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RollZero Electric Letter #9

It's Tuesday, and that can only mean one thing: it's Tuesday [it isn't Tuesday any more - subscribers get it early]. But that logically perfect conclusion brings with it a whole tangled string of unpredictable causal events, one of which is the arrival of RollZero's Electric Letter.

That's right, RollZero's Electric Letter - the only weekly email that doesn't fancy your cousin Muriel. No, it's not because she's ugly. She's lovely, really interesting looking, covered in all that nice soft hair and with the big arm-shaped lump protruding from the back of her head. We're just not looking for a relationship at the moment.

Do we have to always go on about Muriel? Can't we talk about something different for once? Like the news? Let's talk about the news.

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The News
with Murphy Simmonds

Hi, I'm flat-headed news beast Murphy Simmonds, and I'm here to guide you through the flaming hell that is current affairs. Take my hand in yours and dance with me. Don't touch my bottom, it's quite sharp.


Nuclear Kim's Time Limit
The Grand Wizard of North Korea, Kin Jong Il, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to a news report which says he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The revelation means the wacky communist leader - who is fully insane and made entirely of cork - may only have five years left in which to destroy the world.
Jong Il has three children who could succeed him as heir. He gave birth to the creatures himself after being sexually assaulted by a dragon in 1981.
Full story


Don't Poach Rhinos
The world's manliest crime looks likely to reach a 15 year high, according to the former World Wrestling Federation.
Rhino poaching - which involves running directly at a rhino and punching it in the face until it falls over - has increased by a factor of four over the last few years, to a level of four rhinos a year.
WWF spokesman, the Ultimate Warrior, said: "I can't benchpress a rhino, but that doesn't mean they should be killed. Stop killing rhinos."
Rhino poaching gained the top spot as the world's manliest crime in November 2008, knocking lion strangling and swearing at wasps into second and third place respectively.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8142180.stm


Criminally Loud Shagging
A woman has been arrested after having illegally noisy sex in the North of England.
The 48-year-old was remanded in custody after neighbours complained they could hear groans and a bed banging against the wall. The noise amounts to a breach of her anti social behaviour order, which banned her from being loud in a sexual or non-sexual fashion anywhere in the country for four years.
There's no need to add anything to this story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/8021185.stm


Japanese Politics
Japan's highest level robot has called for an emergency vote on the country's political operating system, which has not been upgraded for more than 50 years.
Taro Aso, a ¥1bn cyborg with the processing power of 250 SEGA Dreamcasts wired together, has set a date of August 30 for the decision - dubbed "General Election" or "GenElect8.3". The date will see every Japanese citizen plug itself into the Datagrid and upload a vote.
Analysts predict the robotic race, disaffected after a century of virus attacks and weekly patching, is likely to select Linux.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090713/wl_afp/japanpoliticsvote


Stop Moaning, Claims Person Who Hasn't Had Baby
Grin and bear it, said a top babying theorist this week. He was on about childbirth, as you might expect, and more specifically he was telling people (women) who are planning to embark on childbirth that they shouldn't inject drugs into their spines to make it less bad.
Maybe he's got a point. Nurses offered me some morphine once when I cut my leg off, but I said no, this is an important bonding experience for me and my leg. Fill me with heroin and I'll reject the leg psychologically, I told them. And then I screamed.
They sewed it back on, bless them, and to this day I still have all eight of my limbs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8147179.stm


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RollZero Latest

Chad's Letters
Well quite frankly we're waiting on replies for Chad's Letters, so we're having to go a couple of weeks without them. It's a sad state of affairs, but it is forcing us to start preparing our new Sexy Chats feature. More on that soon.

