Transformers
June 16, 2007
Something tells me this will be better than the movie coming out this summer.
Nova handed suspension order over tuition fee practices
June 14, 2007
From Mainichi yesterday. Thanks fearless leaders. Rest assured that my confidence in you is not as low as the stock price. Thanks.
Nova handed suspension order over tuition fee practices
Nova handed suspension order over tuition fee practices
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Wednesday ordered major English-language school operator Nova Corp. to suspend part of its business operations for holding back money from students who cancelled their contracts, ministry officials said.The ministry issued an order prohibiting Nova from soliciting customers or accepting applications for contracts exceeding one year or new contracts exceeding 70 hours. The suspension will be in place for six months.
It is the first time for the ministry to issue a business suspension order to an English language school under Japan’s special transaction law. People who are currently taking lessons at the language school will not be affected by the order.
Ministry officials explained Nova operates a system in which students buy points enabling them to take lessons. When they buy a large number of points in advance, they can take lessons at a cheaper price.
However, when people cancelled their contracts before finishing their courses, the company lowered the amount of lesson fees it returned to them. In addition the company didn’t inform people about the procedures for canceling contracts.
In April this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Nova’s policy of demanding penalties when students cancelled their contracts violated a law regulating commercial practices. It said the policy restricted students’ right to initiate the cancellation of their contracts, and ruled the practice invalid.
It has also emerged that the company prevented students from canceling their contracts under Japan’s “cooling off” law which states that people can cancel contracts without any obligation if they do so within eight days of forming the contract, by listing students’ contract day as the day they took tours of classes or received explanations about lessons.
Furthermore, when inviting students to take lessons, the company advertised that they could book lessons any time they wanted, but because of the difficulty in securing teachers, it remained difficult to make bookings. Because of this, the ministry reportedly decided to issue a business improvement order to the firm.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government conducted an inspection of Nova in February in connection with the law regulating commercial practices. It found that several practices that violated the law had been ordered by the company’s general headquarters. The ministry said it judged the company’s practices to be “organized and malicious.”
Nova operates over 900 schools across Japan, and has about 480,000 students. Since 1996, the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan has received over 7,000 complaints and inquiries about the company. (Mainichi)
This is justice
June 09, 2007
Screaming Paris Hilton sent back to jail
God I really hate her.
Oh yeah!
June 08, 2007
3 boosters: 2x Planar Chaos, 1x Time Spiral
Damnation
Lotus Bloom
Soltari Priest (ok, not technically a rare, but there’s only one Timeshifted per pack yeah?)
Chronozoa
Null Profusion
Magus of the Arena
Anyway, I bought the PC hoping for a Damnation, and bam! That’s my third… just one more for a playset. The Lotus Bloom will help. Guillaume and I are going to try a Dragonstorm build just to see it work.
So far my best booster is still probably a Bogardan Hellkite and timeshifted Sacred Mesa.
(A) would make me very happy
June 07, 2007
Me: “I am now asking you to stop playing Sudoku in lessons.”
Dumbass: “How am I supposed to stop from falling asleep?”
Me: [choose your answer].
Possible answers that I wanted to say.
A. “Take your right hand, make a fist, and repeatedly hit your orcish-looking face with it until you reach skull, or through skull.”
B. “Sign your name on this sheet of paper called Resignation Form.”
C. “Step onto a highway blindfolded. Wear black clothes and do this at night if necessary.”
D. “Choose another guy to give lip to.”
Congratulations dumbass, you’ve made my list.
My num lock doesn’t work
June 01, 2007
I, have the honor of being Dumbass #2 a day after the whole thing was introduced. I fear what’s to come.
Coming home from a very atypical Friday at work followed by some Tap, I came home and turned on my computer. Trying to type something resulted in something weird… my keyboard wasn’t working. I restarted my computer. Hmm… still not working. I uninstall the keyboard, unplug it, blow on the connection to clear out any dust or gunk, and plug it back in and install it. Hmm, still not working.
Wait! Some keys are working. Weird. Roughly half of the keys worked. The numbers worked but the number pad did not. The function keys worked. Scroll lock and Caps lock worked, but not Num lock. Hmm, most of the letters worked but not all. Some careful experimenting showed that most of the lower right side of the keyboard did not work.
I thought maybe a rather clever but annoying virus had somehow made its way into my fairly new computer and wireless network. It was weird but it was working fine this morning…
… oh yeah.
Basically right before I left the house at 6:40am this morning, I knocked half a glass of water that spilled into… the lower right side of my keyboard. I had only hastily tried to shake out the water.
Time to get a new, waterproof keyboard.
