Amy, I love ya babes, but you’re a fucking mess.

Get yourself sorted, you are worth it!

Woohoo, theres a site dedicated to ceiling cat!

THE BESTEST LolCat this week:

Sacramento, Calif. resident Sara White, 20, faked being kidnapped to get out of a blind date. From the looks of her (i.e. crazy) and the sound of her elaborate hoax (i.e. crazy) she seems like a person who ought to be scared to go on a blind internet date because she probably also sent a fake picture and the numbers “36-24-36″ to her suitor before being sufficiently convinced he loved her for her “personality” to let him meet her “real” self in a local park, and anyone who would be lured in by that sort of person is probably a rapist in the first place.

Source - NBC news

Has she met Ann (Shoustal AKA Griffith AKA Raff)? Maybe they are related?

Perhaps she should have tried the popularity dialer in my links section?

VistaPrint, the online business card service, appears to be running a very dubious sideline in automatically subscribing people - against their wishes - to a discount service known as VPrewards.

It would seem that many people, including myself, have unwittingly been enrolled in a discount club called VPrewards and costing £9.95 per month. What appears to be happening is that when you order business cards or the like on Vistaprint.co.uk you are then charged £9.95 in subsequent months for a rewards scheme (discounts with name brands) that they say you opted into. This occurs after your initial order has been paid in full and you only notice it if you look closely at your subsequent credit card bill.

Like many aggreived customers I have absoloutely no recollection of seeing wording or clicking anything that represented an agreement to join the scheme. Like most people I am very vigilant on any e-commerce site I use. So either VistaPrint were very sneaky and got it past my eagle eyes, or they are simply making it up. Whatever the case they can supply no documentation to prove that I requested to be a subscriber.

The firm simply says it has my IP address to prove it: “You filled out an online questionnaire,” said Dinah Manner, customer service rep for VPRewards, the UK company which I was redirected to through my credit card company.

The company agreed to unsubscribe me but said it saw no reason to do anything to prevent it happening to others.

Instead VPrewards denies that this is a common complaint and to rub salt into the wound they say that refunds are only granted through the US office, unless you accept a ‘cheque in the post’, meaning you still have to pay the fee on your credit card.

Intriguingly www.vprewards.co.uk is not an active domain. It is owned by Adaptive Affinity Ltd, the Edgeware-based company calling itself VPRewards. The company communicates via an email address ‘membersavings@vpreward.co.uk’ but the email contains no company name or contact details. www.vprewards.com (which is active as the VPrewards web site) is owned by Nebraska-based US firm Adaptive Marketing.

But VistaPrint supplies no details about VPrewards on its own site and nothing beyond a home page is given on the VPrewards web site.

Some victims of this only notice the problem after months of being charged. It is made particularly hard to detect as no information relating to it is provided in writing or on the invoice for your original order. One victim writing on the web suggests the only way to clear the matter up for good is to cancel your credit card and sign up for a new one.

VPrewards.co.uk declined to be interviewed to discuss the matter further. I have emailed the Vistaprint PR team who also refuse to talk on the phone but instead have sent my complaint on to a customer service representative who did contact me by phone while i was out.

Meanwhile there are lots of similar complaints on internet forums, so it could be that hundreds if not thousands are affected. If you or anyone you know has been affected please phone the rant line (above) as I am passing this story on to BBC Watchdog and to the nationals.

What is most shocking is that there appear to be hundreds of customers who have experienced this rip-off. If you type in ‘vistaprint scam’ into Google you can see them for yourself. When I asked the UK operation to comment on this they said they were only aware of many happy customers on the VPRewards scheme.

The other fact about this case is that you are agreeing to buy from VistaPrint yet you end up also subscribing to something called VPrewards run by Adaptive Affinity Ltd., which may or may not be run by Affinity Marketing of Nebraska.

The fact is it takes many hours/days to sort this all out. It would seem totally reasonable to charge VistaPrint for the time out of your working day that is spent putting matters right. Perhaps some kind of class action would be appropriate in that respect. I am so concerned about this matter that I have opened another web site to detail the matter in depth.

What to do next? Please comment below to help others and then join the campaign group to ensure we bring this matter to the attention of Trading Standards, The Fraud Office, and the media….. please phone the number above and leave your name and a contact telephone number. Once there are more than half a dozen people that want to get involved I will be organising a meeting in central London to see what what can do. We must stop this scam - if only to save others from being caught in the trap.

Ok, so its 50 days until International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and I have come up with the following flyers for you to print out and distribute (one is UK and the other is International).

Click the thumbnails to see the full-size version (A4 size so get to printing):

responded to an article over at Times Online that reads like this:

As a doctor myself, I know that alot of these are THEORIES.

There is no FACTUAL link between psychosis, schitzophrenia, other mental disorders and cannabis.

In fact, there is no KNOWN cause for schitzophrenia AT ALL.

Like anything, cannabis is addictive. So is chocolate, shopping, and sex. Let’s try and class those as a drug, shall we?

The reason that this storyline is so important? It all comes down to one thing - The government cannot tax cannabis.

I personally do not touch the stuff, and have no desire to.
But I have seen those who had a medical need for it benefit greatly.

I agree with the chicken/egg analgy. Its very similair to the MMR/autism debate. Autism is usually diagnosed around the same time that the MMR is given, yet we have no Factual scientific link.

I can only hope that people will stop reading poppycock stories and look for the truth!

The Madeleine story touches us all, especially parents. Few of us could honestly say we have never done anything which might have put our children at risk; for example breaking the speed limit with the kids in the back of the car.

