It's now September and the year has flown.

It really does feel as though Christmas was only a couple of months ago and now it's almost upon us again. We're into the final dregs of summer (if you can call the miserable weather in the UK summer) and then we're into the holiday season. We've got Bonfire Night, Hallowe'en, and Christmas coming up. Hurrah!

I noticed that I'd barely posted on my column this month, but I've been so busy with a bunch of projects, it's been hard to find the time to do anything.

I have discovered a few things:

1. Having a puppy is like having a baby. You have no time to yourself and trying to do anything on your own results in much puppy whining for yet more of your attention. I'm even typing this one-handed as I have tiny razor-sharp (fresh from teething) teeth biting my left hand.

2. Having a puppy is at least twice as expensive as you thought it would be.

3. Finding your social life when you have a full time job + a bunch of writing assignments and a dog would require the services of a medium.

3. Innit funny how John McCain has come from behind* to compete with Obama in the Presidential Elections?It looks like America reallllly doesn't want a black President. Or is that just the current Bush regime...?

Anyway, happy September...

*There is absolutely nothing funny about coming from behind. It's not even an innuendo.

So, the world and his mother knows exactly how I feel about Ebay right now, but of the five items I sold recently, I've had a total of FOUR chargebacks through Paypal.

If you're lucky enough to have never filed a chargeback, it's when the buyer says to Paypal: "I didn't pay for that item, can I please have my money back?"

And then you have to go through the rigmarole of proving you actually sold the item and that they legitimately paid for it (and received it).

Now, I'm sure I'm getting more than my share of the worst kind of unethical scumbags here, but it seems scarily easy for buyers to weasel out of paying for an item by filing these chargebacks.

Four of them out of the five items I sold is a bit much, really. I fully intend to stay very clear from Ebay in future (or just buy very small items). It's full of people who are out to con genuine buyers. There are a bunch of scams and ways to fool the system.

So be careful if you're using Econ. It's filled with pot holes and ways to be tripped up.

It was revealed that the Beijing Olympic Games came to a grand total of a staggering 21 billion pounds! Weighing in at a colossal 40+ billion dollars, I find this sum beyond reason. Surely, in this world of recession and great need, 21 billion pounds could be put to a far better use than the two weeks of Olympic Games. The opening ceremony was beautiful beyond words, but wasn't it all just a massive waste of money?

I know they're saying the UK 2012 Games will cost around 10 billion pounds. I might be living in an idealistic world, but I could think of a lot better ways to spend 10 billion pounds. So many people could benefit from that amount of cash.

I couldn't help but think of the irony behind the Beijing Olympic games opening ceremony being all about a clean Earth - when China is one of the main sources of the world's pollutants, having 16 of the 2008 Top 20 Polluted Cities in the list - not a great accolade in the aftermath of the Olympic Games.

OK, yes, it's about X Factor again. I've been watching the show for the past two weeks and I'm really starting to wonder why some people audition. They had over 180,000 applicants this year, and I'd imagine that out of that figure:

• 500 are great
  
• 5,000 are good
• 50,000 are average
• 50,000 are really bad
  
• 20,000 are terrible
• That leaves 54,500 applicants that are so very bad that they wallow in the realm of complete denial. We're talking nails on a blackboard or cats in a blender here...

There must be a thousand times more hapless candidates with the Z Factor than there are those with any star quality and I wonder why anyone would voluntarily put themselves through that ridicule. Surely they can't possibly think they have a chance of getting anywhere. Maybe some people are desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame.

There are two types of Z Factor applicant:

1. The hopless stars that look awful and sound worse. They know it but they're going to apply anyway. They usually look pretty shoddy, have appalling (or no) sense of style and you generally wouldn't want to meet one of them in a dark alley (outside a karaoke bar).

2. The worst ones are the really self deluded applicants that have been told by their families that they are great and deserve to go all the way to the top. It's almost abuse on the part of their family for the only place these hapless losers are going is back to their old lives, that little bit more insecure after being torn down by the judges.

The show is hugely amusing for us, but I still wonder why anyone would subject themselves to that level of scrutiny. It's beyond reason.

Mind you, it would be a fairly boring first few weeks if we only had the stars of tomorrow (and I only mean tomorrow, OK, maybe some people will remember the final tweve a week or two later) on the show...

I mean, does anyone actually remember last year's ultra bland winner?

Thought not!

Did you see the Pedigree show on BBC1 last night? It was basically an expose in to the over-breeding of pedigree dogs.

Basically, the massive amount of in-breeding has caused various breeds to suffer all kinds of genetic abnormalities, such as a predisposition to cancer, tremendous difficulties in breeding, or, more commonly, a perceived shape of dog which is vastly different to how it was only fifty years ago.

Now I find the whole breeding for looks thing alarming. It's like genetic slavery, and it's hideous to think my new pooch Zachary could be affected by one of the two main ailments affecting Cavalier King Charles: Mitral Valve Disorder, or Syringomyelia.

I guess we can do nothing now but hope. His parents were fine and are both free of the diseases, but who knows what disasters will strike in the coming years. While Zachary is gorgeous, I wonder if it would have been far kinder to have picked up a hybrid pet, which shares all the positive genetic traits of both bloodlines.

Quite why breeders couldn't just leave the dogs as they were originally intended, rather than turning them into some mutant aberrations, is beyond me. 

