It's been an interesting few weeks with all this financial crisis & I can't begin to comprehend the fact my shares have lost the value they have!

To date, I haven't lost anything because I haven't sold anything, but that's small consolation because it might be years before they claw their way back to break even.

Aside from all of this though, is what people are doing to generate income for themselves & it's worthwhile being over cautious.

I had a call from Singapore offering me an investment opportunity of a lifetime here in Australia. Through the accent, it was something about buying into a local water resource company & I'd get rich along the way. They had gone to the effort of finding my direct line & email address at work & they knew my full name, so I played along to try & get some info about them.

A trick I use often is to give false info. If they ask to confirm my email address, I'll change a letter or two. It's easy since a couple of letters in my email address are doubled up, so it still looks authentic to them & it never makes it to my inbox.

During the call, they gave very leading questions, trying to get me to answer with a simple "Yes". I became suspicious when they told me I was happy to accept the proposal. That was a statement from them & not a question!!

They then proceeded to ask if I'd had a good weekend, was I having a good day & was I over thirty. Each time I gave an answer which never included the word "Yes". Eventually they got so frustrated they just hung up!

The scam is if you say "Yes" to anything they ask, they'll re-record the phone call & claim you agreed to a contract. Companies like Telstra & Optus do verbal contracts over the phone all the time, but they do it legitimately. Yes, you would be able to fight & win against one of these scams, but I just prefer to not be put in that position to start with.

I've also noticed short-changing is on the rise & it's been tried on me a couple of times in the last week.

All the supermarkets now display how much change you should receive on the checkout terminal, so it requires very little thought by the cashier. Basically short-changing should never occur. It's worthwhile watching each cashier as they collect the change & work out that what they are handing you is correct before they hand it to you.

In both my recent experiences, the cashier tried to both hand over the change & start the next customers transaction at the same time. They are hoping you can't be bothered checking & they collect the difference before the end of their shift.

If it's happening to me then it's more than likely happening to everyone else & someone's making a fair bit of extra cash in the process.

I've even gone to an extreme & purchased a paper shredder to avoid the identity theft epidemic. I'm down enough in the stock markets without all these other bastards giving it a go as well!

 

I'm not a huge television watcher & even less so now I'm in my new house. Ironically "House" is one I'll sit down for, then there is "Top Gear" & "Good News Week" both on a Monday night, which are also worth the effort. Other than the news, there's not too much else!



However, one night, roughly four years ago, I caught a show of which I'd missed the first ten minutes & after only a couple of viewing, realised I was hooked. "Doctor Who" began twelve years before I was born & ran until 1989. I can remember seeing the classic series as I grew up & other than knowing the Doctor could travel through time in a dodgy looking box tackling all sorts of creatures, I can't recall too much else. In 2005 it went through the process of regeneration & returned to the small screen, bigger & thankfully better.

Of course, if the Doctor is to return, then some of his enemies have to as well. Enter the Daleks. I'm not sure if there is anyone who upon hearing the words "Dalek" or "Exterminate", would not be able to conjure up the image of the single eyed, toilet plunger equipped mechanical menace in their mind.



If you take Doctor Who on anything more than face value, you'd be disappointed. The concepts, the storylines & some of the alien costumes are ridiculous & quite tragic. For the fans though, that's all part of what makes this new series brilliant. The theorys behind time travel, sonic screwdrivers & the TARDIS have been well thought through to create a solid story even if none of it is plausible. Christopher Eccleston & David Tennant as the ninth & tenth Doctors have both pulled off what must be one of the hardest acting roles around. How can you interract with an evil Christmas Santa & not giggle?!



Anyway, I'm happy to say I'm caught up in it all & Australia has just seen the finale of the series & we all have to wait over a year for another full series.

In order to console myself, I'm now the owner of my own Dalek. He's all of thirteen centimetres high & diecast with amazing accuracy. True fans will recognise this particular fellow from the first season in an episode called "Dalek".



Throughout the last four seasons, the Daleks have played a pivotal role & just when you think the last one has been killed off, they always return & we know they always will. It wouldn't be Doctor Who without them!

This particular Dalek took it's own life after discovering emotions & we finally discovered the domes around its casing could be used as a self destruction mechanism.



In the final episode of the latest season, the Daleks were again all destroyed.... presumably! Through some clever thinking & very dubious plot lines, they will return to once again try & conquer the Universe. Until then, I'll let this one protect my bookcase!