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RollZero Electric Letter #8 - July 7, 2009


Good afternoon and welcome, if welcome is the appropriate word, which it is, to RollZero's Electric Letter - the only weekly email which can be swallowed like a liquid to get right to the heart of pain. Good for headaches, rheumatic pain, paranoid arthritis, bad eyes and broken chimneys. Not good for crabs - you need a toffee hammer for those.

We got an email from a gentleman named JP which said he liked the Electric Letter but that it shouldn't try and be like B3TA. He's got a point, he has. We weren't trying to be like B3TA (which is marvellous, and has been for ages, and which you should go and sign up to here) but the links bit kind of ended up looking like that anyway.

So we're going to do a few less links, because really we should only be sticking links in that are absolute purest gold. And we're going to fill the gap with nonsense we made up. Like Murphy Simmonds' guide to the news.

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The News
with Murphy Simmonds

Hi, I'm top newshound Murphy Simmmonds. I've seen things in my lengthy and distinguished moustache not moustache career that would make your hairs stand on end and fire off into the sky.

I've seen presidents assassinated by their own butlers. I've seen terrorists feed children to sharks. I've stood in warzones as bombs fell around me - and once directly onto me - and I have survived with almost all of my limbs intact.

Let me tell you that there is no better guide than me. You are confused, stupid, idiotic mewling filth scrambling across broken glass in a desperate bid to bring meaning to your pitiful, insignificant existence. And I am here to take you by the hand. To usher you through the informational fog, like a gnarled, hooded boatman rowing his ancient way across the lake of facts.

I am Murphy Simmonds. And this is the news.


Michael Jackson dead of drugs
Interracial pop king Michael Jackson has died after being injected with lead by his monkey. It was the best move he could have made, as everyone has started liking him again. We never stopped liking him because he always had so many sweets in his van, and we'd do literally anything for sweets.


New dinosaurs found
Bearded men have unearthed the bones of three brand new types of dinosaur in Australia, giving the country a grand total of three indiginous dinosaurs. The skeletons have been nicknamed Susan, Maureen and Fat Barry.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8131915.stm


Not as many bombs
The Kings of America and Soviet Russia have met up to decide not to have as many nuclear bombs any more. King Denzel Washington met his vodka-crazed counterpart, King Dolph Lundgren, to sign the historic agreement, which guarantees that the ultimate annihilation of the human race will use most of, rather than just some of, the countries' respective stocks of warheads.
Link


Coffee stops Alzheimer's
Got Alzheimer's? Are a mouse? Well un-get mouse Alzheimer's by drinking five cups of coffee every day, says some new science. This flies in the face of the current thinking on coffee consumption among mice - which to date has suggested it makes them get really edgy and wee everywhere - and may temper the drink's reputation as the third biggest killer of lab rodents, after shampoo and bullets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8132122.stm


Sheep getting smaller
Climate change is making some sheep in Scotland shrink, according to top researchers at the Aberdeen National Understanders of Sheep (ANUS) headquarters, located 600 metres underneath the ground. That's interesting, but even more interesting is the fact that these are wild sheep. Wild sheep? How on Earth do wild sheep survive? What next, wild cows? Wild hors... wait, scratch that one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8130907.stm


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RollZero Latest

Chad's Letters
Chad Bradley's best ever letter? It's definitely our favourite, partly because of the egg tubes recipe and partly because of the inspired reply. We love it when they get the joke.
http://www.rollzero.com/chads-letters/222-a-letter-about-eggs

Sometimes they don't get the joke, like the people of Reebok, who cruelly told Chad they could not replace his shoes after the trainers shrunk five sizes overnight.
http://www.rollzero.com/chads-letters/221-a-letter-to-reebok

GM Wint
GM Wint had some stuff to sort out, but now our former World of Warcraft employee has returned with a Q&A session. Send him some questions if you're interested in a look behind Blizzard's veil - contact details in this post:
http://www.rollzero.com/videogames/gm-wint/question

Pixelsmith
Pix's column took a holiday for no better reason than the fact he thought using the same picture to illustrate it over and over again was silly. When he repeatedly failed to make a new one, he just got used to the idea. Thus we have a new thing about Big Brother.
http://www.rollzero.com/pixs-column/227-reality-tv-relapse

Geek Adventure
Two Geek Adventure posts since the last Electric Letter, including an introduction to a Selection of Traditional Austrian Cheeses (i.e. one cheese) and the start of an 11 hour train journey with no food except reindeer meat and licorice.
http://www.rollzero.com/videogames/cheeses
http://www.rollzero.com/videogames/11-hours

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Ten Pence
A poem by Chad Bradley

Good afternoon
And welcome to Halifax Phone Banking.
Please use your telephone keypad while continuing
To access this service.