At this rate, we'll have no pedigree dogs in another fifty years. They'll all have been bred into extinction and the ones that are left will have a life expectancy of about five years...

OK, so I said I wouldn't talk about the X Factor this year, but we're halfway through the first episode and 26 year old Rachel from London really touched me. She didn't have the best start in life; she had her first child at 13, had trouble with drugs and prison, she was exactly what the show needs. She had a fantastic voice, a great personality, and you could see the sincerity in her eyes. This is a lady who knows how bad her past has been and clearly wants a better life for herself.

Not enough people are given second chances, and Rachael definitely deserves better. Let's hope she fares well in the Boot camp and goes forward to the final.

Watch this space to see what the sleazy tabloids say about her this week as they callously drag up her past - something she clearly wants to put behind her.

I know X Factor is completely fake, but there are some people who deserve better. I hope the show gives it to her.

I found something else to really piss me off lately. It's the fact that if you want to buy a specific website address, you can't because it's already been bought by someone else...

Who isn't using it!

It really gets my goat (remember that?)

Why are these people wasting cash buying websites they're never going to use? It's beyond belief...

Ever have one of those days when everything seems to happen at once? I've had way too many work jobs all land on my doorstep all at the same time, which is why I've not managed to update my column in over a week.

Add to the mix the fact that my PC seems to be unable to connect to the internet makes posting nearly impossible.

While all of the above may be true, the arrival of a new pooch - Zachary - into the house might have tipped the scales into the realm of chaos.

Zachary is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He's 10 weeks old and he loves to eat things (usually fingers, socks, or live electrical cables). I'll be posting some pictures as soon as I get back on my PC, but I've never had a dog before and I never realised just how fulfilling and full of love they are.

Having a dog must be like having a baby. They cost a fortune, the house is forever untidy, you can't turn your back on them for a second, and they love to keep you awake at night by climbing on your head.

But they're brilliant fun.

Like the doting parent, I'll be reporting on Zack's progress as time goes on. We've got a Puppy Party at the vets to go to in two weeks, so I'll regale you with those stories, too!

Pictures to follow.

Probably the most contentious post I'll ever make, but I've been watching a TV show about rapists in the UK and how one 37 year old man abducted a 6 year old girl from her home (in the bath), repeatedly raped her, and then left her on the street alone and naked.

She was SIX!

This kind of behaviour, quite naturally, disgusts me to the point of speechlessness. I find it alien that people could treat anyone in this way, and it makes me wonder why the penalties are so low for a crime that could destroy a young child's life.

It seems to me that the respect for human life is an an all time low, with the Sex Offender Register's numbers increasing all the time, but is Life Imprisonment really enough for a crime like this?

There are so many terrible crimes commited on a daily basis across the UK (never mind across the world) and it seems we don't have nearly enough punishments for these terrible people. In fact, we seem more willing to label them as 'sick' or 'unwell' rather than the hideous and corrupted monsters they truly are.

I can think of a punishment for a crime like this, but it wouldn't be life in prison...

Well, I'm back from Zombie Fest 2008 at the Quarries Scout Camp in Milton Keynes, and it was exhausting, but phenomenal fun.

The story was that 50 people were called to Willard Valley to celebrate their yearly fertility ritual. The residents were right out of Royston Vasey and, quite naturally, the ritual went horribly wrong, causing the dead to rise.

At first there were only a handful of zombies, but soon, they managed to claw their way through a few of us, until they were many more, and in the end, well over fifty of the blood-soeaked walking dead staggering around Willard Valley.

I did an exemplary job of surviving for three hours, until I was 'advised' to pick up a gas mask, at which point I was caught by the zombie girl scout and succumbed to the infection.

Overall, a masterfully told story with great attention to props and detail.

This adventure game should have the same kind of fun action status as paintablling yet it's condemned to reside in the same 'geeky' area as Dungeons & Dragons Live Action Role Playing.

If you're wondering what I'm talking about, check out this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ04mfAY2BU

But it was NOTHING like that. Great story, great effects, and some truly warm, funny, and generally all-encompassing people.

I had a great day, and if you're into zombies or fancy an alternative day out, then one of Terror 4 Fun's events is for you!

It's never ending. I sold my Blizzard Worldwide Invitational CD Key through Ebay to a seller for £225.

They got the key (through email), emailed me to confirm, then tonight I got a Reversal Request from Paypal saying the buyer had sent the request in error.

I've provided all the information I could and now I guess all I can do is await Paypal's decision, but after Paypal refused to help me last year, I'm not going to let this one drop. I'll prosecute the buyer myself if I have to.

But these systems seem set up to protect the buyer while the seller gets screwed royally. If you're a con merchant you get away with anything while the innocent vendor gets shafted.

I think I'll stop using Ebay after this.

Terror 4 Fun is holding its annual Zombie Con tomorrow in Milton Keynes. I'll be going down in a journalistic capacity to review the event for Bizarre Magazine. In addition to celebrating all things zombie, there'll be:

• Edible Intestines.
• A "Last Man Standing" Live Role Playing Event.
• Zombie movies
• More gore than you can shake a festering limb at.

It sounds like it will be a lot of fun (although the forecast is heavy rain all day).

Watch this space for an update, but in the meantime, check out the Terror 4 Fun website.