HMS Noodles

As you may or may not know I used to be the assistant manager of an Internet cafe in Basildon called “Fragz r Us”. Unfortunately after a year and a half of trading it was clear that we were losing money faster than we could make it and we had to close. The company was plagued with problems and there were many reasons for it’s downfall. We didn’t stick to our business plan (1/3 of our income was meant to be provided by training courses that never happened), one of the company directors moved to Spain, we went over our budget and our shop was too big and cost too much to run.

All that aside, I always thought of us as an average internet cafe. I could point out where we went wrong all day, but to the basic customer we had lots of reasonable computers, lots of games, air conditioning, penty of snacks available and we were friendly and got involved with the customers.

Last saturday a few of us decided to find an Internet cafe and have a go, try and bring back some of those memories. After plenty of searching on the Internet and driving round the back-roads of southend we managed to find two places, CyberRealm and Code Red. I’ll give the pros and cons of both.

Cyber Realm

Pros

• Erm…..it’s near a pizza hut?

Cons

• The PCs are old
• Not a member of the Valve Cyber Cafe Program
• No games newer than 2004
• Crappy Website that looks like it was made in 1995
• No Air conditioning
• Grumpy Staff

Code Red – Southend

Pros

• It’s cheap (only £4 for 3 hours)
• Friendly staff

Cons

• The PCs are old
• Not a member of the Valve Cyber Cafe Program
• No newer games
• No Air conditioning
• Closes at 7pm

I was pretty shocked at what was on offer. Southend-on-Sea is one of the largest towns in Essex and I expected better. The main thing that bothers me is that none of the Cafe’s are members of Valves Cyber Cafe Program. The Cafe program allows you access to all of Valves games for a fixed monthly fee, determined by how many computers you have. It does work out to quite a bit of money, but then again it’s the only legal way to do it, and as Counter-Strike 1.6 and Source are the biggest names in multi-player shooters, it seems like a necessity rather than an option.

The 7pm close time of Code Red is a major issue, as it alienates pretty much anyone who works during the week. At Fragz I found our busiest times were between 6pm and 10pm.

I will point out that Code Red have a center is Rayleigh that looks alot better. It has faster computers and newer games, but is still held back by a 7pm close time and not being a member of the Cyber Cafe Program. When I get round to visiting I’ll update this with some more information.

A few doors down from where is work is another internet company, MaxCleavage.com. It’s nothing ground-breakingly interesting, it’s an online Lingerie Store. During a discussion of this company at work I decided to visit the site, and found a remarkable discovery in the Nights Out Section. 

Nipples

“Get celebrity perky breasts with these new adhesive nipples. Wear the comfortable fake nipples under a clingy sweater, slinky tops or tight vests. Ideal for women who have flat or inverted nipples or who want to improve the appearance of small breasts.”

http://www.maxcleavage.com/MaxItem.asp?theme_id=49&stock_item_id=204&ordering=22&page_id=4

Yes, you can buy nipples. They come in “one size and colour fits all” and weigh in at a hefty £17.00. Next time your outside on a cold evening and you notice somone with Bruce Lee’s (hard nips), just think, “is it cold, or did they have £17.00 to spare?”