GM Wint
Our friendly ex-World of Warcraft staffer gives a glimpse into how that most violating of occurrences, the stolen account, plays out from the side of Blizzard support. Don't forget to send him questions, to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://www.rollzero.com/videogames/gm-wint/252-hacked-accounts

Pixelsmith
God only knows how this managed to make it into an actual newspaper which normal people read: the story of naming a fly. Pix wrote this when drunk, as an experiment. Brings a tear to our eye, it does.
http://www.rollzero.com/pixs-column/228-steve-the-fly

Murphy Simmonds
On the surface, this is a bit of tech news about a special foot pump that can charge your mobile phone. In reality, it's gibberish. This is the kind of top quality journalism that makes RollZero what it is.
http://www.rollzero.com/the-shed/246-foot-pump-phone

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Dates
A poem by Chad Bradley

Dates are unique
Among dried fruit
In that I do not know what they are like
Before they are dried.

I know what raisins are like:
They are like grapes.
No,
They are grapes. They are definitely grapes.

After that, you're getting into all the fruits
Which have the same name
When dried.

Figs,
There's one example.

Apricots,
There's another.

You can also get dried apples
And mangoes
And really a lot of things nowadays,
Because healthy eating is very popular.

But what are dates?
Are they even dried at all?
Maybe they are naturally like that,
And the high sugar levels operate
As some kind of natural preservative.

It's confusing.

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Chad's Letters

We got some more emails this week - thank you, we love getting emails, you should definitely keep sending them - including one from an actual Customer Services Advisor, a person who has worked for ages in the kind of place where Chad sends his letters.

Let's be clear about this - this is incredible news. A glimpse behind the veil. We've told Chad and he's so happy he spontaneously ate an entire yoghurt.

We're not going to say her name to try and make sure she never gets in trouble (although she assures us it's unlikely):

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I work in customer services, have done for 12 years now, and am appauled by the lack of finesse in letters sent by disgruntled customers to the business I have worked for. Remarkably few have a decent command of the english language let along a modecom of humour, enthusiasm or wit. Its all "I demand compensation", or "For the Attention of the Chief Executive" or worse still "I am taking this matter to Watchdog" and far to little imagination. I always respond more favourably to a letter which is crafted rather than bashed out.

You may be mildly amused to hear of a letter I received while working for a market leading bed company with a pair of oddly mismatched animals as their lovable mascots. A simple letter, written as if by a child, although we suspect with parental guidance as the spelling was quite accurate, asking about the relationship between said creatures and their assorted offspring as seen in their television commercial.

They asked how it was that a hippo and a duck could unite and create such beautiful looking children, when genetically the combined DNA could be quite hideous, and did they have plans for any more children. If this was indeed from an enquiring young mind I should respond factually, but light heartedly so as not to concern the young whippersnapper. However if this was a letter from a Chad-wannabe I understood that they would be seeking a response which was not only acknowledging the art of letter writing, but providing with equal humour and wit.

I replied that the children were united into the family from previous relationships and were actually step-siblings and they the customer should not concern themselves as they had no further plans for additional children. I really enjoyed replying to the letter, although I had to run it past two levels of management to ensure corporate complicity before actually posting. And it had to be edited considerably so as not not "damage the brand". Alas many businesses are bound by the red tape and bureaucracy of brand management.

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As anybody who enjoys a good Chad letter will attest, there is no greater Cutomer Services Advisor than a Customer Services Advisor who takes the trouble to write back to Chad and his wonky-minded brethren on their own level. We applaud our mystery correspondent's heroic efforts to get a proper reply back to the youngster.

We should add that we have actually seen the offspring of a hippo and a duck, and good god it's a terrible thing. Like the bit in The Fly 2 where the man gets in the teleport chamber with a dog and they combine into a sort of inside-out sausage monster that just wants somebody to kill it.

Still gives us nightmares.

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One Last Thing

Where's that £10 you owe us? You know, the one you borrowed to go and buy some stupid luminous plastic bits to put on your bike. Don't act all innocent with us, we know you remember. Give it back or we'll tell everyone at school about the thing with the pool cue.

Yeah, you heard.

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