Friday, October 27, 2006

Noon Food Products

Hello!

Recently, mich and I have been boycotting the local (eurest) cafeteria for personal reasons (ie. we don't appreciate eating slop). To fulfill our midday fiesting habit, we know buy a bunch of grub on monday, and live off that for the week.

One of our main dilemnas when choosing food at the local store is (of course) quantity - most of the dishes sold in france offer ok food, but the quantities wouldn't satisfy a midget on a diet. I'm talking 200 to 350 grams (yes you read it right) - GRAMS (!!!) of food. Now I weigh in at a svelt 122kg (I've lost weight...), so 350 grams of food is pretty much a hors-d'oeuvre for me.

Thankfully, our local 'Monop' stocks a British brand of food called Noon, and their dishes offer 450 grams of delish indian and thai food. I mean the stuff is actually made with real ingredients, and tastes pretty damn good, and the quantity is nice (when complemented by our chicken wing platter as an 'entrée'). The only damn problem with the Noon products is the plastic film covering the dish- When you take the scorching dish out of the microwave and try (I insist on the verb 'try') to peel that film off, you know you're in for a disaster - In nine out of ten cases, either your white shirt or the whole kitchen gets sprayed with Chicken Masala.

Being fond admirors of Noon products, we decided to put ourselves to use for once and send them an email, complementing them on their food, whilst also telling them about our plastic film issue. Here's the email:

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Hello,

We are in Paris, France, and (almost) happy consumers of Noon products. We very much enjoy the actual food, but we have "issues" with the packaging. The number of times we have scorched ourselves (and our
shirts) whilst handling your products is innumerable.

Please continue to provide good quality/quantity food - but please put some more money on the packaging R&D budget.. It will be very much appreciated.

On another note, do you sell the products directly to end-users ? We only have two of your dishes available at our place of purchase, and they always carry a low stock. Perhaps we could purchase directly with
you ?

Best regards,

Michael & Dimitri
Paris, France
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We haven't got a response yet, but we'll keep you posted. And if you are looking for some decent lunch food, try Noon, it's good stuff ;)

ciao!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Wookie !

So had this message from Dimbo on my answering-machine today. The guy is seriously demented...

Oh, and on another note - Asterisk kicks ass !

Friday, October 06, 2006

Free - French ISP suck ass

So... My ISP (or soon to-be-ex-ISP) have done it again.. They've manage to screw me over.. again.. It blows my mind how any semi-serious business can function - with a "screw the client" principle... First off, it's next to impossible to reach any living creature on there so-called "hotline" - second, if you should be one of the 5 people-a-day that manage to get through to their "hotline" - the "person" that greets you, is there to do anything but to help you..

I've been exploi^h^h^ha client with Free (this time around) since September 2004 - so over 25 months - and order to get a new ADSL modem (Freebox v5) - and not getting ripped - I should be subscribed for at least 25 months (the swap will cost me 30EUR - instead of the usual 90EUR)..

Great.. I access their site to order the new box.. I'm greeted with a nice message, saying the swap will cost me 90EUR.. now hold on - why is this ?? Well, according to the "hotline" I changed my subscription to "degroupage total" a couple of months back - and they reset my service level..

Now what _really_ pisses me off, is the fact that when doing the subscription changed, I carefully read the information on the page whether or not be subscription would be reset - and it was not stated ! Again according to the "hotline" this is specified in the "Terms and Conditions" which I have obviously not read..

So - what to do ? I can either just bleed the full 90EUR for the modem swap (and have my subscription reset again) - or I can cancel my subscription and choose another ISP (this will also ending up costing me around 90EUR - as my subscription has been reset, and you cannot cancel without charge before at least 12 months or so)...
Last but not least, I can keep my current modem, and current subscription.. and just have the bittersweet taste of Free once again getting away with raping me in broad daylight..

This is far from being over...

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Here we go again



La Poste has decided to raise the prices on stamps again... A couple of years ago it was 40 centimes for a stamp for France and Europe (20g).. Here are the new prices:

Principaux tarifs pour 20g:
* France: 0.54EUR
* France économique: 0.49EUR
* International zone 1: 0.60EUR (CEE + Suisse)
* International zone 2: 0.85EUR

It's a bloody travesty..They keep raising the prices, and their service level remains the same: useless

I loathe La Poste - from the very bottom of my heart... May each and every postman meet a vicious rottweiler on his route.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Who got the last drink?

Well well, I guess we finally have the results!

Lasse capitulated pretty early in the game, leaving mich with the "rough" task of finishing his drinks alone! Here are a couple pics from Friday night. As you all can see, Lasse is looking a bit "tired", probably from the long train ride over....

before:

after:

I've got one word: FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!