SofaKingCool

Unless it is another DFS advert.

I don’t normally make a point of watching the adverts on TV, in fact I have missed the end of many programs due to me channel hopping during the ad breaks.  There is one advert that seems to be getting more and more annoying every time I have the misfortune of seeing it, the ad in question is for DFS.

It seems every time DFS decide to have another push on unusually large sofa’s they just change the sound track and reorder the sofa shots?  I have just watched one of these ad’s and it featured the same red leather rounded corner suite, the same leather and fabric combo sofa and the same 4 seater with a footstool attached to the end seat!  Not only is it really annoying but it isn’t doing DFS any favours because it seems they only sell a combination of three sofa’s.

Excuse me for flying of on a tangent, but writing about this has made me think about the point of the DFS adverts.  They are almost always advertising a sale of some description (which appear to run all year round) yet I have never ever seen the furniture for sale at it’s full price.  I realise that retailers cannot offer products at discounted prices unless they have been at the higher price for at least three months, but for some reason DFS never advertise their products at full price???

All of these things that I have written about make me very wary of DFS and their pricing structure.  How can any company offer all of their products at up to 50% off all year round when they never get the chance to recoup the losses during the “non sale” times?  I do however know where DFS save themselves some money….  The creative team that they use to write, produce and direct their stupid freaking adverts!

Everything else adverts, annoying ads, cheap, DFS, fake discounts, sofas

As you are probably aware I am an xbox 360 user and a subscriber to the xbox live service.  I have been for many years and have always let the small problems that xbox live and Microsoft have pass without much complaint, until now.

I am a subscriber to Major Nelsons xbox blog, for those who don’t know who Major Nelson is, he works for the xbox live development team.  Everyday my RSS reader is filled with news about up and coming releases, demo’s and game content.  Overall this is a very good source of xbox news as it is always 100% accurate, but recently I have noticed a trend that is beginning to annoy me more and more.  That trend is Microsoft and the xbox live team only releasing content for American subscribers.

Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a post in my reader from Major Nelson’s blog announcing the “Xbox Live Marketplace Black Friday Sale”.  I was quite impressed at the range of content and games that had been discounted by up to 33%, until I attempted to download something.  I was met with a message informing me that my country wasn’t eligible for discount and it was only offered to US users.  So I decided to post my distaste on the Major Nelson blog basically saying how unhappy I was that this offer was only open to US residents.  My post was responded to by a barage of stupid people saying things like “stop whining xbox is American so of course we are going to get more stuff”.  This really wound me up simply because Xbox is marketed and sold in the UK so why shouldn’t we get a slice of the reduced price goodies?

There were other comments made suggesting that it could be due to copyright or licensing restrictions, this couldn’t be the case as two of the games are UK games and all the content is already available at full price worldwide.

This trend has continued today, I noticed that there is a nice new crappy little festive addon to the xbox dashboard, which is available in the US but nowhere else.  If this trend continues then I will be taking a trip to my local Gamestation with all my games and console and trade it all in for a PS3.

Gaming stuff major nelson, microsoft, microsoft rippoff, xbl, xbox live

That time of year has rolled around again, its time for large groups of people to spend money on someone that they have only spoken to twice in the last twelve months.  Yep that’s right its Christmas, which by itself is a very happy time but combine this with the obligatory secret Santa tradition and things almost always turn ugly.

We have just decided that our Secret Santa was to be done by team rather than department.  This way there will be a lot more thought and a lot more fun in the gift buying and exchanging.  I work in a very small team of six people and feel I know them quite well, however I speak to some in other teams by email every day and wouldn’t have a clue who they are or what they are really like.  Some people are unhappy about this decision taken by individual teams as we are all in the same department and should stick together.  Yeah, that’s a nice idea but in practice it will never be as much fun as buying for the people you work side by side with every day.

I say the secret santa idea should be scrapped and all the money that people agreed to spend on one another should be stuck into a beer fund and let everyone get pissed at the end of the last working day.

Everything else christmas, merry fucking christmas, secret santa, xmas

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There appears to be a new wave of Phishing scams doing the rounds, this time it isn’t preying on the old or wealthy but the young gamers out there.

I am a gamer and also a web savvy type of guy but not everyone who is into gaming is as up to date with the world wide web.  With consoles offering full online capabilities more and more people are buying computers to make use of their broadband connection.  This has brought a whole new world of trouble into the homes of innocent Internet newbies.

Once upon a time the only people who were capable of being “phished” were those who used email and generally used the internet on a regular basis.  Now users of Xbox Live (Microsofts online gaming service) are getting caught up in the phishing scams.

I receieved a message from someone on my xbox friends list called KELTS REVENGE, the message told me to visit a website to get 2100 free microsoft points. The website in question simply asks the user for his or her Gamertag, password and email address.  As most people will assume that the password that is being requested is your xbox live password, the scammer receiving the data will be able to hijack your xbox live account and get access to all your personal data such as your real name, address and credit card details.

Microsoft points are a type of cyber currency used for buying games and content through the xbox live service, these points have no resell value and can only be used to buy content and games on your xbox.  Microsoft has released a new xbox360 dashboard with a brand new feature that allows you to buy content as a gift to people on your friends list using Microsoft points.  If anyone was to get access to your xbox live account they could very easily spend all your points buying things for themselves then cancel your account in a heartbeat.

There will be lots of people falling for this type of scam because of the high cost of Microsoft points (about £17 for 2100).  The average price for a game on xbox live is 800 points so most people would jump at the opportunity to get cheap or free Microsoft points.  I have already mentioned lots of people who are old hands at playing games online may not have had much dealings with life on the internet and would not be aware of such scams.

I urge anybody who receives one of these messages to report the user to xbox live and if you are feeling charitable message everyone on their friends list warning them of the scam.

Link Dump
Links to various sites mentioned in this blog.

Xbox
Microsoft

* Phishing Image credits go to http://www.konsolkoll.se/

Gaming stuff microsoft, phishing, scam, scammers, scumbags, xbox, xbox live