We all have our pet hates in life I guess, it’s just a fact of life that certain things rub us up the wrong way, whilst others have no issue, or indeed enjoy them. My pet hate, or at least one of them, is Sales people.

Sales people go through alot of training… these days alot of them have degree’s in Phsychology, they know how to push your buttons, they know when to do it, and they know who’s buttons to push. Sales people may very well be nice people, but their job requires them to be sneaky and underhanded at times. Unfortunately it’s not them that we have to blame for it. They have just studied human behaviour, and know how to exploit it. We as consumers are the ones to blame for letting them get the better of us, letting them control us, and what we buy.

They do this through a number of interesting techniques, so I think we should be aware of these techniques, and guard against them. Though some of these techniques may be mutually benificial, they are still a bit of control, and therefor something to at least be aware of.

Driving up the initial price. A clever technique is making the consumer think they are getting a damn fantastic price. This is achieved by initially releasing the product at a greatly inflated price, giving high spending consumers a chance to feel special, and feel like they are getting a top of the line product. Some times the product is even marketed as such. Once the sales figures start plummeting, they realise they have sold the limit to their high spending audience, and they drop the price to the next step down… Advertise it as a sale, and market it to the next price braket audience. This technique can work through a number of layers, sometimes without changing the product, other times with minor changes that don’t cost much, but allow a greater number of units to be sold. So, next time you see the latest and greatest product out there, this what it’ll be worth in 12 months time. ;)

Buy One, Get one free. You really think they are actually giving you a free one? See above… Greatly inflated prices allow products to have their value halved, and for the company to still make a profit. Thats what the whole game is about folks… Parting you from your money. Always ask yourself what the real value of the product is, and whether you really need two of them.

There are many other techniques that sales people use to trick you into parting with your money. The greatest defence against it is to be aware of it, and aware of the fact that they are trying to convince you to part with your money because they want to make a profit.

I am a very fickle person… I know this, but it’s just me… I cannot change my ways, for if I did, I would be trying to be someone else. So, being a fickle person… My main focas seems to swap and change… one minute I could be fanatically into blogging every single day, telling all my wonderful readers all about my plans to take over the world… Then, then next week, i’ll be gone for ages, off doing something totally differant. I’m fairly fanatical about everything I do, until I loose interest that is, or until the politics of it all becomes too taxing, and my interest is soured.

You have all seen my latest fanatical hobby, the SCA, a medieval re-enactment society who relive the idealistic Arthurian myth of the medieval era. Strangley enough while it has limited my blogging time, by giving me loads of other things to do, I do still have an interest in maintaining Syridian.com for my avid readers, all 4 of you. ;) So fear not… while I may post fewer posts… I shall try and make up for that with more entertaining crap from the mind of Syridian (Oh that would be me).

Latest Syridian.com news is that we have a new contributor to Sonnet-Boom. Welcome Lil’ting Violet to our creative shores. Lil’ting has already contributed a wonderful peom to the page, and has also just started her own blog, which hopefully we will encourage into a wonderous webpage which will share Lil’tings wonderful work with you all.

Syridian.com is also looking to host a website for Drakkar, the SCA group that I am a part of, which will give you readers more insite into the SCA, as well as links back to the main SCA websites, and how to get involved if you so choose. Look out for this site soon at http://drakkar.syridian.com.

Thats it for this weeks news… I may provide an insightfulful, and entertaining article in the next week… hopefully… but then again, it could just turn out to be a load of bollocks, and mindless dribble from a muttering madman.

In his light do we thrive?
In his glory do we exist?
Does his power let us survive?
His word, shall we not resist?

Is history not written by the victors?
Is his book naught but good news?
Is the world just following blindly?
Does blind faith draw them to the pews?

Is belief easier than thinking?
Will faith really show us the way?
Is questioning the book blasphemous?
Do I as a human, have a right to my say?

Investigate all lifes truths.
Question all that you have been taught.
For belief and faith are one thing.
Truths true value is only evident when sought.

Copyright ©2006 Syridian

I have a new hobby, and it’s going to be a time consuming one… I’m getting involved in something that I used to be partially involve with a very long time ago, so taking over the world with killer robots may very well take a back seat for a while.

The SCA is a fun and exciting sidetrack from the real world. A 1000 year trip back in time to medieval days… Complete with feasting, holding court, knights, battles, archery, and all the “My Lords” and “My Ladys” you could handle.

This June longweekend just gone, was my first SCA event in a very long time, and I very much enjoyed it. So… Work on the Killer robot project to take over the world has been handed over to Korea, along with proprietary brain that I developed (yes, the one with the hidden command sequence to gain total control when the robots are build and have already taken over the world). ;)

BTW, Happy Birthday to our lovely House Mother. ;) She knows who she is. ;)

Time to hone my wenching skills, and get my armour ready for Collage War 2006, coming up in a few weeks.

Every now and then we all have something go wrong, something small.. something that we all think “Ahh, bugger, we’ll I’ll fix that in a while when I have a little more time”. And then that little more time never comes right?

Well, thats how it has been with Bleep, Dots and Nonsense these last few weeks… It all started with Glitch, a glitch followed by a friend introducing me to an old hobby… A hobby which peaked and interest… An interest which sparked a desire… A desire which created a monster… and monster who ate my time… Hence, The Glitch, continued to be a glitch… As Time continued on, and a monster prevented me getting to fix the glitch.

The Glitch happens to stop me from submitting articles to Blogger from my PDA.

The Hobby happens to be medieval re-enactment through the SCA.

The Monster is me, when I have a desire, and an interest… I get focused and do SFA.

So, while articles have been written, they are having a little difficulting getting to blogger to be published… Over the next few days I intend to fix this issue, then publish the article over a day or two. So stay tuned for more madness from the mind of Syridian…

India to embark upon robotics, remote tech weapons: PM

Seems that we have new competition in the race to rule the world! Armchair world domination may not be as simple as I thought! With India, South Korea and the United States all rushing to build a Robot army to defend against my plans of world domination.

However our plan still has some merit… By building robots in billions of homes around the world, we can still pull this off. We will rise up from around the world in one united (united by the universal controller that I shall have of course) Robot army, and crush all oposition before lunch time. Then once I have taken the world by force, we can get down to the real business… Tea and Scones, and a nice little chat.