Please Read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia Founder... erm... Who?

He has a vision.

O HAI GAISE. I'M JIMMY WALES AND I BROUGHT A REVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUE TO THE INTERNET. Yeh, I let you guys use it for free for a while, and some nice people had the choice to donate some money to it if they thought it was worth something.
It was all well and good back in the day, when people had an ounce of compassion to see their fellow internetter slaving away, revolutionising the way that everyone used the internet, associating relevant articles by links in all one place. Genius. But now I guess we're taking it for granted, no one has the free money or time to donate and this guy's getting hungry. So that's why his face is all over the place!

www.wikipedia.org. Pick your language

I mean, I love wikipedia as much as the next person. It's cool and pretty much tells you what you want to know. And the best thing about it (get this) is that you can actually edit the information as new discoveries are made or old theories disproved. I guess we all know the whole function of wikipedia really, and it's just sad that it gets abused. But you know who gets abused more than George Bush Jnr's page did when they let security down for 30 seconds? Mr Jimmy Wales. Poor kid.

I guess he is an information anthropologist. Bringing the whole of the world's inforrmation into one place? What a fantastic idea! But how many entries does China have (if any. Actually, does it even have a wiki?) and how do you know that everything isn't completely biassed? Jimmy Wales faced all of these problems when he first realised the concept of information for everybody. Just I don't think that everybody is ready for information yet, or those who are already rather informed are concerned about mis-informing the less-informed. Or maybe the converse is precise and this tool of what seems like factual goodwill is a hate-producing propaganda machine!
So that's why teachers never really like you to reference from wikipedia.

Mr Jimmy Wales. Always Jimmy Wales because
he doesn't like people to think he's not friendly 

Mister Jimmy Wales was born on August the 7th, 1966, which means that he's 45 now and was born under the sign of Leo. There is a general belief that those born under leo are headstrong and outgoing, and Mr Jimmy Wales is no exception. Having married twice and having one daughter, times are tough too for Mr Wales in these austere times, yet he has coped well with the past couple of years of this recession by living off his life savings. I think he may still have some left, but not enough to last past the impending triple dip that we're coming up to.

He went to three top universities (yes, not one, nor two, but three) just to make sure that he could super-cram his head full of stuff. I'm not really sure how reliable this information all is seeing as I got it from Mr Wale's website myself, and he could've written anything about himself. I know you should never trust anyone on the internet, but I am going to accidentally-on-purpose put the smallest amount of faith in the guy who wrote the article. Apparently he'd been toying with the "free encyclopedia" idea since the 1990's, and finally set up "Nupedia" in 2000 because he realised that a lot more people were now on the internet.

What was going through his mind as he did this? Was it the fact that he was sick of waiting around one of the three university  libraries, trawling through pages and pages for one snippet of information? Why not put it all in one easy place? Fair enough. The amazing fact though is that it was FREE to all users. No monthly subscriptions or anything like that, so perfect for students around the world. Who wants to pay for information anyway?

Poorly puppies are crappy sleepers.

But he never thought about the profit. It's all well and good in the fatter years where people are willing to throw their money away on anything. In fact, some people would throw money at the most ridiculous things so that they can avoid throwing money at other things. All in all, nobody cares, wiki gets money. However when you're trying to plan your household budget with £12.43 to last you the rest of the week and your dog needs a trip to the animal dentist for a root canal (ridiculous, I know it sounds, but dogs howling in vast pain keeping you up all night are certainly worth the trip and expense of the animal dentist), you just don't have any pennies spare to give to Mr Jimmy Wales' internet knowledge fund.

Jimmy Wales' austerity measures.

Mr Wales 2011, posting on his blog:
"O SHIT GUYS. JUST FOUND OUT THAT WIKI BOOKS AREN'T BALANCING. WHERE HAVE ALL OF YOUR DONATIONS GONE? KEEP THEM COMING IN, WHY HAVE YOU STOPPED? Is there a problem with the service, because if so, we will do our best to rectify it. You do know that Wikipedia is supported solely by your donations? If you stop donating, it goes, which just goes to show that the human face just can't have nice things. THIS IS AN INFORMATION REVOLUTION PEOPLE. PLEASE HELP ME LEAD THE WAY WITH YOUR DONATIONS."

DON'T YOU LEARN
ME ANYTHIN DICK'ED

Erm, aren't you an internet tycoon as well? Surely you can support your information revolution a little bit more, I'm struggling to find money to eat here. Whatever happened to your (what I assume to be) pure intentions? If you were really dedicated to this project you would sell your life and soul to it, live and breathe it. I know it's based on other people posting content, but just make a sing and dance about it more, become the Apostle of Wikipedia, educating those who haven't seen the light of information. yes, even the people who are too concerned in their own domestic affairs to really give a shit about information will see the light. All 17 year old single mums who live in a housing estate, and whose only interaction with letters and numbers is when they're texting well and truly want to learn about the Weimar Republic in their own free time. And even if they do visit the site, they won't donate.