The very idea that comments from the public on the McCanns behaviour should be censored is a disgrace, in my opinion.

I’ve read all here, and it seems to me that the majority are critical of the McCanns as parents. I am very critical too, and this word “mistake” which people keep using is the understatement of the year.

One doesn’t need parenting classes to know that leaving such very young children alone is wrong. Wrong! To leave toddlers alone like that — even if the worst that befalls them is hysterical crying when finding themsleves alone — is cruel. But add to that the dangers of suffocation, strangulation, fire, choking … what if Madeleine had got out of bed and assisted one of the twins out of theirs? What if they’d wandered out the door of their own accord? One of the twins could be dead or missing in such circumstances.

My children were babysat by their grandparents until the age of 9-10, when a local babysitter took over for us. Why why why did the McCanns not use a babysitter when one was obviously available?

The reference to “gardens” is a red herring. I have seen an aerial (helicopter) shot of the restaurant which also took in the apartment, and the distance shocked me. They left three children under four years old and went THAT distance to have a meal and drinks with their friends? And they did this every night?? It’s UNBELIEVABLE.

And their father says what they did was not considered bad parenting??

We, the public, had this story right ‘in our faces’ at top of the News, night after night after night. The McCanns were portrayed as poor sad victims - along with little Madeleine, who indeed is the poor sad victim, god help her. But NOBODY came on air to express any criticism of the parents. If there was any, it was kept well away from us on Sky. I saw none.

The very idea that we the public, concerned for that poor little girl AND looking askance at her parents, should be gagged, then or now, is preposterous.

You don’t have to believe this, but during the period of the early coverage, I said to my husband, “I’ll bet that at some stage, irrespective of the outcome, there will be a backlash against the McCanns on the grounds of negligence. It’s incredible that there hasn’t been already”.

I sincerely hope that no newspaper or TV channel was actually censoring critical comments in those early days. TV channels gave almost unlimited publicity to people who in my opinion are guilty of gross negligence. The appeal was warranted for the little girl — but NOT WITHOUT discussion of her parents’ behaviour.

I wish the McCanns to be tried and prosecuted for neglect amongst other charges. But their protestations of innocence and “mistake” do not sit well with me at all.

OF COURSE my priority is to see Madeleine found safe! It’s ridiculous that I should even have to say that before signing off. But I’m also fascinated to see that the vast majority of people seem to have felt the same as me, even if they had nowhere to express it in the early days.

Frankly, the media got this one wrong. Publicity in order to help find the child? Sure! But treating the parents as being saintly and without blame was a big mistake, and the public are now telling the media so. In spades. And I see nothing vindictive (in the vast majority of cases) at all.

Hmmm, just watched the BBC coast programme for many reasons, the main being the beautiful Neil Oliver.

His voice.

Yum!

Almost as bad as my obsession with Richard Westcott from BBC Breakfast.

Isn’t he just lovely?

I would sooo have his babies!

Started my new job last week and I must say that I LOVE IT!

I have all of the responsibilty of a freelancer, the budget of a very successful company, and a regular (and pretty damn good) salary.

I have great benefits, good healthcare, and colleagues I respect.

I get to travel with my role, and will enjoy meeting all of the different people at all of our locations. Luckily, our headquarters is close to home.

My title is a very formal one, and luckily most people do not see that as threatening, I think.

I really love my role as well. I spend equal amounts of time developing and designing at the moment, and I get great pleasure from the two. In the coming months I will be implementing new information systems and streamlining current ones, so it looks like I will have plenty of challenges.

The people I work with are very professional and carry vast amounts of knowledge. I have learned so much in the past two weeks about this industry, and I am sure there is much much more to learn.

Do you know what motivates a programmer?

I just read a great article about what motivates programmers over at Assemble Ron - click here to check it out!

Re floods:
Yes, the man that was stuck in the grate and died was on my street. It took rescue 3 hours to get to him, and he died a further 2 hours later. I cannot help but feel guilty for being away. I would have insisted on amputation and removal if I would have been here. He would have survived.

We had a great honeymoon in Malta - they were having a really bad heatwave - degrees of 40 and above in celcius - so we spent alot of time swimming at the beach or in one of the 4 pools at the resort.

We saw some filming for a tv show or perhaps a film with that lass that plays Eileen Grimshaw - real name Sue Cleaver - from Corrie at one of the beaches - Ramla bay on Gozo Island. She was dead stuck up and full of herself. She came up and said hello to me at one point. I didn’t know who she was, but she thought everyone knew her. I don’t watch those soap operas - I feel that they cater to boring mindless housewives with nothing better to do.

I turned to Rob and said that she looked like one of those old biddies who are always trying to flog insurance on the tv ads.

I did feel for her though, they had her in lots of clothing on a very hot day - about 40 degrees, and she couldn’t even cool off in the water.

They had some nice plastic fantastic models there who were full of silicone. The staff were also trying to tell the Maltese people where they could and couldnt go on the beach and in the water - the people laughed at them and carried on their way. How pompous were they?

I have photos of it all that I will post later - and send to Heat magazine!

On a plus side, I have went down 2 dress sizes. Although I have eaten more than usual with the 2 honeymoons and the wedding, I have done alot of exercise in the last few weeks.

There will be great honeymoon photos in the gallery later, once I have sorted out the insurance stuff for the flood damage and get some sandbags in - everyone is out of stock at the moment. I am on the list for the council and have arranged to get some when MKM get a delivery today or tomorrow.