RICA... well stupid

RICA is forced upon us in South Africa (it's some act where you have to register your sim card so they can track you in case your number/sim is used in crime). I registered today, because I upgrade my cellphone contract tomorrow (or it's due anyway).

But if you, like me, are a bit of a techno guy, then you don't get snail mail anymore. So how do you prove where you stay? My edgars accounts, my vodacom acccount, my bank statements, all goes to my email now (I started that just before RICA came, and now what?!). So I went to the police station to fill in an affidavit to state I stay where I stay. It worked fine... but what bothered me about it all is that my address is on my ID, and my ID is required for RICA. So yeah, stupid if you ask me. :-/

Spier - Moyo bathrooms

I don't know how some stuff gets past senior management. Maybe they don't know or they don't see it. But I can't see how a place that asks so much money to eat there, can be as crass and tactless about which toilet is which...

What do you hate buying the most?

There is always a cognitive dissonance in me when I have to buy toilet paper, and refuse bags.

In retail terms, those are called "grudge purchases". This is because, well, the one you pull through your buttocks, and the other you just throw away. The point is, you don't want to spend a lot of money on stuff that you just want to throw away.

I remember once buying toilet paper, saying, "I can't believe I pay this much for what I'm going to do with it". Then the sales assistant replied, "yes that's a lot of money for what it's for". But you see there is a difference. It's for a clean buttocks - now that's a worthy cause, one I'm willing to spend some money on. But what you do with it... not stuff I want to spend money on. A grudge buy. I don't buy the cheapest toilet paper anymore... because I think that's a rip off too. So the lesser of the two evils, are the double ply thick decent toilet paper.

On to refuse bags. Now with these I haven't found anything that I am really satisfied with. The expensive ones are definately better... but are they worth the premium? Searching for the above images, I found there's a gazillion different types of refuse bags... clearly a diverse market. But where do I fit? I like cheap, because... well, I'm sure you can figure it out, but I am not happy with them. They tear at the worst times, they are just not worth it... but neither are the ones with draw strings, or scented etc. or heavy duty. Just give me decent quality at a decent price. That's all.

What do you hate buying, but have to? What is the brand/choice you've settled on and why?

BING story

I sat at work, and noticed my colleague had BING open in their "side" bar in IE. Oh, I didn't know she's such a techie that she can even knows about BING. Turns out, no, she doesn't know anything about BING, she just types "google" into microsoft's search engine, and continues to the top link. :-)

McDonalds on Durban road (Bellville RSA)

I was at McDonalds a week or two back... and I got stuck in the drive through. They were cashing up or something (it's a 24h McD's and it was about 8:30 AM), and but it took me 25m to get through it... And I didn't order anything, I needed to be somewhere else at 9:00 so I needed to get out there quickly.

So I was unhappy, and I voted with my feet... yeah... but that doesn't change anything. So I emailed McDonalds South Africa, and logged a complaint. But you see, they still have not come back to me. So my consumer blog is starting.

Consumer blog too

I've decided I'm going to give consumer reviews on products that I like, or dislike for whatever reason. It'll often be on the marketing of the product, or the packaging, or just the usage etc.

I'll be posting my first consumer review shortly...

Real Life Spammers...

I got a SPAM email today from Glenrand M-I-B... Except that it wasn't from them...

from: By Design
reply-to: postman@housemail.co.za
to: xxxxx@gmail.com (I removed my email here to reduce my possibility of SPAM in future)
date: Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:51 AM
subject: Policyholders reminder: get building cover at a premium rate
mailed-by: kscope.mcentre.co.za

I have a policy at Glenrand (my car is insured there), and I haven't had any problems with them. So they are reputable... more so than AIG I guess. :-)

Anyway, so I send them an email saying that these people are emailing from no-where, and it's the first time I've received such a SPAM email from them... and the fact that it's not sent by an email address at "glenrandmib.co.za" really reduces the authenticity of the email.

Also, the spammers has added a lot of their own detail to the mail (which makes it better I guess?) Colleen@kscope.co.za... but also a telephone number! So I phoned Colleen at 021-462-2291. Asked her how she got hold of my email addy... She asked if it was the first time I've received any emails from them, and I replied yes, and wanted to know where she got my email addy.

Well, she said they either got it from their "client" or from a website... My email is available in the world... but that still doesn't give you the right to just SPAM me...

What worries me though is the fact that I have a policy with glenrand, so they have a bit more information about me than they legally should have... and that's not cool.

www.kscope.co.za believes they give a special service... but in my honest opinion, it's just spam...

A quote from their website:
"Step 1: We find new clients for you by creating an email database of 10 000 prospects specifically for your products and services using international search engines. We have specific software that selects the prospects in your market. Your database of 10 000 new prospective clients could be local, national or international."