Just why have you stuck your name and your face in the wrong place on the site? Haven't you realised that you're in prime position for being subject to many internet memes and abuse? Seeing as you're the founder of Wikipedia I assume that you are aware of the consequences.

I also can't seem to work out whether I like this guy or not. Good intentions at the start, but I guess this is one money grabbing ploy made by these moguls who think themselves as demi-gods, and at some point soon could be intent on brain-washing us through this. Either that, or we could fight back...

Unlucky mate.

Dear Santa...

...Seeing as all of the shops have got out all of their Christmas stock and decorations right now, I feel that it is necessary to prematurely construct my Christmas list. I have been very good this year, you know, and I'll even try and justify every present. There.

It's still bloody November mate!

My Christmas List 2011

A week off from EVERYTHING

This week, my weekend is merely 19 HOURS LONG. Really? Only 19 hours? I need to take a break from being such a busy bee, but nothing is really letting up at the moment. So for Christmas, I would like some paid holiday (HAH Fat chance of me getting any time off due to working in retail T_T)

I don't like things touching my
eyeball.

An all-expenses paid trip to the Opticians

It's a fact. I'm going blind. I have to get the person who sits next to me at the back of class to read off what's on the board to me, it's that bad. I can see the general outline but can't quite distinguish which word it is, sadly. However, the teacher's crappy running-out board pens don't generally help with the matter. NEVERTHELESS my genetics dictate that I'm meant to be going blind around this point anyway.

An all-expenses paid trip to the Dentist's.

I'm 20 and I'm falling to pieces. I've lost 0.25 of a tooth and need a filling replacing, yet they will charge me lots of money that I don't have if I go in now. Someone pay for me please, I need to save myself from tooth decay D:

A new computer (not a laptop please)

My laptop scares me. I need a nice desktop to put my mind at ease. It's something about them that makes them comforting.

DO WANT
THERE BE DRAGONS.

Skyrim

OH MY GOSH IT LOOKS AMAZING I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT. But if I get it I'll live in the torment of not having a console to play it on, and I have no time for fun things in free time these days. So it's best that I stay without until Christmas.

A pasta dish

with MASSIVE slopey sides so your pasta doesn't spill everywhere. The other housemates took our old ones, and they were most fabulous (the dishes. And the dishes did belong to the other housemates in the first place).

A 50mm lens for my camera, as well as an external flash

Well, internal flash pisses me off on a good day, hate flat pictures. And 50mm? Because I've been told that that is the lens to get for portrait photography, and I need to get a second lens for this camera anyway.

External Harddrive

More boring stuffs. I'm so boring this year.

This is one rather suave instrument.

A well nice coffee maker. Failing that, a cafetière shall suffice.

I think I'm outgrowing instant coffee. Weird that, seeing as I did start out on Starbucks, and now I can't drink any instant coffee besides carte noire. I just want a sophisticated coffee dispensing device, seeing as I love coffee so much.

NO CHOCOLATE GOD DAMMIT

Sick to death of the sight of it at the moment. That's what you get for working in a chocolate shop.

A set of really nice kitchen knives

The set here isn't really a set. I got the big knife last year for less than £2, part of that tesco value thing, and everything seems to be on its last legs/not be able to cut anything. So yes, I'd like a really nice set please, and I won't ever let anyone else touch them.

Yes. I want to cook in a wok using just
chopsticks ok? 

A set of really nice crockery. ie new non-stick pans. AND A WOK

I need my own personal wok. I don't know why I don't have one. More non-stick pans are required as the non-stick stuff on ours is wearing off. Now I have to scrape my food out of the bottom of the pan.

Chilli plant. So pretty
and so tasty!

A chilli plant

I love chillis. I could eat them all day anyday. Plants are ok too, they help with the O2 and CO2 balance in the atmosphere etc etc. A plant that grows chillis would save me a fortune on chillis (I could even have a go at making my own chilli sauce!) and looks cool as well.

A potato bag thingy that Jamie Oliver uses to grow potatoes in his townhouse.

This is the present that my sister, who has a rabid fixation upon Jamie Oliver (I exaggerate slightly), will happily buy any of his merchandise.

A tangerine/nectarine (I don't really see the difference?)

I might as well put something on my Christmas list that I'll actually be likely to get.