Press one if your call relates
To an existing bank account

Press two if your call does not relate
To an existing bank account.
Please wait a moment.

Please enter your six digit sort code.
Please enter your eight digit account number.
Please enter the fourth and fifth digits of your password.
Thank you. Please wait a moment.

Your account is overdrawn by
Six thousand, four hundred and fifty-seven pounds
And ninety-six pence,
And the amount available for withdrawal today,
Including your arranged overdraft, is
Minus six thousand, four hundred and fifty-seven pounds
And eighty-six pence.

For transaction and balance information,
Press One
To pay a b...

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Chad's Letters

We asked for your ideas for Chad Bradley letters so that you could win a copy of Prototype on the Xbox 360. As ever, replies were slim (you should talk to us more, otherwise it just feels like firing out an email into a big echoing cave and we end up standing at the fridge and crying as we force cake into our mouths and nostrils). More amusingly, replies came from a man who already owns Prototype and a man who lives in America and thus can't play our silly European version of Prototype.

But hey, we liked what they sent. First up, Dave emailed us an actual letter he sent to a company after melting part of his stubble shaver. This kind of thing makes us extremely happy.

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Hello,

A couple of years ago, a part broke in my toilet system (stay with me on this one, I have a point). I couldn't find the part that I needed anywhere, so I emailed the manufacturer direct and asked them where I could get a part from. In an amazing show of customer service awesomeness, they asked me for my address and sent out the part to me free of charge (this was despite the fact that I didn't actually buy the toilet... it came free with the house I bought!). I told them how great I thought they were, we exchanged pleasantries and I got my toilet fixed at no cost, which was nice.

Now you may be wondering just what the hell this has to do with you at Conair (I know I would).

Well, my better half bought me one of your Babyliss I-trim I-stubble shaver things for Christmas and during a heavy spring clean session I think I mistook it's plug with the plug from my old (inferior) shaver and threw it away. I still have the cradle that it sits on (a tri-pronged device that looks a bit like a mini space ship) but, alas, no plug to plug into it to charge the shaver. I've tried all manner of different plug adaptors (laptop charger, Sky mini-box power cable etc) but none of them fit as the power socket thing is quite deep in the space ship.

I wondered whether you would offer the same excellent level of service as the toilet manufacturer did and possibly offer to send one out to me as a gesture of goodwill? This will enable me to continue to use your product and will also save me being constantly lamented by my better half for my stupidity having wasted her money.

Thank you for reading my letter and I look forward to your comments.

Regards
David
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Thanks Dave. Sadly Dave was informed that he could buy a replacement, so he didn't get anything for free. We'd have given him a replacement if we were in charge, and we'd have gone round tohis house to hand deliver it and tidy up his unruly stubble ourselves. Only on his face though, we're not slags.

We also got these suggestions from Jonathan, who we don't think wanted the game, but who nonetheless brightened our day with a hello and some appalling Chad's letter suggestions that we may just have to put into action.

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As far as letters for Chad Bradley, maybe Chad as a teacher and a letter to the Taser Corporation asking if they could develop a Taser with a lower wattage to help with the children when they get out of line?

How about a letter to a butter company stating he works at a local "singles club" and that they love leaving trays of the stuff in the private rooms and that people find it very useful in lubricating those "hard to get to" areas? Have they ever thought of marketing their butter in this manner?
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Thanks Jonathan! The Taser one is particularly golden. We might ask Chad to send one off when he works up the courage to mock people who build weaponry.

All of which means that Prototype is still up for grabs. You can basically get it just by asking at this point. Although if one person asks and another person draws us something funny in MS Paint, we'll definitely give it to the second one.

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That's Quite Enough

At least, that's quite enough for one week. 8.44pm on a Monday night, it's been raining its face clean off and we thought we might crash on the way home, but we didn't, and anyway that's irrelevant because this is the closing paragraph of an email, not a dull conversation with our spouse, or in our case with a picture of someone who we would like to be our spouse.

Enough, we said! Leave these people in peace.

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