Thankfully, the nitendo is white, the psp is black and the computer doesn’t have an internet connection so my 9 year old niece dumbed things down for me! In a stream of conscious type of excitement, she told me, ‘I’d like game x for the white one and game y for the black one’.

The long and short of it is that she’d like Age of Empires for the computer and MySims for the white one (sorry, the nintendo DS). But I was a bit freaked out when she told me about one of the games she already has. It’s called Imagine: Babies for the Nintendo. I didn’t believe her that it was an actual game. But it is! It’s so incredibly sexist and demeaning that I can’t believe it’s allowed to be sold. As you’ll see from the description below, it’s targeted specifically at girls.

Basically she has to pretend to be a babysitter and earn money.

Here’s a description from game.co.uk

Embody a young student who visits her grandmother’s house for the summer. Your grandmother leaves to go on holiday and leaves you in charge of her house. During her absence you will have to maintain the house and even decorate it to your taste. In order to do this you will need to earn money by taking care of all your neighbour’s babies, where you will find your vocation–babysitting!

Imagine: Babies Features:

* Embody a young babysitter and take of your neighbour’s babies all with their own personalities!
* Take care of 6 babies (one after the other), each with a distinctive character.
* Prepare their bottle and baby food in the kitchen, check on the amount of food in stock and buy the right food according to their needs.
* Rock the babies in a cradle, put on the soothing radio or move the mobile to help them sleep or to calm them down.
* Change their nappies to keep them clean, keep an eye on their health and dress them up with different clothes
* Entertain the babies: Play with them and their toys, play music to make them dance and take them into the garden to play on swings and other garden toys
* Exchange information, photos and clothing with other players through Wi-Fi
* Keep the house clean: Use fun mini-games to create a welcoming home for the babies: wash up, clean and vacuum, paint the walls, mow the grass, trim hedges and drive away spiders!
* Make the house to your own taste: Use the money you earn and the vouchers you receive in succeeding in your missions, buy items at the shops to decorate the house

/Rant

The Direct Marketing sector regards the telephone as one of its most successful tools. Consumers experience telemarketing from a completely different point of view: more than 92% perceive commercial telephone calls as a violation of privacy.

Telemarketers make use of a telescript – a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.

How long do I need to do this to get to 25,000,000 people?

I’m sure that everything that can be said has already been said but I’m absolutely amazed at how much damage one can do with 2 CD’s…

…Once the deal is posted out to them. Then all they have to do is post the yea/nay forms back to HQ.

It’s no wonder the British are masters at satire.

It’s Sunday evening and I’m wondering what programme will caress me gently into sleep mode before tomorrow’s return to work. Hmm, Channel 6 have a listing for “Law and Order” at 9.30pm. Now I like Law & Order, but there’s so many repeats on so many TV stations that I like to check in advance what episode I’ll be watching.

Channel 6’s website is weird and very non-functional. For example, their main page advertises ‘The Airfield Sessions’ (live music) but doesn’t tell me when it starts or when it’s on*. Crucially, I can’t find any info on what tonight’s episode of Law & Order is about.

Heck, they don’t even have listings for Sat or Sunday…but they do have pretty girls** who present the music videos. So that’s alright then!

* Update – There’s no link on the main page but there is this page but it’s effectively a dead link!
** Are there any male presenters (not voiceover) on Channel 6?

Maybe they should call the station Chanel 6?

Sigh, here we go again…

A Brazilian friend is moving to a new apartment. It’s all a bit sudden…her partner died recently and she can’t afford the rent. Her English isn’t very good and she’s a bit nervous about ‘officialdom‘ because of her dealings with the immigration people. She wanted to cancel her NTL subscription and asked me to do it.

Long story short…I eventually spoke to a real human being and explained the situation. It went something like this…
.

– You can’t cancel on her behalf.
– But her English isn’t great and she’s in a bad place right now.
– She’ll have to phone herself to cancel. We’re open until 10pm [I maybe misunderstood the closing time]
– But she’s working until late [Spar-type shop] and she’s gotta move out tomorrow. [I didn't mention she didn't have the money to waste waiting and waiting for someone to answer the phone. Nor would she understand the 'press 1 for, press 2 for...]
– I’m sorry but she’ll have to phone herself.
– Do you have anyone there who speaks Portugese or Spanish?
– Err, I’ve no idea. [Puts on helpful hat]. You could write in to cancel?
– Let me get this straight. You’ll accept a cancellation letter from me but you won’t accept a verbal cancellation from me?
– Yes.
– 10% of the population are non-nationals now. Do you have anyone there who speaks foreign languages.
– Err, I’ve no idea.

Let’s be honest realistic. If we wrote the letter, NTL would lose it and they’d maintain they never got it. They’d chase her for the arrears, threatening her with court action etc and further traumatise her.

So I’ve now got to send registered letters to NTL, my friend, myself, and copy the bank to cancel the direct debit. And, in six months time, I’ll almost certainly write again that they’re chasing her for money that she doesn’t owe.

In late 2005, Dublin City Council met to decide how to spend their budget for 2006. Item no. 56 concerned alarming reports that children were playing football in the park in my estate. Obviously, this was a bad thing so they allocated €100 (plus €1,500 labour) to errect a sign prohibiting ball games in the park. And so it came to pass. The 10-year olds immediately understood this new prohibition and stopped playing ball games.

Unfortunately, after a week, they got bored and reversed the sign so it wasn’t readible from the road. After another week, they got bored again and removed the sign. So the poor, sad, lonely pole has stood naked, but proud, for the past year. No ball games remember!!

Thankfully, Dublin City Council met again in late 2006. They reviewed how the allocated money for 2006 was spent. When item no. 56 came up, there were mutters, there were frowns, there were even some creased brows. We’ll never know thanks to the (ahem) FOI laws but maybe it was Cyprian Brady, T.D. (he of 939 1st preference votes or 2.7%*) who muttered, ‘Those cheeky 10-yr olds are now 11 and they’ll probably have their first pets. Let’s spend this year’s €100 (plus €1,500 labour) on different signs.’ Maybe it was Tony Gregory, TD, who agreed with him and countered, ‘as a school teacher on sabbatical since 1979**, I think we should issue the signs in Irish. You know, for cultural reasons, loike.’ They all thought it was a wonderful idea and voted it through as item no. 55.

And so it came to pass. Dublin City Council worker’s descended on my estate. In the same way that a dog pisses on a lamp post, the council workers put up posters on every lamp post in my estate (ed: I thought the election was over?) basically saying, ‘the dog has done it’s duty, now do yours.’ But in the Irish language!

Thing is, it’s probably a good thing. There’s no money left to actually cut the grass in the park and it’s literally knee-high. There were a couple of kids lying in the park as I walked home and you could barely see them. So, it’s probably a good thing that there’s no dogshit in the park otherwise the kids could get some nasty diseases.

Oh, and I now know the Irish word for dog pooh!

*Cyrian Brady got 939 first preference votes (2.7%) and he got elected on the eight count. Frankly, that’s shameful. Our dear leader, Bertie, got 12,734 first preference votes (36.8%) and was elected on the first count.

** Tony Gregory is a teacher and a civil servant. He was elected to the Dail (Parliament) 28 years ago (?) so his ‘old’ job is kept open for him. A temp has covered his job for the past 28 years. He could give up the €100k politician’s gig and return to his €50k teacher’s job. On the upside, a school teacher gets 3 months summer holidays so that’s some compensation for the drop in wages!! Oh, no, wait….

I live in the Dublin Central constituency, btw.