An apple.

If it's not Granny Smith, I'll be severely disappointed. Again, a reasonable suggestion considering our current economic climate. 

Granny Smith or nothing. UNTIL I DIE. Other types just
aren't as crisp or sharp enough, braeburn and coxes just
don't compare.

So this year for Christmas I don't want any lasers, they would be impractical for me. As in I can't see where I would use one on a day-to-day basis. Nor a ballerina dress with wings. Oh dear. I've grown out of Christmas.

(I actually fell out of love with it last year, when working full-time in the retail sector up to Christmas. The consumerism is soul-destroying.) Merry 12th November everybody.

I don't have enough dog to be the Grinch

Dear Lord.

I am struggling to find anything that could come remotely close to match Starbucks in quality and content. Why did I write about something so amazing, when I knew really that whatever I wrote next would pale in comparison?

I R RAGE FACE

STARBUCKS

Coffeecoffeecoffee

I am a coffee-holic.
Nearly to the extent that an alcoholic is an alcoholic, I must be a coffee-holic. Could not imagine a day without it. Well, I guess that it could happen, but it would be most unpleasant for everyone else involved. I can't even face me on a morning before my first coffee, so god help anyone else who dares get in my way. Over the past year my average consumption has crept up from an average of one or two cups a day, to 4 cups being the usual and over 8 if it's a hangover day. Even more if it's a bad hangover. However, recently I have cut down on Starbucks and Caffe Nero and Costa and all those other chains of coffees, and I guess they must have two or three cups' worth of coffee in a medium/large one of their's, right?

Damn you. Overpriced urgh-ness.

It's quite sad that one of the worst things I consider about being poor is that I can't afford overpriced coffee. I mean, it is what it says on the tin, overpriced. Starbucks is my vice. I must have been keeping their stocks afloatsingle-handedly, the amount of times I used to go into that place. I'm sure that it was at least once a day, and I couldn't get to work without popping into the Starbucks on the way there. At the rate that I was spending, back in the glory days I like to call them, I'd be well on to paying that place a grand a year, if not more. Good job I stopped then?

What I loved about Starbucks, why I was willing to part with so much money on a daily basis, was the staff. Like any good salespeople, they were lovely and valued you as a regular customer, and made you feel like it was actually worth paying more than I would pay for a lunch meal deal for a cup of coffee. They even gave me a small discount for working on the same road as their shop, which made me really justify going in there on a regular basis. I think I stopped because I realised that I couldn't keep up such an expensive habit.

Red cups now did you know?
Do you care?

However, I did go in to Starbucks today. I guess it was something to do with their alluring promise of 2 for 1 hot drinks between the hours of 2 and 5, and I just couldn't resist and longer. Having had a craving at the back of my mind, niggling at me for Starbucks for the past couple of weeks or so, I can well and truly say now that that craving is satisfied. However, one little detail plagues my mind. I know that I haven't visited my local Starbucks for the past couple of months due to financial being poor-ness, but why did they have to go and change pretty much all of my members of staff there?!?! The manager had trained them well so that they were polite and friendly and very nice, so I have no complaints against them. Except it's just not the same without your favourite familiar faces.

However, all hope was not gone. I practically downed two grande cups of coffee, one a toffee nut latte and the other a praline mocha (toffee nut is better by miles, I must say,)got to work and was very productive. For two whole hours. I was still buzzing when I came out of the place. It turns out that Starbucks is a very magical place where my work gets done...

Oh God, that's the first step on the slippery slope isn't it? Soon enough I'll be carting my laptop bag into town every day, enjoying the finest bucks of Star at all expense, crippling my bank balance as well as my back, in the process.

DAMN YOU STARBUCKS D:

Attack of the Trip Advisors.

Go suck a dick.

I have watched far far far too much television this week I tell you. So much that I watched this interesting programme about "Trip Advisor", the online site that advises you where to go for a trip basically. Except instead of it all being glossed over by some PR rep, it's actually written by paying customers themselves! Wow, what a great idea! People can advise their friends on where to go and have a good time and their friends could know what to expect when they got there... sounds good!

However, it's not all good, as this TV show enlightened me. It turns out that some people are really really really sad and have nothing better to do on their mini-breaks than scrutinise somebody's B&B, write an awful review on Trip Advisor and bring down the poor B&B owner's credibility, reputation and effectively business. The fact that they seem to get a kick out of it is bloody unbelievable! The "Trip Advisors" who came on this show spent one night in a bed and breakfast that had received numerous bad reviews from the people on this website, whereas they had been perfectly fine and passed all health and safety and basic hygiene standard requirements that were... well, required.

