Sony has a promotion running at the moment to coincide with the new Bond movie shortly coming out. Purchasing Sony stuff gives you entries into this competition with some pretty good prizes.

I entered yesterday and received multiple entries due to the cost of my TV, though I was not eligible for a free learning remote like I initially thought. This morning i received an email from Sony advising that I had won a prize! Cool! I like prizes.

Checking my email, I saw the prize was a ticket to see the new Bond movie.

One ticket.

I can’t think of a worse prize I could be offered, what the hell kind of prize is that? If I want to use it I either have to be a pathetic loner, or spend money to get my prize! Not only that, I have to post Sony a proof-of-purchase to claim the prize, they won’t simply send it out.

Offering one ticket as a prize is more insulting to me than no prizes. I know people shouldn’t look gift-horses in the mouth but why would I even want one ticket?

A couple of weeks back I mentioned that I had applied for my own job, and was awaiting the results. Well, for better or worse it seems that very few people applied for the position (if anything, the position’s salary is a bit low; not that it’s too low for me, but maybe for similar-level positions in some workplaces).

Today, my boss came up to me and told me I was having my interview right now and to come downstairs and meet with him and his boss. So, I was interviewed quick-smart and given the job then and there.

Huzzah.

Although I’ve been doing the job in an “acting” capacity for 18 months it’s good to have it made official. Now let my reign of terror begin!

Well the advertisement went out today for the job I’ve been doing for the past eighteen months. It should appear on Seek tomorrow, I believe.

This really irks me; although I’ve been doing the job for more than a year in an “acting” capacity, I’m not allowed to be “promoted” to the position as it has the word “manager” in the title. To be honest, what I’m doing now barely feels different to what I was doing prior, except I have to make sure a couple of other people are happy and I get to my my plans into action (though I always had a lot of say, so it’s not that much of a change).

Still, unless I want to have my pay cut (yes, technically it was “extra” money, but the net result is it would be less should I not continue in the role for whatever reason) I must jump through a number of hoops which consist of applying, waiting, hopefully being interviewed and so on. People seem convinced that I have it “in the bag”, but I don’t know all of the motives behind the advertising. They might be innocent and trying to do things “by the book”, or they might be attempting to remove me from the role, or I might just be paranoid (most likely).

The bigger difficulties occur if I don’t continue in the role; if someone else were hired what then? The role is based in Melbourne which would then make three IT people in and one in Geelong; hardly fair for the lone guy in Geelong, one would say.

I’m fairly confident, but there’s always lingering doubt of outcomes that could severely impact future goals being met.

During our weekly shopping, Justine picked up a box of Sultana Bran. Four of the Kellogg’s cereals have a Star Wars promotion to coincide with Episode 3 (actually, I think more than that do, but not this specific promotion) where one in three boxes has a deadly light saber spoon (I would have spelled it sabre, but since Kellogg’s didn’t, I don’t have to either).

We spent a minute or two shaking the boxes trying to guess which one had a spoon inside. Once we’d settled on a box, we moved on. When we arrived at home, the first thing I did was open the box, and what was inside?

Huzzah! I have won! I shall now be able to save the universe from forces of evil… or good, since it’s a red one. After a few moments of struggling with the extremly complex instructions (it is a light saber after all!), I managed to complete the construction of my saber spoon:

Not particularly bright, is it? Let’s try it out somewhere else!

Ahh, that’s better. I am now confident I will be able to thwart the evil forces of the Galactic Senate from passing any more nasty bills through the government. I have tested it out on the Minister of War and Finance and it appears, upon intial testing, that it may only thwart cereal, not evil space aliens:

Last night, when I arrived home, among the usual assortment of letters was one from Vodafone. Most non-standard sized Vodafone envelopes contain uninteresting promotional material, so I just about threw it in the bin.

Since I’m so curious, I just had to check what it was before I threw it away. Lo and behold, it was a free subscription offer to a magazine of my choice (well, a six-month subscription offer to my choice of six magazines).

Initially, it was a toss-up between MOTOR and Australian PC User. However, I soon realised that even though the magazines were free, and delivered right to my door, I still probably wouldn’t bother reading them. So, I chose Gourmet Traveller (which is mostly a food/recipe magazine) and gave it to Justine.

I’ve been with Vodafone for something like 6-7 years (including when I was with Nomad, which was a reseller that went bust) so a reward for that is, as the title says, better than nothing. How about permanently cheaper rates instead?