domdavis.com

OK, this is going to be for my benefit as well as everyone else because I’m a little fed up of the National Lottery site. I got another email today telling me that there was exciting news about my ticket (woo!) and I needed to click on the link to check the message.

So I click on the link, it tells me I need to log in. Fair enough, except it never seems to let me log in first time round [note to self: the username and password are the ones you think they are, just enter them in again when it errors and all will be good]. Anyway, a bit of faffing and looking up of emails later and I confirm I am trying to log in correctly and just try again. Get to my account page and… nothing. No messages, no alerts, no nothing telling me anything about my winnings.

Hmmm… a bit off.

But then I seem to remember the same thing last time. I spent absolutely ages hunting around the site trying to find somewhere that showed me even the slightest bit of information. Finally I clicked on My Subscriptions from the My Account page and got to see that I had won all of £10. Great. I’ve got a wish list of toys that now covered in excess of £30,000 (not to mention that I could really do with retiring and living the life of Riley for the rest of forever) and they’re getting all excited about £10. That’s not exciting news at all. From now on I want my email titles from the lottery to be customised with the following:

£10: Your lottery winnings: Meh.
>£10 <£100: News about your ticket.
>£100 < £500: Exciting news about your ticket.
>£500 < £1,000,000: You’ve won new toys, courtesy of The National Lottery!
>£1,000,000: Email to my boss: Dom says stuff your job!

[Oh - and so I can find this post when I'm swearing at the site next time I try to log in a few random keywords: national lottery lotto login logging in winnings]

So let me introduce you to what I call Dom economics. Please bear in mind that this is pre 2006 Dom economics, post 2006 Dom economics being [for the most part] really quite sensible, however, the old form does seem to be making a [limited] comeback.

Every so often (daily) I need to engage in retail therapy. This can range from a few pounds worth of stationary, a new book, some sweets and other small items all the way to £2000 cameras, £3000 hand made swords and £3500 monster rigs (gaming computers to the layman). We shall call this: The Impulse.

The Impulse defines the level of cash spent. Sub £100 impulses are quite common, £3000 impulses are rarer and, crucially, are slightly easier to ignore. Recently I had, courtesy of Heroes, a £100 or so Impulse which (due to the new Dom economics) I studiously ignored for a couple of days. This Impulse sat and festered for a few days until it managed to convince my brain that ‘what the hell, simply looking for the item won’t be a problem‘. So we looked. We are now on The Slippery Slope.

I found what I was looking for on the web and discovered that it was actually quite affordable (especially now new Dom economics has had the foresight to set up a toys account) and, yes, it would push back the purchase of my new Uber rig a bit more but then I’ve been waiting for that for over 2 years and I don’t even know if I believe I’ll get it any more. And hey, it’s under £100. Well, it was before delivery and everything else, and it’s not that much over £100. And since we’re here we’ll take a look at everything else too see if there is something better or…. ooooh. I like that too. [Now admittedly there was a period of a few hours where new Dom economics managed to sway me and keep me sensible but we'll ignore that as it was defeated quite quickly]. Hmmm, that’s a couple of hundred. But we’ve already spent over £100 and its not that much more [note how Dom economics runs cost in parallel, not counting it as a single £300 cost]. This can snowball and end up with ‘well, if I don’t get those two items I can get this uber model and it’s only £x more‘ until such point as The Fear is felt. The Fear is very much dependant on the size of The Impulse, my current bank balance, outstanding credit card balances (ironically enough the larger these get the more reckless I get) and proximity to payday.

There are complications though. For example, say one of the items purchased has a refund due to an unexpected  discount. Well, I’ve already spent that money so I may as well buy something else with it and spending just a little more wont hurt, after all, £300 didn’t hurt and we did get a nice refund [notice how we've gone from spending less than £100 to spending another £300+, in Dom economics the amount actually spent is still the original sum with 'a bit extra we don't need to worry about'].

Now we enter the dangerous phase. The bit that says ‘hell, we deserve a treat, we’ve been good, we’ve been restrained, lets look at the uber expensive items‘. So I then start looking at computers/cameras/swords/whatever that cost in excess of a grand and wondering if slamming it on my credit card will really hurt me that much in the grand scheme of things. And while we’re spending, for example, £3000 on something, lashing out another £250 on an accessory isn’t really that much of an issue.