Some of these weird, pedantic fellows who came to stay inspected toilet brushes, marked sheets on beds with a biro to double check whether they were being changed regularly, took a couple of sachets of tea and coffee from the mini bar awaiting replacement, complained about a blue light, complained about the food and generally made a terrible fuss. But of course, not to the B&B owners' faces, they had to read about it on trip advisor later. What sort of person would smile at the host, yet write something terrible about them behind their back? Wouldn't it be more constructive if they told the host there and then, and the host would do their best to amend to situation? No, apparently not. It's either too much of a kick on that website, or they're just scared. Both? Perhaps. However, most of these people seemed to have been bullied earlier on in life, so maybe this is them going full circle? Who knows, there are a helluva lot of questions to be answered judging by those question marks.

Let's take one couple. I can't remember their names, but let's call them John and Lisa. John and Lisa used to run a pub, but one day they saw a lovely building that they wanted to set up into a B&B, and it was for sale as well (the fates were certainly with them that day!). SO they ended up selling their pub and buying the dilapidated old B&B and then spent two years fixing it up whilst living in a caravan out the back.They let out their own good bedrooms to tenents so that they could make enough money to refurbish their building and live their dream of owning a little B&B in the country, and after two years of hard working and scrimping and saving, they realised their dream at last and opened their B&B. John also worked as a cook as well, and manned the kitchens throughout the day, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner, and they even specialised in seafood. Things were going well, up until these trip advisors came along some years later. Of course at times the place felt like Fawlty Towers, with the waitress being Spanish and barely speaking a word of English, but times were made harder by the fact that whenever they logged onto their computer and onto this site advertising their little business to the world, someone would have something bad to say about the stay at their B&B.

Of course, if you've poured your heart and soul into something your whole life and are then told that it's a piece of rubbish, years down the line, by a complete stranger is somewhat disheartening. But what is worse is that they were absolutely lovely people as well! John had a great sense of humour and Lisa was great at front of house etc, so what if the food wasn't top notch? This is a B&B, not the Hilton! People cook food here as opposed to highly enhanced cooking machines. I don't see why everyone expects luxury treatment, hotel-style treatment from B&Bs as well. They're letting you into their home so be grateful, stop being grumpy. What? It's not the Ritz? Well don't expect it, seeing as you haven't bloody paid for the Ritz. And don't expect someone to wash your sheets every 20 seconds, there isn't enough time to hang them out to dry even when new guests come round, no need to wash them if you're staying in the same bed for two nights, is there?

Anyway, back to our dear couple John and Lisa... In order to make amends to the person who posted a bad review about their B&B, they invited her back to have a free lunch with her husband and her auntie or friend or whichever relative that came with her originally, to discuss a consideration of withdrawal of the post. What a lovely gesture! Saying: "I'm so sorry that you had a shit time when you stayed at mine. I would've done something about it if you said something to my face, but you didn't, you bitched about it on the internet, dragging my business's reputation down and knocking my confidence. Please accept this meal where we can have a chat over the whole affair like civilised human beings and try and convince you to take that post down." Wow. I'd write bad reviews if that gave me free food like that. Actually, I couldn't... I've seen the pain they've been through.

So Mrs X the bitch, Mr Y and Ms Z all came along for luncheon, and Lisa and John speculate as to which one of their customers left the remark. Obviously, seeing as it's all done anonymously on this site, they weren't sure exactly as to which one it was, yet they had their bets on "an annoying whingey woman who is too up her own ass all the time" who would obviously be difficult to impress. Ah well, the swearing was left in the kitchen and it was all smiles as Lisa greeted the miserable trio of X,Y and Z. She even did her bloody best to clear the air throughout lunchtime and just be smiley and all nice and ... you know how good hostesses are meant to be. Then after dessert, John came out from the kitchen to convince the lot of them to change their opinion, seeing as after the free meal, they hadn't really budged. Lisa asked them again, and no change still, Mrs X with lips tightly sealed. John then tells them the whole story of how their B&B came to be, the caravan years, the saving and scrimping, and how he'd recently had a heart attack due to the extra stress levels these independent reviews put the family under. After this, Mr Y said that this wasn't really relevant, that all of these things should be based on standards, and attempted to leave. Mrs X and Z were happy to come too, leaving Lisa and John's efforts in tatters.

Really, is there no common decency in this day and age? Is it all about money and cleanliness and all that crap that doesn't really have any real standing in society? It's all these "I am my own island" types that are going into B&Bs, whereas the owners come from a time when you actually knew your next door neighbour. Go away city types, go back to the Hilton. Leave the quaint little B&Bs alone to those who will always enjoy them.