Head Rambles

Grandad September 23rd, 2007

Today is officially Grandad’s Day

They’ve called it National Grandparents Day, but I know they mean me.

It took a bit of persuading to get Bertie to call it. It involved a few Yen, Roubles and Dollars, a briefcase and Celia Larkin, but he got the €20 in the end. That bloke will do anything for money.

I’ve been told that if I go into St Stephen’s Green and run around like a tool, I’ll get a certificate signed by the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Be still, my beating heart! He can f*ck off. I have enough certificates, signed by better psychiatrists people than the Lord Mayor. I’ll send Puppychild in on the bus and she can run around for me.

The great thing about today is that the daughter has to pay homage yet again. We can screw her between birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and now Grandparent’s Day. There is no such thing as Daughter’s Day, so it’s all one way traffic. About bloody time. We suffered enough when she was growing up.

And that goes for the rest of you too. You have to pay homage to me and Herself. We will accept the usual financial donations in lieu of gifts.

Please don’t insult us with anything less than €100.

You have to do it.

It’s the law.

• The Family
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Grandad September 22nd, 2007

Do you ever wonder who reads your blog?

I know the blogs I read, of course. I have a list on my Blogroll, and a much bigger list in my reader. I’d list the latter now, but it would be too long [and would be a nightmare to type out].

Probably the vast number of these blogs don’t even know I’m reading them as I am notorious for not commenting. It’s usually just because I can’t think of anything appropriate to say. So I read them on a daily basis, yet they don’t know it.

Every now and then, I come across a new blog through following a comment or a link on another site, and there I see it - Head Rambles in the Blogroll!! It’s a very strange feeling. It’s discovering a friend you never knew you had. It’s better than any award.

I’d love to know who is reading my blog. I know the regulars, of course because you comment a lot. And if you’re a regular [that I know of], then your either in my Blogroll, or you are in my reader. I have around eighty blogs in my reader at the moment, and that is growing, to the extent that it takes me quite a while to read through them all. But yet FeedBurner tells me I have well over a hundred feeds going out, and that doesn’t count the ones who take a direct feed.

All I can say about my readers is what Google Analytics tells me. I know that Irish and Americans make up the majority and they are in equal numbers over the last month [well - a 1% difference]. The UK comes third. I seem to have a few readers in China and France, but they are outnumbered by readers in India!

So there are a lot of friends out there, and I don’t even know I have them. I feel bad about that. I feel disloyal to them, even though I don’t know who they are.

So if you read this, and you have never commented before, then welcome Stranger. If you have me on your Blogroll and I don’t know it then I am humbled.

Drop in a comment sometime and say hello.

• Internet , Rambles
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Grandad September 21st, 2007

Many years ago, a young couple met in Pennsylvania.

They were hiking along the road to DuBois.

About ten miles from the town they decided to take a side road.

After about three miles they realised that they fancied each other. A lot.

A couple of miles further on they could take it no more and abandoned themselves to a frenzy of rampant sex at the side of the road.

A couple of miles beyond that their mobiles started ringing like mad.

They had picked a spot under a webcam that had broadcast their animal passions to millions. And he had accidentally pressed the speed-dial button to his wife in the heat of the moment. And they had taken no precautions. And her jealous 25 stone husband was due out of prison in a few weeks after serving five years for assault and battery.

You don’t believe me?

Thanks Brianf

• America
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Grandad September 21st, 2007

I received a phone call yesterday.

That b*st*rd Dick passed it on to me. Revenge?

It was from a client who is complaining about his mail not working.

I hacked into his account and went in to the bit where mails are set up. It seems he has been setting up his own mails.

Now, for the uninitiated [including myself], there are two types of account here - a POP account which is where you log in and retrieve all your mails [similar to a Gmail or Hotmail account], and there is a Redirect. A redirect is where you write to that address and it is forwarded on to another account. So when you write to me at grandad at headrambles, it gets forwarded to bertie@irlgov.ie. Got that?

Now this company have set up a total of 36 POP accounts, and another 27 Forwarders. Nothing wrong with that? [apart from being a bit excessive?]

Well, there is.

Because a lot of the addresses are the same on both lists.

So if I write to A, it might end up in A’s account because he has one. Or it might be forwarded to B and C because A is a Forward account as well. Now we don’t know which it will go to, but we assume it goes to B and C.

But B has an account and it also has a forward which points back to A. So that poor old mail may end up going in circles until it dies of exhaustion.

So their mail system is a spaghetti of interconnecting mail accounts which they set up. It is no f*cking wonder they are having problems.

So who are this company?

They are a major training company here in Ireland. And what to they give courses in and degrees in?

Yup.

Computing.

Of course I deleted all their files and put a porn site there.

They don’t deserve to have a web site.

• work
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Grandad September 20th, 2007

Is it just me, or is there a strange smell hanging over this whole Madelaine McCann business?

A child goes missing.

The press get involved in a disproportionate way.

Visits to the Pope.

They’re guilty.

They’re not guilty.

They hire a Press Relations Officer.

Big sums of money.

Nearly five months on and I’m still tripping over photos of the child even up here in the wilds of the Irish mountains.

Is this the only child in the history of the world that has ever gone missing?

Or is there something that I’m missing?

• Rambles
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Grandad September 20th, 2007

The Managing Director
Munitions R Us
Harrisburgh
PA
USA

Dear Sir,

I would like to acknowledge receipt of 500 of your Ranger Mk I Anti-SUV Smart Missiles.

We have conducted preliminary tests with these and have found them to be eminently satisfactory.

They were able to distinguish SUVs even on crowded motorways.

In particular, we would like to say how impressed we are with your use of fuel-air explosive. Not only does this vaporise the missile but also the target vehicle as well, thus leaving no trace of the incident, and an intact road surface.

Our R&D Department has examined your product and is extremely impressed with the standard of manufacture.

We would suggest one or two minor improvements however.

We have discovered that if you modify Integrated Chip I377 by short-circuiting legs 34 and 39, and introduce a 5pf capacitor between leg 16 on I29A to chassis, the missile is also capable of seeking out and destroying Jedi. We thought you might like to incorporate this in future production models.

We are currently close to a modification that will seek out and destroy supporters of George W.

We would like to place a preliminary order for a further 1,000 [one thousand] of these missiles to be dispatched forthwith.

Looking forward to doing continuing business with you,

Yours faithfully,

Grandad

• Rambles
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