So, we’ve gone from spending less than £100 to spending in excess of £4000 in anything between 1 hour an 1 week (depending on The Fear again), however, Dom economics says we’ve only actually spent £100 + ‘a bit’ + £3000 + ‘a bit more’ - lets call it £3250ish. We then brace ourselves the next time we look at the bank balance… and breath a sigh of relief. ‘Of course, only the first £100 went on the cash card, the rest was on credit cards, I’ve got masses of money to last me until the end of the week. Hmmm,… there was a nice computer on the Alienware website… I wonder if I could afford that….‘. Once again we’re back to having only spent £100 and we’re free to act on the next Impulse. 

OK, so this time The Fear
kicked in around the £500 mark and we did put it all on our cash card with full knowledge that the toys account (which is there specifically for this kind of eventuality) can bail the main account out should I have over-stretched myself just a wee bit, new Dom economics being borne out of the fact that credit card bills in excess of £15,000 isn’t fun and extending the mortgage to pay for it isn’t really a good idea. I did come perilously close to splashing another £3000 (actually £3300 if we’re being honest) but I have had the foresight to stop any of my credit cards from actually being able to fund that kind of purchase and I need to know I’m getting a bonus this year before I make any large spends…. well, large spends over and above the iPhone… and the swords… and the glass… I think the toys account is going to be a little empty come the end of the year… I just hope there is enough in it to cover everything

I’ve always loved Katanas but have always viewed them as hideously expensive. I’m also increadibly picky about things like that wanting things to be ‘just so’ so I’ve never really seriously looked into getting real swords before. Instead I was content to pick up a couple of cheap fakes at an airshow (odd, I know, but they got their demographic a little wrong since no one at an airshow carries sizeable amounts of cash and by the end of it they were desperate to make a sale so I got a set for an absolute song) and have them on display for the past few years.

Of course recently I bought Godsend which is still a replica, but actually built to a better standard and much more like a real sword.  This is when I realised just how cheap forged (as opposed to folded) hand made katanas were. By cheap we’re talking hundreds but still 1/10th the price I thought they were. And I’ve always wanted one….

…so now, once again, I’m sat on a train carrying a sodding great big sword… except this time its a live blade. The blade itself is very nice (given the price) but the sword overall isn’t quite as nice as Godsend, not that I am complaining . In a change to the advertised plan I’m calling it Harmony and have sorted out lessons on how to use it properly (Bathgirl even went and had a chat with the British Transport police to find out what the law was regarding trolling round the country with this thing, and yes, I’ll be starting with a wooden training sword first as I don’t want to chop bits off myself by accident). Once I’ve got to a suitable level (and I’ve raised the cash) I am going to buy a custom made folded steel one which will set me back a few thousand. That one will be called Destiny. I can’t wait (although I am desperately fighting the urge not to wait and to use the power of credit ).

Turns out I was too late to get the nice special edition Ultraviolet sword that I randomly purchased at 2am Monday morning. There were only 200 released to the UK and I missed the last one sometime over the weekend. The word ‘arse’ springs to mind except the news is not so bad as it might be as the factory is still churning out the swords. The difference? The ones they are now making are unofficial. This means they can’t put the word ‘official’ on the box, they don’t come with a nice certificate of authenticity, whoever it is who owns the rights doesn’t get any money and they’re £135 cheaper. That’s it. Same materials, same quality, same factory, same people building it in the same way. It’s going to delay delivery a bit and it’ll fall into the category of ‘mass produced’ rather than ‘collectors item’ due to lack of bit of paper so it wont appreciate in value, but then I’m not collecting these to make money. Given the choice I would have preferred an official one but I’m not too overly bothered given the price drop

