saw her then. She made a passing comment about the incident, and we left it at that.

It took me a couple of years to connect my chattering to what had actually transpired next. I just believed that they'd got bored or something and moved off.

Ahhh, naivety.

(Psst! Next post appears to be Number 100! :D Anyone else feel like celebrating? Anyone got any suggestions on what we could do? If you do, post them below in the comments)