Things you didn't know your Mobile or PIN could do!

Perhaps you've received an email that has information like this or this claiming your mobile and PIN have secret powers.

Like, if you enter your PIN in backwards at an ATM the police will be dispatched to the ATM, so do this if a robber forces you to withdraw money. Or you can unlock your car via mobile phone.

(the links set you straight, you can't unlock your car via mobile and the ATM thing doesn't work. it would make it pretty weird for people with palindromic PINs if the one forwards was your regular PIN but the PIN backwards was a special one which alerted the police, because the police would get very confused. However it is somewhat rooted in fact because someone tried to introduce the concept and it got rejected by banks.)

There are also some other tricky things circulating by SPAM which tell you magical things your mobile can do, like have special codes to lock your mobile or find hidden reserves of battery.

ANYHOW.

ORANGE JUICE SNOBBERY is here to provide you with a service, to tell you some VERY SPECIAL powers your mobile has, especially in emergency situations.

none of this "dial #06# and find your special 15 digit authentication code for your handset stuff, who has the time for that anyway?

1. If you are ever forced by a robber to enter your PIN at an ATM and to withdraw money for them from your bank account, forget entering your PIN backwards or dialling emergency. THROW YOUR PHONE AT THEM. It works for Russell Crowe.
2. Your phone has magical powers to unlock your car door if you:
a) buy one of those natty key rings and attach it to your phone. You won't lose your keys so long as you have your phone as well then!
b) you have the NRMA number stored on your phone.
c) you have a very heavy phone and a good swing and don't mind a shattered window on the driver's side.
3. Your phone has magical powers to move crowds, and often ensure you are the first in line of any queue, so long as your taste in ringtones is as bad as mine. Try rap, or themes from TV cheesy TV shows in the 80s.
4. Your mobile phone has the magical power to begin ringing just when you have closed it up and stuffed it in a pocket in your bag behind some books and under a big woolly jumper and done up the zips. It has the capacity to stop ringing and flash "MISSED CALL" just when you have burrowed under all your stuff, thrown all of your accessories out of your bag and onto the pavement in public on a wet day and just grabbed it.

Judge the Rich

I love reading reviews of stuff I've already seen or read, especially reviews that bash it, and rather perversely, especially reviews that bash or at least criticise films or books or shows that I like.

Anyhow, today I was reading IMDB reviews for a movie I really like, 'The Remains of the Day'.

One comment stuck out to me - it said it was a great film but its "weakness" was that "it didn't judge the rich". (the review seemed to feel that negative judgment ought to have been passed)

Is that a weakness in a film - NOT judging the rich? Would it be a weakness in a film to judge or pass judgment on the poor, and especially to make a negative judgment?

I think a lot of people would say that it would be a weakness to allow such judgment at all - that is their situation could be portrayed but to make an ethical judgment based simply on their economic situation or to generalise about the group would be 'wrong'.

So why should we do any differently for the rich ... just because they are rich and they've had it good enough in other ways we don't feel we have to be fair in terms of 'judging'?

Mary Poppins Wants me to Read Sartre

Readers of this blog will be aware that recently I have been plagued with visions of Mary Poppins. Specifically, I had a dream that detailed a dark adaptation of the 'Mary Poppins' movie.

I'm convinced that Mary or P.L. Travers is using me to convey her wishes to the world that Tim Burton do a movie version of Mary Poppins. I'm sure Depp would jump at the chance to get into drag and be a dark Poppins.

And I have some great ideas for what this dark Poppins could do. Burton can contact me for ideas, though I may charge him more than "tuppence a bag".

But that wasn't the end of my Poppins dreams.

Oh no.

A week later, I had another set of Poppins dreams.

In them, Mary came to me and urged me to buy Sartre's complete works. I time travelle with Mary and visited a small village and met an old lady who turned out to be a relative of Sartre and she showed me about her house and was just going to make me a very good offer for his complete works ... when I woke up.

Hmmm.

Not sure if it's Hollywood, but there's something in it.

And maybe I'll crack open that Sartre.

What the heck just happened to February?

Hang on there.

Slow down, month, you just moved a little too quick for me, wait up for me.

What happened?

I just blinked and what happened to February? In fact, what happened to 2009? It's one-sixth gone, almost, and I only just got an appointment diary (a freebie passed on to me secondhand and partially used but that's beside the point).

I can't believe it's almost done. I haven't even become a better person or learnt how to speak a new language or tidied my socks into paired rolls or any of the things I planned to do this year, or even started on them yet.

Has anyone had that feeling about this year yet, or is it just me?

I also haven't blogged much. I get these ideas for something to blog about, and then I can't blog at work and then by the time I get home I forget them which leaves me with ... nothing to blog about except that I've got a lousy memory. Then there is dinner to eat.

None of that explains where February went.