Archive for May, 2009

History of Advertising

Published May 17th, 2009 in stop motion, retro, era of cheap plastic, shell tracksuit, 1980s, 80s and advertising. 2 Comments

Toyota Corolla - South Africa - 1984
This is so 80s! it makes no apologies, It is the best Toyota ad ever; The catchy tune, clothing, robot dancing, stop motion movements. It’s so exciting you’ll feel like buying the car, but you can’t, you wouldn’t even be able to find a second hand one so much time has passed. Can someone let me know did this ad appear cheesy at the time or what? Surely it must have I can’t believe that styles can change that much.

Ford Fiesta mk2 - Spain - n.d.
The mk2 was produced from 1983-1988. This ad boasts five gears and the dashboard looks quite “modern” so I’d guesstimate its from 1988. he music isin’t great, but stop-motion shots of 80s clothing definitely places this one in the museum of cheesyness.

Overthinking

Published May 4th, 2009 in dudley moore and piano. 0 Comments

Two intellectuals - played by Dudley Moore and Peter Cook - deconstructing the lyrics of a innuendo laden boogie woogie song with hilarious results.

Beethoven’s Piano

Published May 4th, 2009 in dudley moore, not victor borge, only joking, xeonphobia, comedy, jingoism and piano. 0 Comments

Rule Britannia. Fantastico, I’ve almost mastered 00:01 - 00:40 as my party piece. The above video isn’t me playing, but lets pretend it is.

Dudley Moore was a genius. I never laughed at a instrumental performance before.

1and1 sucks

Published May 2nd, 2009 in fool me once, once bitten twice shy, poor service, customer support nightmare, blacklist, renewal scam, problems, bad registrars, 1and1 sucks and sucks. 2 Comments

1and1 is a domain registrar. I used them last year to register a novelty domain that now has a successful blog on it. I chose them because - at the time - their price was the best around. I intended to transfer the domain to my favourite registrar (GoDaddy) before it expired.

However about 10 months in I got an automated email from 1and1 saying they had just charged my credit card, I logged into the control panel and say that “Auto renew” or something similar was enabled, so I blamed myself for not turning that off previously, and for not cancelling the PayPal billing agreement.

However, a WHOIS showed that 1and1 hadn’t actually added another year to the expiration date. I emailled their customer support address and the responder, whom I assume is based in India, said, in a roundabout manner, that the extra year would only be added on the expiration date.

Now, if you know about domains, then you’ll realise the problem this creates. If I transfer the domain away, say today, then by the time that original expiration date comes around the domain will be with another registrar and 1and1 will get to keep my money, without having provided any service, that is what is known as 100% profit, good for them, but a textbook rip off for me.

Today I got an automated email from 1and1 reminding me to renew the domain. WTF they already took the money, sounds like my friend in India doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I have little time to bad registrars, and having encountered multiple problems the time has come to jump ship, and transfer the domain away. Yes, I’ll lose USD 8.88 approx, but it has to be done.

Goodbye 1and1 I will never use your services ever again, this was your a second chance.

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