Mal Practice
Home
Pictures
Mal Practice, including mal practice in my blog, mal practice in Folkestone, and any mentions of mal practice in my family tree. Also there's a feed of mal practice stories / mentions, a JSON feed of mal practice, a KML feed of mal practice , search my mal practice venue info, mal practice on Your Folkestone. Hope you can find what you're looking for, if not please leave a message about mal practice.
Blog / forum etc:
Oct26
Went to Ashford yesterday, for a day out, as Clare had the day off and we wanted to go bowling. Man alive, it's rubbish there... I'm kind of glad we hit the very worst high street type parts of the town first, as it meant that Ashford grew on us as the day progressed, but first impressions are not good. The bowling alley is nice and handy for the station at least, and it's like all bowling alleys are, a terrible, terrible, terrible place. Going anywhere in half term can be a bit dodgy, but this wasn't any worse than it would be at any other time I suppose. Bowling alleys are horrible soulless places, crammed with children and arcade machines, but we knew that before we went. If you want to bowl, you have to put up with this, we don't have anything like All Star Lanes down this way. So, on hitting the bowling alley first, we booked a lane for later, and then had three hours to kill...
The town centre is a mess of rubbish mini malls, each one full of rubbish shops. The highlights were a Waterstones and an HMV, but we could have been in any rubbish shopping centre in any town. AND, I say HMV was a highlight, but that's pretty poor really, all overpriced faux-bargain DVD box sets. Food was limited to greasy spoon cafes, and even the Wetherspoon was closed for a few days. We were really about to give up, until we turned into North Street and found a Pizza Express! This is the only feature of Ashford that was an improvement on Folkestone. We sat there for a couple of hours (service was a bit slow and they messed up one pizza), and had a really nice lunch, the Trifolata pizza is QUITE GOOD
Trifolata NEW
A feast of five mushrooms: porcini, portobello, shitake, oyster and closed cup, with smoked mozzarella, fresh rosemary and garlic with a drizzle of luxurious white truffle oil
Mostly teh closed cup and portobello mushrooms obviously, lesser amounts of the more unusual numbers, and I'm not sure I could really taste the truffle oil over the tomatoes. Also the big sprigs of rosemary are a bit wasted, would be better to sprinkle just the little tender leaves on it. It was nice though, and I will order it again. Yes, that's the pizza they messed up first time round, just for future refernce "no cheese" means "no cheese, not even the mozzarella", thanks.
After this we were in a happy enough mood to put up with anything Ashford could throw at us. We tried a couple of pubs, but they looked a bit ropey, so ended up at the Smith and Jones, which I think is new, and that was good too. Like a nicer Wetherspoons, probably a horrible cattle market in the evenings, but nice and comfortable on an afternoon when everyone else was at work.
Bowling was good, one game each, we need more practice before we head off for our commuters Christmas bowling day though.
Yesterday also, House had arrived, so we watched a couple of episodes when we got home. Bit grim and upsetting actually, but a great series.
I'm nearly ready to give up on Lost, series three episode three was a bit rubbish. I can't believe they're sticking to their original plot at all, it still feels like they're making it up as they go along.
2006 :: Comment / reply
Pictures
So, after 16 months of owning a G3 iPod, I’m thinking of giving it all up and going back to CDs…
My first replacement was swapped out by Apple Europe quite quickly - they picked up from my office on Monday, and a new, brown-boxed Pod was on my desk by Friday. Not bad, eh?
Yesterday morning I put my G3 in its cradle (first day back at work etc), and within 30 seconds I knew something was up - I was able to watch the drive space increase within Explorer, and before I could do anything, my Pod had been wiped of all data. I undocked, scanned for Artists and found my full library intact. Problem was, that’s all that was left: the data/text for the library. Try and actually play an album, and it finishes in five seconds.
I made an appointment with the Genius Bar @ The Apple Store, Regent Street London. I didn’t want to mess with the Pod in case it could be recovered. Anyone that’s been to a G-Bar will know the boys there are quite removed from reality. I tried to explain what I thought happened and he wasn’t interested, mumbling something about regen’ing the software, formatting and wiping everything off. Usually I wouldn’t have minded but this time I didn’t have a backup. However, I had no choice, I had to agree.
Then I thought, hang on, I don’t want the same one back - why would I? So, bravely, I asked for a brand new G3 Pod. Lo and behold, I got one (albeit brown-boxed). The guy had just given up. I asked how many G3’s they swap out in a week… 30-40 minimum.
I tried my hand again: “If I pay the additional ££ for a colour Pod, could I do that today?” The flippancy of the reply is what forced me to write this today: “I take it you haven’t heard of Apple’s upgrade path? Throw the old kit in the bin and buy a new model.” Normally I’d find that funny, but I’m one of those people who paid £400 for the “best product on the planet”. My first Pod had hard errors on the surface; the 2nd current one lost everything; now I’m on to my third. Hardly what I expected when I paid my money in good faith.
To cut a long story short, I left the Apple Centre with a new 2003 G3 - more than likely one with a battery that only lasts three hours or so. Either that or it’s reconditioned. It’s fully wrapped in protective plastic, but, frankly, nothing would surprise me.
It’s quicker and more cost effective for Apple to swap out old for new. It seems common practice in many cases nowadays.
The whole experience has left me quite disillusioned by Apple. I really thought they had a grasp on their new business, but am increasingly left with the impression that what they actually have a grasp of is extensive media. With so much good coverage, the bad just gets brushed under the carpet.
Am I alone in thinking this? Feeling “had” by Apple