There’s nothing like waving a 4′ sharp Katana round the office for keeping people in line Godsend, the sword used by Hiro in Heroes (currently being shown on one of the BBC terrestrial channels and BBC HD) was sat on my desk when I got in to work this morning. I was rather expecting a plain brown cardboard shipping box since, while owning these things isn’t a problem, wondering about with them in public is somewhat highly illegal. Granted, the police probably wouldn’t bother me if I was just taking it straight home, but if I was to, for example, be in possession of it while walking along a platform full of football supporters where there is a massive police presence (as there was when I got off the train) they might take a dim view of things. So yeah, good thing I taped the box up a bit more and concealed most of the writing and pictures as I managed to casually walk passed them without problem

As has been requested by a number of people I’ve taken a few (crap) photos. Given it gets dark early and it’s quite reflective I really need to get my studio lights out and do a proper photoshoot, but I can’t be arsed at the moment. Will do so when both swords arrive. The astute among you will notice that I took the strap off as this makes it easier to put on the stand. The two swords below it are fakes - stainless steel, no edge and they’d fall to pieces if you hit anything with them too hard. Oh yeah - and I killed my banzai

Taken me a while to download these from the camera, but this is the view from the two windows in my hotel room when I last went to rock city. You’d never guess this is a premium room

Just go look at the box and tell me. Don’t make me ask you publicly in a non cryptic fashion

I’l admit it: I’m a geek. The prospect of getting two sodding great big bits of sharp metal to put on display at home has got me really excited. I even paid the extra £4 (peanuts when you consider how much these things cost) for next day delivery. Godsend, Hiro’s sword from the TV series Heroes should be with me tomorrow. I have a tracking number and parcelfarce inform me it’s in Norwich (ironic really since it’ll pass Colchester to get to London only to be taken back there again) and due to be delivered tomorrow. There is much rejoicing. That said, Godsend is pretty much a Katana with a fancy hilt from popular culture. It’s pretty cool and all but will spend most of its life in its scabbard.

The other sword, the one I decided to get at 2am this morning (when splashing cash on sharp bits of metal seems like a fantastic idea, unlike, say, 1:30pm the day before when we decided it would be silly and lets just stick with the one sword), the limited edition replica of the one from Ultraviolet, is not your average, run of the mill sword and it’s actually the blade that is of interest. It’s an odd shape and it had lots of symbols all over it and I really can’t wait to get a good look at it. Except I won’t be looking at it tomorrow. That order has not yet been processed (unless they’ve lumped both orders together, shipped them as one and just not updated the second one, but I suspect that’s wishful thinking) so I’m guessing I’ll have to wait until Wednesday. Except I don’t want to. Making me wait is unfair, and I hate doing it. When I decide to buy a shiny I want the shiny there and then, not 24 hours later, certainly not 48 hours later and, god forbid, not an indeterminate amount of time later. Yes, I would engage in S-Commerce to get stuff but I find most of the shinies I want to buy aren’t sold in shops near me during the small hours of the morning. I want my toys! <pout>

And yes, I am aware I’ve just ranted about not being able to have toys straight away, and yes, I am perfectly aware of how childish that is. Still going to throw all my old toys out of my pram though till I get my new ones.

So I’ve actually been to a purveyors of finest comestibles and acquired, for my delectation, the leaves and fruits of two common salad plants, two varieties of pressed curds, cold cuts from an omnivorous domesticated hoofed animal and some bread so tonight’s  repast will be both filling and wholesome. This foray to the local supermarket was less to do with my concern of my rapidly failing health (it actually seems to be doing less of the failing and more of the getting better) and more to do with the fact I needed some bog roll.

Upon purchasing said items I placed them into suitable receptacles to effect the carrying of them homewards, to whit, two plastic carrier bags. In one bag I placed the toilet roll and the bread, in the second I placed all the other items. This latter bag broke immediately and required me to double bag. The first bag survived no longer than 2 minutes (holding very little weight). I have since relocated all my purchases into a much sturdier bag. It would appear that the local retailer (one Tesco’s Metro) has either received a shipment of faulty bags or they have switched to new ‘biodegradable’ [or 'crap'] bags. Either way, it’s a pretty poor show.

It’s absolutely bloody freezing this morning. It’s getting to the stage where I am going to have to start thinking about turning the heating on… which is going to involve working out how the heating actually works.